Eventing people - exercise routine?

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Acolyte

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I was interested to see quite a few SJers saying on a post recently that they didn't jump during the week but schooled 3-4 times and hacked out.

Made me wonder, what do you eventing people do? Perhaps assume that we don't have lousy weather, hard ground, injury problems, F&M etc, and you are running every 2 or 3 weeks.

Personally each week I try and jump once (xc or sj), school 3 times, hack once, one day off, and do canter work once (depending on when his competitions are & where in the season it is)
 
umm, depends on the level. lower down, probably something like:
hack monday, hack and school tuesday, hack or school, and jump wednesday, maybe with a bit of canter work thrown in if somewhere suitable, hack thursday, school friday (jump if necessary), hack saturday (unless friday's jumping wasn't 100%, in which case jump a few!), compete sunday.
higher up the levels: canter every 4th day, ish, depending on fitness and dates of competitions, fit in schooling 2 or 3 times a week, jumping once or twice a week, and lots of hacking, around that.
i don't tend to give days off as i think it's for the rider's sake, not the horses'! a day off at my place is a nice relaxing leg-stretch walk hack of 20-50 mins.
if they do have a day off for any reason, they only walk the next day. the day after a competition, they only walk.
loads of turnout. every horse, every day, for as long as possible.
sounds a bit of a mish-mash, really! will be interested to see what everyone else says!
 
Yes, will be really interested! Sorry, should have said that I was meaning for lower level eventing (cos thats all I will ever do!) - once you get to Novice and above it seems to be a completely different ball game, far too difficult for me
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Seems I might be able to get away with hacking more often during the summer/light evenings - great news
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I will now lunge once a week. My instructor taught me to do it this week (never lunged before) to tackle a specific problem.
Hack once a week for 60-90 mins.
XC school once a week for 40-60 mins, or interval/hill work.
Flat work schooling twice a week for 40-60 mins.
SJ schooling once a week for 20-30 mins.

I mix the sessions up and try to vary them as much as possible, e.g. go to Cannock Chase for the hack.
 
I do roughly the same with all of mine at the mo. Spider isnt eventing but is for sale, through lack of time though she does have 2 days off a week. Cruz who is only 4 and doing local intermediate/open hunter trials is hacked pretty much every day, with about 3 days schooling added in and 1 or 2 days jumping and 1 day off a week.

Dexter who is PN eventing and full TB so holds fitness very well rarely has a day off as he only has 4hrs a day turnout (stupid horse wont stay out any longer!!) He is schooled 3-4times a week, jumped once a week in a lesson, hacked at least 3 times incorporated with the schooling or jumping. and competed once a week.
 
Mine gets hacked for a majority of his work. Will generally do a hack with mainly trot work, and some canter if the ground is good 3/4 times a week, schooled once a week, and possibly a lesson or go clear round jumping somewhere aswell. He will occasionally be lunged in a pessoa if not competing that week, but don't really jump at home unless is grids, but then will do that at instructors. I dont like schooling him too much as he gets bored and naughty, but will be knuckling down a bit more next year, with 2/3 schooling sess a week, and 2/3 sessions of hacking/lunging. A comp replaces a hack at the mo,but next year will replace a schooling session. He is a 5yo ISH fit to do Intro/PN eventing.
 
My two are at Novice at the moment, and neither is full TB. Their hacking and schooling is fitted in around their "fast" work every 4th day. Those days I go to the woods, which take about half an hour to hack to (mostly walk, some trot, couple of long gentle hills on the way there and back), then when we're at the woods where the ground is better I can pick a variety of routes, some lasting just a couple of minutes (really good blast up a long sandy track), or up to an hour trotting and cantering. Then obviously half an hour hack home.

The rest of the time they hack and school at home, I try to do plenty in the fields when the ground is ok as that's what we have to do out at competitions! We're not allowed to jump in our school anyway, so if the ground's excellent out in the field I will take advantage of it and jump them up to 3 times a week, but this happens once in a blue moon so usually they jump about twice every 3 weeks, not including competitions.

I give them one or two days off after a competition, but other than that they don't really get days off.
 
Badger just gets hacked out 3 or 4 times a week. I school once a week (at a push) when I have an event coming up but otherwise I don't school at all.
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I never jump at home either - we don't have a school by the way or I would probably do much more schooling although I still probably wouldn't jump him at home. Don't really see the point?
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He seems to manage ok on his lack of practice but I imagine if I started to do bigger things then we would need to do a lot more practicing!
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My routine changes every single week because I only have a paddock to exercise in! So what I do is dictated by ground conditions. Most days in the summer its either too hard or muddy to do much more than trot! Luckily my main horse is a slim built type who is turned out 24/7 and is always thundering about so he manages to keep himself fit.

I dont hack either. I never SJ at home. The only time I do is if I had a problem or obviously in the training of a young horse etc. Otherwise I find a regular SJ lesson works wonders and also because they compete every weekend - its nice to leave them during the week to keep them willing. I try to school for about 45 mins (or lunge) if possible but as I said, some days (if its pissing rain like tonight) I dont get to ride at all. I evented on Saturday and have another event next weekend but havent ridden my horse for 4 days. Far from ideal, but I do what I can manage!
 
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I try to school for about 45 mins (or lunge) if possible

How often do you lunge and for how long. Just interested as I now have use of a school but don't want to overdo the lunging.
 
I have a full-time job and no access to a school - my horses don't work every day.

I make sure everything is exercised in one form or another at least 5 times a week.

Merry and Lexi are both TB and seem to maintain fitness really easily. Molly's owner does all the hacking with her.

I hardly ever jump at home - only when I have a specific reason to do so (young horse, problem to resolve). I use poles more often than I jump.

Ratio of schooling to hacking depends on the ground - we only have a field to school in - I don't like using it when it is very hard or very soft. At the moment we are hardly schooling at all.

Having a terrible season this year though - I must be getting something wrong somewhere!!
 
Mine's competing at pre-novice and she gets worked 6 days with 1 day off.
At the moment I'm doing mostly hacking up and down the hills while we have the stubble fields in trot and canter with lots of transitions so she's actually schooling without realising. I'm doing that about every other day at the moment, on the days in between I do some flat schooling in the arena, lunge or jump - all about once per week. I try and have a jumping lesson each week though hasn't been working out like that recently! She competes about 2-3 times a month.
Most days she gets around 45 mins to an hour, she is full TB so easy to keep fit, and still fairly young and weak so I feel this is plenty at the moment.
 
I don't have access to school and work full time, so horses fit around that.
Summer is easy-plenty of superb hacking plus I live on the edge of parkland with up to novice BE xc course. I school 2 times a week out there, sometimes including a few fences. Try and have 1 lesson at my instructor's yard once a week-flatwork/gridwork or whatever I feel needs working on.
TB very easy to keep fit especially with all the hill work I do - I keep the temp pretty even-trot and canter, walk a mile home that sort of thing. Very lucky as ground is consistently good where I am - in the winter downland dry and in the summer ground doesn't get too hard.
Winter is hard as I aim to do abit of hunting, indoor sj and dressage, but last winter was a wash out as having nowhere to exercise when its dark means keeping Paris fit is tricky. This winter I am actually paying someone to exercise/muck out 3 days a week. I can manage 1 night a week ride in the pitch black, one day off then as per normal over the weekend.
 
I currently event at PN and I ride my warmblood x tb type boy 6 times a week involving schooling 3 times a week- a mixture of lunging & ridden work, then hack 3 times- mixture of trot work in the hilly areas and faster work on the gallop mile (very lucky with the hacking available).
I also do interval training (2 mins fast canter/gallop, 30 secs walk, 2 mins gallop, 30 sec walk, 1 min gallop), we do this 5, 10, 15 days back from an event as he's not the fizzy type so I can get away with keeping him really fit!
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