Fit enough/fed enough... still blowing?!

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EquestrianFairy

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Can someone give me an idea of whether I need to change my horses routine or feed as I am confused as to why he is struggling in my jump lessons.

MON- day off

TUES- slow hack AM (ie, road work/up hill trotting and walk)
TUES- Pessoa 20mins PM.

WED- fast hack (ie. beach, canter/gallops up sand dunes) OR sometimes a blast up local gallops OR some good canter work up forestry etc

THURS- Slow hack AM
Jump lesson PM usually around 1m-1.05 for 30 mins.

FRI- Pessoa PM

SAT- either a SJ comp OR a flatwork lesson OR a day off.

SUN- as above- if no comps on then either a hack or a day off if he's been worked Saturday.

Feed:

AM-
1 Stubbs scoop Alpha oil chaff
1 Stubbs scoop of spillers instant release energy mix
1/2 of spillers balancer
(Joint supp/extra splash of oil, turmeric)

PM-
1 Stubbs scoop Alpha oil chaff
1 Stubbs scoop of spillers instant release energy mix

He copes perfectly well on this except in our jump lesson, where he blows so badly out of breath that my istructor often cuts the lesson short..

Is there something I'm missing or doing wrong?
 
Interval training? Flatwork is missing. Essential to build muscle and stamina for working in a frame at a high intensity. Pole work to engage abdominals.

It doesn't sound like your routine does much is the way of improving fitness/stamina. He's being ridden 4 times a day, 2 of which are walk trot hacks where you aren't asking much.

Can't help on food as I don't use spillers.
 
He is in light work if your doing competitions he should be competition fit he is not, he needs good hacking when your doing it lots of trot work at a good pace. Think like your getting a hunter ready for the season. Also make sure he is cool enough, clip if need be. How long are your hacks for?
 
It sounds as if the only serious "work" is in the jump lessons, I would forget a pessoa session and give him a good flatwork session with plenty of proper work where he is using his core, the jumping will make him use himself in a different way to hacking or lunging and is causing him to blow as he is not fit enough to jump without more aerobic work at other times.
 
Ok...

He is clipped so is cool enough.

Our slow hacks are around an hour, it's usually around 50-70% of trotting and the rest of a good forward walk (no idling, I ask him to walk out strong and forwards).

He can often jog the entire time, he has plenty of energy.

Fast hacks around two hours- lots of cantering and gallops.. both slow and fast include lots of hills.

In competitions he has no issue with stamina or blowing.. he recovers quickly with lots of energy it's just our 30 min lessons he struggles with- it's not even an energy thing, it's his blowing issue.

We have one flatwork lesson a week and our slow hacks I use to school him because he gets bored in a school, which is why I only Pessoa him in our one.. not sure if that's good or bad?
 
Drop the Pessoa, and ride him. Up your slow hacks to good 'proper' work and look to include interval work at least three times a week.

You also need to decide if he's struggling or not, as you seem to contradict yourself.
 
amymay said:
Drop the Pessoa, and ride him. Up your slow hacks to good 'proper' work and look to include interval work at least three times a week.

You also need to decide if he's struggling or not, as you seem to contradict yourself.
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He only struggles In my jump lessons, that's the only issue I seem to have and it's not that he is lacking in energy, it's simply that he blows far more than he does in anything else we do.

I'm at a loss how he can cope with zero issue on all other aspects Including galloping on the beach but 20 mins of a jump lesson and he's blowing like he's done a race.

I'll certainly look into the Interval work and drop the Pessoa- I'm doing something wrong I know it.
 
Does he make any noise when he breathes at canter? I can't see from what you've written why he should be having issues with a jump lesson.
 
Honestly on the work you describe in the second post you shouldn't be struggling for fitness for a 30 minute jump session.

How does he cope with a full on flatwork session?

One thing that springs to mind is does he have some sort of airway issue when working in a more connected/closed frame?
 
Doesn't seem to have an issue on the flat as much BUT my flat is shared and we seem to have more breaks where as the jump lessons are quite intense with minimal breaks.

ETA:

Not much, sent to do some circles, walk, Trot, canter on both reins and then warm up fences and off we go. Lessons are only 30 mins. I have to cool him down myself afterwards as there is no cool down in the lesson time
 
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EquestrianFairy said:
Nope.

No noise at all, he just appears like he has done a race.. puffing and blowing very fast.. not even breaking a sweat either.
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How very odd. Are you on your own in the lesson? I find jump lessons better as a group, otherwise the horse can be jumping non stop for too long. Any chance this is the problem?
 
Only one person in my jump lesson, her horse is a very whizzy, high energy, never ever out of breath type.

It makes me wonder if it's actually the comparison between the two that makes mine appear to be worse than he is? Perhaps if I was in a lesson with something not so energetic or athletic it may show that mine is reacting normally to such an intense lesson.
 
Thanks both,

Lessons are stopped this week for Christmas so next week I will arrive earlier and use the outdoor school to warm him up separately and slowly, see if that helps.
 
I have one similar and i figured out is was that i wasn't doing enough jump interval work. So he improved when i would do interval work including jumping - so maybe around the field with jumps dotted around the edges. From your training plan it looks like all your fast work is done on the flat and his jump fitness is low.

Personally I'm not a massive fan of instant release feed, id he was mine it'd switch him to a slower release feed and use beetpulp instead of chaff.

Apart from that would he find the jumping lesson more psychologically stress and the blowing is a stress release thing? Or is the surface deeper and hes struggling more?
 
I think there's probably a few things going on.
Firstly as others have said, his workload is fairly light.
Secondly, you've got him fit for hacking, not necessarily fit for *jumping*. I do think that generic fitness doesn't necessarily set the non-blood type up for more intense school/jumping work. He'll get through on his comp days because adrenalin is probably helping him along, plus there are likely more breaks?

My sec D has to be fit for her schooling (almost ready for Medium BD so working pretty hard). Loads of hacking is good for her, but she has to do long hard schooling sessions several times a week to be properly fit for school work. If I take her to a show she will easily have to do an hour's reasonable work (with a break in between tests), so she has to be well capable of that at home.

So like others I'd ditch the pessoa work, it's not mimicking the work he needs to do in his jump lessons well enough. Keep your hacking so that he gets some work on varied terrain but instead of lunging I would suggest replacing it with flat/polework. Maybe youcould invest in some of those 101 exercises books to give you some ideas of how to keep the work varied. I don't think horses get bored in the school so much, more that we fail to keep them attentive ;)
 
Really good point for MP there about making sure school/arena work is interesting and varied, so they don't get bored. Paddi22, what does jumping interval training involve? I'm about to focus more on our sj and general fitness programme, so v interested!
 
i found a super trainer who does lessons that involve low pole work (so techically he jumps but its not putting jump milage on him). Its exercises with poles on a circle or serpentine, or for example, four jumps making an 'x' in the centre and then jump figure of 8's choosing different jumps. Anything that makes the horse have to think about the turns of strides and is long enough to push their fitness a bit. You just stop after each exercise and see how their breathing is, and work up their fitness from that.

My lad is clever and he genuinely enjoys working out what's being asked of him and it has improved his jumping fitness without me having to drill him over courses or normal style jumps repeatedly. What you want is sustained jumping at a low level, and something that doesn't feel like a course. It works best when they understand its a problem that have to work out, and its simple, focusing on one or two things.

You could also switch out a pessoa session for a loose schooling session over grids, just for something different.

We have access to forestry near us, and local people set up little branch jumps along edges were they could. I pick an area and string a few together and do drills on those, checking how his breathing is.
 
A friend of mine had a heavy type with the same issue. The horse would just lose steam near the end of a course or a lesson. She started riding him out with her partner's endurance horses (built up slowly over about 6 months to be able to canter a solid 5-7 miles) and that did the trick. But he gets at least an hour a day working, and loads of interval training.

I don't think your horse's current workload is enough...
 
Endurance stuff is brilliant, to get them hard fit and would be a huge benefit. but as she's only asking for a 30 min jumping that level of work should be ok for that. It's just there isn't enough jump work in the training programme for that horse, some horses just need their jumping fitness upped. The only other time she is jumping is at a show, which is a 2 min round and a few jumps in a warm up with a break between them probably. Thats different to a 30 min full on jumping lesson with no breaks. The other thing i'd check is whether the jump instructor is asking too much in the lesson and not giving adequate breaks, or is the surface deep and horse struggling jumping in it.
 
paddi22 said:
Endurance stuff is brilliant, to get them hard fit and would be a huge benefit. but as she's only asking for a 30 min jumping that level of work should be ok for that. It's just there isn't enough jump work in the training programme for that horse, some horses just need their jumping fitness upped. The only other time she is jumping is at a show, which is a 2 min round and a few jumps in a warm up with a break between them probably. Thats different to a 30 min full on jumping lesson with no breaks. The other thing i'd check is whether the jump instructor is asking too much in the lesson and not giving adequate breaks, or is the surface deep and horse struggling jumping in it.
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Hill work is another way to work those same muscles in jumping, as well as raised poles to trot/canter over- get the benefits without jumping their legs off. Most of our horses only jumped once or twice a week once they passed "green baby" status anyway. But again, that was with a mixed bag of different types of workouts.
 
Nothing much to add but if you are literally cantering and jumping for 30 minutes without a break then that is really quite intense work?
 
How quickly does he recover when you stop? Blowing in itself is not necessarily a problem - not recovering from it quickly is.

Others have given you good advice on his general work but I think I'd be telling your instructor you need to take more frequent / longer breaks during your lessons too. If you're cutting a 1/2 hour lesson short that suggests you're doing 20 minutes of very intense work. Breaking into little chunks of a few minutes work and a few minutes of walk will probably be more productive in the lesson and you should gradually be able to increase the work and reduce the walk so improve his fitness too.
 
is the horse sweaty ? maybe not as fit as you think (core) - worth checking for a heart murmur - as sometimes there could be an underlying virus that has not come to the surface.... this happened to my friends horse... turned out the mare had a virus, with no visible signs... except got out of breath jumping.
 
Think it is worth bearing in mind different types of fitness. I have a fit dressage horse who hacks for hours, gallops on the beach no problem. I decided to do a bit of jumping as a break for him and he was puffed.

I can jog 5k but I struggle in interval training with squat jumps (try jogging or running a 100m and compare it to 30s of squat jumps!) - jumping is a whole different ball game of strength and stamina.
 
My horse can hack for 3 hours with a lot at trot & a few good canters and still have energy but take him in the school for a flat work session and he'll be puffing by the time we have finished warming up. Pop up a jump & suddenly he gets a 2nd wind and is fresh as a daisy. Maybe yours doesn't just like jumping.
 
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