Fitness for Eventing - help/advice please!

[Jul]

My horse holds fitness well as a rule. She had established fitness and was eventing fit but then had to have time off, so from beginning of May has been on either limited or no work. It has been on and off but in the last 2 months in total she's had 5 weeks off, 3 weeks on ie:

One week limited work,
Three weeks off completely,
Two weeks limited work,
Two weeks off completely,
Now back to work - obviously keeping it fairly limited for first week or two.
(By limited work I mean schooling and walk/trot hacking only, so no cantering out hacking or jumping)

My question is how long do you think I need to allow before first event (will be going back to Intro for first one at least)? Six weeks? Or is that over-cautious?
Sorry - never had this situation before, I'm used to bringing them back from complete rest from injury etc! Thanks for your help

 

[casconway191]

Sounds like exactly my situation last month.
As long as she hasnt lost a great deal of muscle tone then her fitness should be pretty easy to get back to a suitable level for intro.
I would say if ure only walking and trotting but want to make a good head start on fitness you should do a lot of hill work. Just walking up and down steep or even long hills will help wonders. If you can do that then when you start canterwork it will just be a case of blowing away the cobwebs.
If it were me i would allow 4-6 weeks dependent on condition.
I managed to get mine fit from box rest in 6-8 weeks and he had completly lost condition behind the saddle.
best of luck
xkx

 

[Peacelily]

Yeah pretty much like bally_horses,

most recommendations is that you can get a horse fit from nothing for a mediocre event in 6-8 weeks, with allowing 8 weeks if its not really been that fit before and 6 if its a bit older and used to work.
So 6 weeks is probably over cautious but if there's the risk of having more than a couple of days off here and there it would be good to have a contingency.

Yours hasn't been completely off for a couple of months or anything so i'd be inclined to crack on, just listen and feel how your horse is going - if its going well don't be afraid to push him so that he is overloaded (as in physiologically - not physically!) and will get fitter and not just remain the same...

good luck

 

[teddyt]

I wouldnt say 6 weeks is over cautious. The more careful you are the less chance of injury. I personally would take 12 weeks from no work to ODE. Competing an unfit horse risks injury and is dangerous. 6 weeks would be the minimum.

 

[Jul]

Thanks- bally that's a good point re hills, luckily we've got lots of them so I always include them in my fitness work. She's turned out in a hilly field too so that helps.

teddyt - it won't be from completely no work, horses hold their fitness easily for a week or two so I don't think 12 weeks would be necessary in this case, although I agree I do tend to err on the side of caution.

 

[teddyt]

Sorry, wasnt very clear. I realised your horse wasnt coming from no work. My point was meant to be that some people will do a ode after 8 weeks when i would take 12. Without using a heart rate monitor you are purely guessing how fit your horse is and what work you are doing. Even top level riders underestimate the demands of competition (research has shown this).