Fitness for Intro....

Thats a good point!
Snoop is a fairly strong horse, and yes hes compact (5'9 rugs
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). He has the most enormous stride and although bearly 16h has a bigger stride than 17h winston
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He finds holding a canter difficult, thats when his weakness' really shows up, hes absolutely fine if im stood up out of the plate in a xc position he is fine and bowls along quite happily! but if im trying to keep a collected canter he struggles (but then he is only rising 5).
Hes like sitting on a space hopper which makes it hard to sit too even worse when it hollows
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I make her canter sound really bad!

[/ QUOTE ] PMSL least shes not called a space hopper
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G is quite "average" 16.2ish and 6'3 rugs
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His canter is his weakest pace though cos he has long back legs which he hasnt quite grown into, so is still on te forehand, he's much prefer to trot everywhere!!!
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See thats what snoop was like about 2 months ago, all this cantering has certainly helped tip him up off his forehand.
PMSL poor snoop hes going to be dinky compaired to Godders - are you coming sunday? or going to give it a miss now due to weather
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Reading everyones replies i think mine is 'too fit' this year!! She does 6/7 days a week, hacked 3/4 times for 1hr- 1 1/2 hrs, and either 2 schooling sessions and 1 jumping or 1 schooling, 1 jumping and 1 lunge. Shes competed about every week -10 days, and this takes the place of a hack. She normally gets the day after a competition off. x

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Mind do exactly the same as this!! With the interval and I am only happy to go to an event with this preparation!! Then if it goes wrong I cant blame my preparation!!!
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Me too, I get a bit obsessed with fitness!! x
 
I don't do any "fitness" work for one days of any level, think it's bad for their brains. And hills are much more useful for getting horses fit IMO than interval training in minutes in a field or track on the flat. Saying that, I had to do exactly that when I lived in Belgium when I was getting F fit for his first 3-days (in the days when speed and endurance was that). And I firmly believe that's what caused him leg problems in later life. William didn't do anything other than the active hacks I favour (mostly trot and canter everywhere, up and down hills), before his events as a 5 yo, and he won't be doing more than that this year either.

ETS: When I was getting Deco fit for Punchestown (inc r&T and sc) she cantered up a steep, short hill on a 1.5 hr hack 3 times every four days and was plenty fit enough - she wouldn't pull up at the end of the xc where she was 20 seconds inside the time with a stop! And was fine the next day.
 
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