Fittening & feeding the endurance horse?

[jenz87]

Hi im sitting my stage 4 exam and looking to research peoples fittening and feeding plans for endurance horses? Specifically approx 80km levels.
What do you do with your horses in a week when you are preparing them for a new level? bearing in mind most people have mon - fri jobs?
Also what are your feeds to sustain them over a long ride, and do you feed them much during a long distance ride?
Thank you!

 

[spookypony]

How long is a piece of string?

Rule of thumb is "ride in a week what you plan to do in a day", though that rule does go out the window after a certain point. I aim to ride at minimum 4x week, with 2x dressage schooling, 2x hacks (varied between slow and hilly, or aiming for consistent speed), and will try to fit up to another 2 rides in, depending on work and weather. As my current horse is hopefully stepping up to 80k soon, I plan to do more in the way of interval training and faster work, but that means towing to another venue. She did 3x 60k in July-September this year, so was doing a bit less between the rides during that time.

Feeds: the regular feed when the horse is in full training is obviously bigger than when just being a lawnmower, but still very dependent on the individual horse. My current horse has Cushing's and EMS, and tends to become very round if she looks at grass sideways, so she gets very little extra feed normally (she's on a track system with free-choice haylage during the season). During the season, I feed a bit of Alfa-Beet as a base for a mineral/vit supplement, a bit of Coolstance Copra, and an extra source of fat such as linseed or oil, and a very small amount of the endurance mix that I use during the competition itself. For competition, the usual breakfast, and then a sizeable feed offered at each vet gate, with a bigger proportion of the endurance mix than usual (I have to be careful with sugars with her). She also gets offered sugarbeet tea with or without electrolytes, water, haylage, fruit, and grass. She gets lots of choice, and will choose what she needs.

At crew points, I initially overdid it this season with offering food: my pony was sensible about it, but my mare will just stop and eat whatever she is offered, for as long as she is offered. So we lost a lot of time, and had to reduce crew-point offerings to sugarbeet tea or water, with maybe some fruit.

You'll get as many opinions about feeding as the number of endurance riders you ask...

 

[jenz87]

Thank you! That is really helpful.
When you hack how many hours / km do you do in a session?
Is the saying "ride in a week what you plan to do in a day" a popular endurance saying? Ive never heard of it, but sounds sensible.
I assume if you are doing 50km you do fit in longer rides as obviously it shouldnt be a big shock before going into it.

Thank you !

 

[spookypony]

Thank you! That is really helpful.
When you hack how many hours / km do you do in a session?
Is the saying "ride in a week what you plan to do in a day" a popular endurance saying? Ive never heard of it, but sounds sensible.
I assume if you are doing 50km you do fit in longer rides as obviously it shouldnt be a big shock before going into it.

Thank you !

No prob!

For the hack length, that's again a bit like how long is a piece of string...depends how much time I have! From my yard, I can do loops between about 5k and about 20k, but the going is hilly and often very hard, so I tend towards slower, shorter hacks at home: I'm conscious of not wanting to do any damage through pounding along granite when not strictly necessary. If I box somewhere, then I'd want to do at least about 15 to make it worthwhile. I'm a big fan of meeting a friend and taking a lunch! A lot of our riding in this area is hard forestry tracks, so I've started hiring farm rides for some faster, softer going; I hope to pick that up again soon.

I don't know if it's a popular saying per se, but I've heard it from a number of very experienced riders. I don't know its origin, either.

Well, this summer, I did sort of jump in the deep end competition-wise, having ridden only 1 Pleasure Ride (ca. 20k) since our last 50k in 2018. We went straight in with a tough, hilly 60k (she did super! And there were reasons to do this.)...we didn't train over that distance in one day, but for example had done a short riding holiday a few weeks earlier, that covered distances up to 30k for several days in a row. It was still a bit of a bonkers thing to do, because while May was well fit enough, she was still relatively inexperienced at the mental challenges of Endurance. Normally, I'd build up with shorter competitive rides near the beginning of the season, but Covid made everything very weird! Next year, I'm planning on a slightly more gentle start!