Fittening work for a competition horse ?

BYR

BYR

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I need to get Milo a bit fitter...

So we have a couple of flat fields we can use but no hills, so hill work is out, also we don’t have an arena and just school on grass.

He is schooled every other day for about 20 – 25mins and hacked on the other days with a short canter on the hack. He lives out 24/7 so he does keep moving all day. I ride 7 days a week all being well.

He competes most weekends and either does two sj classes or two dressage tests.

So what kind of fittening work would you suggest I do with him? I was thinking of increasing his schooling sessions and lengthening his canters and adding in trot work on the hack as well. But do I just keep on increasing the time ? When does it become too long? And should I constantly keep increasing the time or increase for a few weeks then drop back down for a week then increase again?

Sorry its all a bit long winded but I wanted to explain everything ;)
 
I would love someone at answer this post.....

I do pretty much the same with my mare, except 6 days a week as I have college on a Monday evening. But I could just do with her being a little fitter, I have consider doing more trot work with her as this is the aerobic excercise which should help, but would love someone elses opinion as to weather this would work alone or not???

Hope someone helps BYR!!
 
Suppose it depends what you do in your schooling sessions exactly and how long and what you do in your hacks.

What is it that makes you feel he needs to be fitter, then that might help with what other things you can do to help his fitness. :)
 
aimuth05 - I hope people help too, ive searched google, but most people are asking for advice on horses coming back to work after time off, thats not the case with us!

Kenzo - He just seems to lack the spark and energy in his 2nd test / class that he has in his first. Also id like him to be a bit fitter just for his general wellbeing and health to help him manage the competitions.

The schooling I do is all dressage related , he is working at elem/medium so it incorporates half pass, shoulder in etc. I do lots of transitions to warm up and lots of stretchy work but then he works in an outline for the rest of the lesson until the end when he does free walk to cool down.
 
20-25mins doesn tsound long-does that include warm up? Think about what you are doing, about 2mins of short fast work. So do periods of extended fast work (canter work) to build up his stamina.
 
You could increase the schooling to around an hour including warm up and cool down. Possibly work longer in trot and canter & perhaps use transitions within the pace, or patterns of work which can also be useful as they are repeated over and over and should give you an opportunity to increase fitness. How long do you hack for? Introducing some more forward work in the hacks would be beneficial but personally I am always wary of lots of trotting on the roads causing problems with the legs (We are lucky to have hills here so lots of slow work up and down is possible).

All horses are different so it's hard to say exactly what will work best for you but I do think you will know when you have got the balance right, then it will be a case of experimenting to find what workload works best for him in order to maintain his fitness. It might be worth considering his feed too, I don't know what you are feeding but if he loses "sparkle" in his 2nd test would a slow energy release feed help? or addition of oil or a supplement like NAF EnerGi?
 
Along with your schooling sessions i would do 1/2 sessions per week after warm up of pro longed canter work, I used to have to do this to fitten up our gelding for the BE season and it was literally just like laps of controlled canter around our flat field on both riens then before we finish doing more forward canter along with changing it to collected again. This is equally a fittening tool for you as my legs felt like jelly the first few times I did it, if you can ride with someone else this tends to help as you keep each other going and we even managed to chat as we cantered around!
 
I've just started this type of work with my gelding. I'm lucky in that we have a large school so I do what my Instructor calls "interval training". We canter round for 3mins then 1 min rest on one rein then again the same on the other rein. I start off doing a 20min warm up then do the canter work, then a 10min cool down, maybe 15mins. Done this once so far and my legs were like jelly after, it involves taking up the stirrups a couple of holes and staying up out of the saddle. Think I'm not as fit as my horse, can really feel my thighs today.

I will be doing this at least once a week. Other than that we may school once more during the week, the rest of the time we hack out. Its quick march everywhere in walk, we do a bit of trot in the bridle up hill only. Good advice given to me by a very good Equine Vet when I was bringing my mare back into work after her tendon injury. Up hill as this is less concussive to the foot, in the bridle so its controlled, and not for too long.
 
I would increase your schooling time, to around 1 hour. Mine is barely working up a sweat after 20 mins. I do alot of strecthing to warm up, do about 15-20mins of work. Then stretch for about 7 minutes and carry on working again for 10-15 mins then stetching and finally cooling off. We also have a rather large field that I go cantering around it takes me 20mins to walk around it. I trot around it both ways once and then canter around it in one direction. If hes really fit then I trot around it once more and canter again.
I personally would want to be giving him a day off aswell to give him abit of a rest
 
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