Getting a horse Hunting fit?

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LuckyRed

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I have a mare I hunted with last season until she had colic in January which necessitated a colic operation. Obviously, she's had a lot of time off in the field recovering from the op and has recently come back into walk work (she's had about 4 weeks walk work so far and it coming along brilliantly)

what I was after was some advice on getting her up to hunting fitnesses in time for the new season

At my yard we have good undulating off-road hacking with plenty of places for canter and trot work and some nice hills. We also have a 1/3rd of a mile circular canter track (all weather), a half mile uphill gallops (grass or bark chippings), a horsewalker, and an indoor and outdoor school (the yard staff will put her on the walker for me but otherwise it's down to me to do the fittening work)

does anyone have a suggestion of firstly whether I can get her up to a level of fitness to take her on the early season training meets (I go with our local bloodhound pack so it's not 'cubbing') in September and if it is possbile, can anyone suggest a good programme (bearing in mind that I have a full time job and a partner so can't dedicate masses of time).

Cheers
 
i'd say it is doable - esp if she can live out (i find that a great help!)
how long walk work is she doing a day just now?
def have her on walker once a day too

ETA_ you dno't ahve to stay out the whole time the first day after all ;) i did that to build up my mare with draghunting so fast from day 1 unlike cubbing which you can use to build up fitness - first day out with drag hunt i only did about an hour and half - and built it up playing it by ear with ground conditions etc
 
I brought a horse back to hunting after a colic op too. I dont think its too early as long as your vet is happy. I would progress to walking the flat and trotting up hills this month and introduce short canters in August building to longer canters on the track end of Aug/beginning Sept. If she is fit enough for a brisk 2 hour hack then she will be ok for cubbing.
When the full season starts, monitor her closely, you may benefit from feeding electrolytes daily as well as sloppy sugar beet to prevent dehydration. I would only go out for a couple of hours rather than full days up until Christmas and if all is ok then carry on as normal.

Good Luck :)
 
Hi there!
Glad your mare has made a full recovery :)
Well im also going to be thinking of this any time now i have a 5 yr old who im looking to hunt this season to. Im lucky to live by a hunt yard who have said i can hack/work with them to make sure im preparing my mare correctly..But they dont start till the end of August i thought that was quite late !! My mare goes on regular fun rides and copes with 10 miles easily. Perhaps you could help ..I was thinking of taking her cubbing ..Isnt this easier on the horse?? I always thought that cubbing was a good way to introduce a horse to hunting. As you can tell i havent done an awfull lot just the odd days drag hunting a few yrs ago.My local hunt is The Albrighton. I would have thought weekend hacking lots of walking on the rd to strenghthen tendons, schooling twice during the week and perhaps a canter twice a week would be fine :) If you dont have time to ride a lunge session would help as well. Thats basically what ill be doing untill August. Im thinking my mare will let me know if she is getting tired and in which case a couple of half days to start.
 
cubbing is great for fitness and introducing a horse to hunting - but drag hunt and bloodhounds don't do an equivenent as far as i know (well the drag hunt round here dont!) so horse needs to be a little fitter as its 'normal' hunting straight away (i do both - drag hunt just happens to be closer and cheaper and on a sunday - whereas foxhounds on sat when i'm usually working my gun dogs ;))

if she can do a 10mile fun ride no bother i'd say she is prob fine fitness wise for start of season :) they build the stamina and fitness more as they go out - you never really get a horse fully hunjting fit until it is fully hunting i'd say (if that makes sense?!)
 
That makes perfect sense thanks :) I though for a second that cubbing was not what i thought ! Well sounds like fun ..Its not long now :)
 
I think Bloodhound training Meets are probably half way between cubbing, which from what I can gather involves a lot of hanging around, and draghunting which is fast and long lines from the beginning. the first couple of Training Meets will be short lines, with quite a few breaks and the whole Meet would probably only an hour to 90 mins for the first couple building up to 3 hours (in the Season proper our typical Meet starts at 1200, moves off at 1230 and is finished by about 1530 so we're never talking a 'full day' of hunting. Also, being a planned route (and a sympathetic Field Master) there is always a way round if you don't want to jump so I can bring the jumping element in quite gradually too.
 
ive always been told lots of hacking with loads of trotting some jumping and if possible go for cnters through some fields
 
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