Getting fit!

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HayleyUK

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Following on from a visit from Dengie (highly recommended!) & their weighbridge I've realised I've probably allowed pony to become a little bit unfit.

She manages a 45/50 min dressage lesson in mainly trot with bursts of canter but with the hotter weather her lack of fitness is starting to show.

Can anyone share with me any plans to get her fitter - I've got some ideas of my own, but would love new ideas!

Trying to include a bit more hacking- but she gets a bit excited on the way home and start to jog a bit so ends up getting home puffing! Also have access to an arena at home so can do exercises in there!

We did a 3mile hack last night - mix of road work and the trans pennine trial in 31mins at an average speed of 5mph according to my running app (not sure how accurate that is?) - if that means anything?

Thanks
 
HayleyUK said:
We did a 3mile hack last night - mix of road work and the trans pennine trial in 31mins at an average speed of 5mph according to my running app (not sure how accurate that is?) - if that means anything?
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It does. It means you need to kick on a bit. That is average human walking speed. 3 miles is nothing for a horse. :D
 
3 miles isn't much, that would be my normal before/after work quickie (so to speak!!)

Try to do at least 1 hack a week that covers at least 8 miles, with trot/canter whereever the ground permits. Even better if you go further.
 
As ihatework says, your hacks need to be a bit longer. My shortest hacking route is 4 miles and that is the 'just round the block' hack to stretch legs. Most of my hacks are a minimum of 6 miles, preferably more, with plenty of long and steep hills.

I always try to incorporate either a good strong canter up a hill, or a steady and slow trot up one of the longer hills into each of my hacks. It keeps him fit enough for eventing and hunting without doing any specific fitness work such as interval training.
 
Lots of hacking- if the grounds okay then lots of trotting up and down hills. I need to change things up alot because maisy switch it up alot. Schooling and then a hack, or schooling in the field- then she can have a good gallop!
youll know what works for yous!
 
Ahh, I know its a bit short - but its really only one of two routes (The other goes past a shooting club) It involves quite a bit of road work, and I'm always really conscious of trotting too quickly on the roads so mainly stick to walk. I'm not in a great area for off road hacking.

That route is literally our quick hack out & I'm not entirely sure the app (map my run) is accurate as we did a fairly quick canter along a field and apparently our max speed was 7mph??

There is one other route that I know that I'll give a try next week and report back.

Maybe I should trot a bit more on the road/bit quicker on the off road parts?

Is there much I can do in the school - interval training maybe?
 
Moody-Mare said:
Lots of hacking- if the grounds okay then lots of trotting up and down hills. I need to change things up alot because maisy switch it up alot. Schooling and then a hack, or schooling in the field- then she can have a good gallop!
youll know what works for yous!
Click to expand...

I've not got access to a field to ride in on the yard - literally just the arena or the roads/trans pennine trail which is blocked after about 1/2 a mile in each direction for horses with locked gates.
 
Do more canter work in the school, a few bursts of canter is nothing really, mine usually do almost as much canter as trot work with periods where it is fairly intense it does not hurt them to blow a bit in their work, just give recovery time after.
 
When I was at yard that had almost no off-road hacking I used to do interval training sessions in the arena, so walk for x number of minutes, trot for x distance, canter for x distance, walk for x minutes and so on.

Also adding some lungeing in will help them get fitter if you are running out of time/space out hacking.
 
if you can't get the locked gates opened (is it a bridleway too? i guess not) i'd do that ride twice. the odd sharp sprint of canter will help fitness too. you can do interval training in the school of course, tbh, normal flatwork ends up being interval training usually. warm up, do timed trots with short-ish walk periods in between, then canter sessions.
also obv watch her diet, it's amazing how little they need when it's really warm...
 
Thanks guys! Can't quote on phone so will try to reply here :(

Weight is in hand - already looking trimmer but was scored as a perfect 3 to a 3.5 condition wise so only have 20iish kilos to drop before we hit top of ideal weight range.

Hadn't thought about doing the route twice - may try that and see how long in miles the longer route is. Also going to look for other routes.

Tried a little interval training on the lunge tonight and got her blowing a little & warm but not sweating. We did a decent 20m circle and did 3x 2 min trot with 30sec walk in between on each rein with 3 lots of 1x canter circle 1x trot circle. She seemed to be a tiny bit tired by the end so will build up from there & do some laps ridden I think as well as lunge work.

I wouldn't know where to start with getting the gates unlocked K.. I should look the route up on a maP and see if it is a bridle path

Thanks fOr all your replies
 
Try working out the distance using

www.mapmyrun.com

You can use the satellite option for off road bits. Should give an accurate distance & then you can time how long it takes.

I found it interesting to use
 
Get the app Endomondo has a setting for riding and give you your average speed etc and laptime and calories burnt! You need GPS for it but its free :D (I have it on android not sure about iphone etc)
Q
 
I used the map my run app but it wasn't very accurate I don't think - it says our faster speed was 7mph but her canter is quicker than that I'm sure!

Will try the other one suggested on the same route and compare I think :)
 
I've never used the app - I just map my local routes to find out how long they are then work out av speed when I've timed it
 
Quadro said:
Get the app Endomondo has a setting for riding and give you your average speed etc and laptime and calories burnt! You need GPS for it but its free :D (I have it on android not sure about iphone etc)
Q
Click to expand...
I use Endomondo! It's a really good app.
 
PaddyMonty said:
It does. It means you need to kick on a bit. That is average human walking speed. 3 miles is nothing for a horse. :D
Click to expand...

I went out for a 5.5 mile hack today (if I've worked it out right on google maps!), and that took me 1hr15. That works out at averaging about 4.4 mph, even slower than OP! That was mostly walking on the roads (out and forward), trotting a little on tracks where we could, and a couple of short canters. :o

I find hacking quite boring, so am very guilty of not going further than about 5 miles without company. In my defence, the hacking round here isn't great with limited places for cantering and I avoid trotting on roads :D
 
Do you have a local farm ride where you can trot on at a good clip and do the odd burst of canter? We are lucky enough to have a few near us and I find boxing up once or twice a week well worth it if you are trying to get your horse fit.
 
There's a lot you can do in the school as well to help with fitness if hacking is restricted.

Interval training as others have mentioned
Raised poles, both trot distrance and canter
Poles set out like 4 points of a clock, they can be raised or flat to be done in trot or canter
Fan of poles (middle would be normal stride length, inside would be short, outside long)
Not sure if you are into jumping but you could try two 50cm fences on a 5 stride distance and come down in 4, 5, 6 strides to work on lengthening and shortening the stride

Good luck!
 
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