heart rate monitors

[Sir_Gwain]

Ok so its a bit off a long shot but does anyone use a heart rate monitor on their horse?

If so where did you get it and how do you attach it to see if they are working ay the right aerobic /anerobic rate?

 

[GreedyGuts]

Polar make a range of monitors designed specifically for horses.

 

[Petrie]

Yes, I use one on my eventer.

It's a new-ish design where the monitor is fixed inside a girth - previously, you had to contend with lots of wires and fiddly bits, and they weren't terribly accurate.

I treated myself to an all singing all dancing one with sat nav on it so it could tell me how far and how fast I was going, which is so useful as it means I don't have to faff about measuring out distances to work out speeds.

I find that more useful that the actual heart rate bit, actually, as sometimes the readings seem to be a bit all over the place, and you wonder how accurate they are.

I wouldn't live or die by it, and once you've started interval training, you develop a feel for your horse anyway. I'm not sure I would bother buying one that didn't have the speed/distance thing on it, TBH.

Mine was from a site called equinefitness.co.uk. It's easy to use once you get the hang of it, and you can do all sorts of whizzy things with it, like entering your interval programme in advance etc etc. V. exciting!