How do you know if your horse if fit enough?

[Hovis_and_SidsMum]

My husband and I took two girls from the yard blood hounding yesterday. It was really interesting as neither of us have had anything to do with hunting in the past and it was lovely to see everyone in all their hunting regalia.
However I was really surprised at the standard of riding and the fitness of some of the horses.
I'd always thought people who go hunting must be amazing riders with super fit horses - hence why i'll never be able to go as i'm a cr*p rider and a wuss.
Now i know blood hounding maybe faster than normal hunting but they were going at quite a clip. By the time we saw them for the first time 6 horses had pulled out and were being walked back and by the end of the day 1/2 of the field had dropped out. A big pack of people were bimbling along miles behind the rest trotting along, nowhere near the action.
All pulled out because their horses weren't fit enough, some weren't cliiped and were so hot and bothered it wasn't nice to see.
Hubby fancies having a go with Omar but how do you a) go about prepping a horse for that kind of thing and b) how do you know when they're fit enough?
Obviously a large number of people yesterday thought their horse was fit enough to cope and they were wrong?

 

[Bossanova]

But the thing with the way they run the lines is that you can do as much as your horse's fitness allows and there's no pressure to have to keep up if you dont want to/feel you arent able to as the routes are set and straightforward to follow.
I'd taike a youngster and just do the first run then hack home, for example. Or I'd take my eventer pre-season whjen she was half fit and do 1 or 2.

A fox hunter needs to be very fit because you never know how far away from home you may end up. A bloodhounder needs to be fit enough to cope with a few minutes fast work but it's not an all day stamina test.

 

[SDH]

You should be able to 'test' your horses fitness by seeing how quickly they get their breath back after some hard work. So trot/canter round the school get him/her puffing a bit and then time how long before breathing resumes to normal.

Do the same in 4 weeks and see if there is any improvement

 

[Hovis_and_SidsMum]

Yeah I suppose I didn't look at it like that (you can tell I haven't a clue when it comes to hunting).
I guess I was just really surprised to see people who obviously came all the time taking horses who were struggling.

 

[ajn1610]

Remember it is also relatively early in the season they may have been out for the first time and just over done it through excitement. Sometimes they have knackered themselves out before you even reach the first fence.
I am usually at the front on the field - find it tends to be safer! Mine can do a full day with working about 4 times a week a mixture of schooling, jumping, lunging and hacking.
As to being a good rider there are loads of people who only hunt and although they are effective and can jump a six footer without a second thought are not polished trained type riders so they might not be very tidy.