How many times a week do you gallop your horse??

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NeedNewHorse

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Hi,

In the title really, I was just wondering as on another thread I mentioned maybe the horse should go for a gallop and let of some steam and so just wondered how many times a week (or even a month!) do you gallop. Whether out at specific gallops or just hacking?



x
 
I used to have a short gallop about once a week/fortnight on my loan mare, and I tried to have lots of canters every day. She was very highly strung and needed the work to calm down a bit. We don't have lots of really long stretches so it was a bit start and stop a lot.

But a loan gelding I had at uni last year, I made sure he had a good blast once a week as I had better hacking. And I don't have specific places to gallop...just out on a hack :)
 
I sometimes have a canter down the bridlepaths on our hacks, but only a steady canter, i dont really gallop them. Probably once a week.
 
i do fast canter/slow gallop work about once a week...
i'll also often do a blast then bring her back to steady then a blast again etc for control exersises - and to practice a show ring gallop/come back to canter...
not often do i let her fly absolutly flat out though - usually just after a crappy day at work lol!
 
very rarely- maybe canter out hacking once a week?

certainly don't gallop but i have a flatbred tb who i have never allowed to know she has a top speed with a rider on board- she is plenty quick enough without galloping!
 
I used to just gallop my mare when she felt like she needed it and if she was fit enough. I used to keep her in Newmarket so i used to ride on the heath (the training grounds for the racehorses) but racehorses gallop twice a week usually wednesday and saturdays obviously they are needing to be very fit though. The more you gallop then the fitter they get then it will no longer work for letting off steam!!!
 
he does fast canter work at least once a week, pref twice.

I only gallop him if the ground is ok for me to do so, I am a bit more precious after he pulled his shoulder down the beach trying to catch someone up last year (and forgot that welsh shoulders were designed to go up and down not out!)

tbf his gallop isnt very fast ;) we have never got the anglo out of a steady canter yet when they are together :D
 
I only gallop Zoomy occasionally. She LOVES galloping but to be honest it makes her joggy and nuts afterwards so it's not always a good plan. However, sometimes I just think, *******s to it and we have a real blast.

You can tell by her name that she can really motor :D
 
ester said:
tbf his gallop isnt very fast ;) we have never got the anglo out of a steady canter yet when they are together :D
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She didn't seem that steady when I rode her that time!!!

G doesn't get to gallop too much as the only decent place for galloping is on a long hack which we don't always have time to do.
 
i would be amazed if anyone could claim to gallop at least once a week unless they had access to an all weather surface! I get a fast canter at least once a week/fortnight depending on the ground. To be honest I only had my first proper canter last week after the ground going from frozen solid to soaking wet in one swift move.

I find it a bit crazy to go for a really fast canter/gallop on slippy/deep mud or hard (sunbaked or frozen) ground. It's really not good for the horse's joint. With my old pony a gallop was something you only did in the summer on the pasture when it wasn't too hard underfoot. With my current horse a gallop is something I do when I feel like staring death in the face :) if you let her get into top gear she's there until she decides to stop...which after many years endurance training can be a good mile or 2 down the track :s
 
I try and take Anissed for a fast canter once or twice a week. We have use of the local point to point course so it is really good for doing long steady canters to build up fitness. I don't often blast around there as she tends to be quite spooky at all the fences. Every now and again I take her into one of the fields and let her go. It is my favourite feeling in the world and I'm always beaming when I pull up. I'm luck enough though to have a cob with extremely good brakes so I never have to worry about stopping!
 
Even though we farm 600 acres having somewhere to even canter, let alone gallop is my problem. It is either arable land or rough pasture,with the possibility of rabbit holes or badger diggings and uneven tracks with ruts. I can just about sneak into the silage fields until the grass gets too long, then after it is cut the cattle are put back on, and they are not ideal anyway as undulating. Anywhere I want to canter I first have to inspect for rabbit holes. There are no bridlepaths with anywhere suitable for more than a very quick canter. I was just thinking recently that I might join the local cross country course as I would then have a place to have a canter.
 
I'm very lucky that near me is a racehorse trainer that has a very good grass gallop about 30 mins hack away. I certainly don't gallop down it every time but the last couple of times I've gone there I've let Axel go and gallop right to the top.
It's amazing that the first time he couldn't make it to the top, but the second time he went to the end and I had to pull him up to stop lol!!

The trouble then is that he is now a bit wound up every time we go there, so i've stopped galloping him for now as he is supposed to be a dressage horse!!
 
It depends on the season. I am managing a good gallop probably once every two or three weeks at the moment (we are lucky in that we have some amazing, well drined bridleways near us.)

However in the summer when hacking probably more like once or twice a week.

We are even more lucky to have a lot of friendly farmers near us that are happy for us to ride in their fields after the harvest...makes it very easy to gallop! It has been known for us during the precious few weeks when the fields are unplowed to have a really good blast every other day.
 
All good to hear, thanks- We are quite lucky where we are, unless in the heat of the summer where it's just too hard we can pretty much always get fast work in and we do everytime we hack out.

x
 
Depends on the ground round here it gets really slippy as most of it is clay. I also cant gallop when we take pony out so norm have to do it on our own. If no pony normally have a decent canter as we have some many places to do so. Gallop as and when hes up for it, I go out everyone gallops off and he trots, and some days im fighting him back lol
 
I haven't cantered Belle on a hack yet - still getting the hang of walk and trot! There are a few places we could have a good canter and maybe one or two spots for a gallop in the right conditions (would be a bit tricky to time it right). She has enormous paces so I think I would feel like I was flying!
 
For me this post should of been titled 'have you ever galloped your horse' :D and for me the answer would be no! I do now canter when I hack out (I used to be too scared too), but we don't have anywhere we could really gallop.
 
I try to get all of mine to the gallops at least once a week if I can (we box there and back), but sometimes they aren't available during our 'ridden day' so it just doesn't happen. If we don't get there then we have to make do with a quick canter up the bridle path if our own fields aren't dry enough. Horses love it, wish I could give it to them more often. i don't find it makes them whizzy, just lets of steam and helps them breath and stretch.
 
Er, well, we don't gallop Tobago, but he 'gallops himself' pretty much every day. You turn him out and he spends most of his time trying to break the land-speed record.

One visitor to the yard, having watched him galloping about for half an hour, commented "how nice to have a self-exercising horse - a bit like a self-cleaning oven, I suppose!"

But I think she was just desperately trying to find something nice to say about my daft speed-junkie Arab!
 
My field is now next to the gallops that I used to hack an hour to so Im a bit spoilt. I dont gallop on it anymore as I used it as a quick trot round in the winter evening (no road work as literally other side of farm) so dnt want them galloping off. I have soo many better places to go for a gallop I never knew what I was missing until I moved. Also lucky that so many farmers round here dont mine when the crops cut to have a gallop over the stubble :D Have yet to beat the feeling of my old horse Woody finding his 5th gear oh my god he could go :D
 
My horse gets canter work twice a week
Fast canter/slow gallop work in field, normally does 3-4 sets of 5 minutes.


An event counts as one session - for example, my horse isnt competing this weekend so he did canter work/slow gallop on wednesday and will do again on tomorrow or sunday, but next week he is competing on the saturday so will get galloped on the tuesday of next week.

he is hacked as well though, that is usually our warm up :)
 
When he's fit enough (unlikely now with his age) I gallop on pretty much every ride, when the ground is ok. I'm surprised by the amount of people saying they rarely do it. I only ever hack out round the fields, and invariably once I get to one end he's off like a shot whether I want to or not. That's quite bad actually :o
 
At every given opportunity!
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We're very lucky where we live, we have the mountains behind us. We know the safe areas that we can gallop on and we can really let them go. We go up there at least once a week. Nothing better to blow the cobwebs away. It's good for the soul methinks! :D
 
htobago said:
Er, well, we don't gallop Tobago, but he 'gallops himself' pretty much every day. You turn him out and he spends most of his time trying to break the land-speed record.

One visitor to the yard, having watched him galloping about for half an hour, commented "how nice to have a self-exercising horse - a bit like a self-cleaning oven, I suppose!"

But I think she was just desperately trying to find something nice to say about my daft speed-junkie Arab!
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After letting Axel go up the gallops the other day I said I'd put him in training as an arab racehorse! Love to let him do a piece of work alongside a TB racehorse one day!
 
My problem is that no one else who i hack out with wants a propper gallop. Just a nice canter, maybe a bit of a fast canter but no more. Plus we have gallops, which take about an hour (of road work) to hack to, but i don't know if i would trust them because so many idiots use them to walk their bloomin dogs on!!! Would hate to round a corner and come face to face with a dog/ it's owners.

Didn't even make it to the end of the gallops last time because the person i was with wasn't in control. Has been FAR too long!

ETS: there are fields but they are mostly near roads, full of mole hills or i just feel bad riding on them because i don't know who they belong to (even if unfenced).
 
There isnt really anywhere I can go for a good gallop. I used to manage canters and maybe a short gallop but now Tia knows the hacking routes cuz we dont have many, it isnt really safe to let her go! Am hoping to head out on longer hacks with my new hacking partner this spring/summer so we may be able to find some hills to let the handbrake off on. At least then Tia will be too tired to gallop all the way home on the flat.
 
We box up to gallops once a week. they are fabulous - 3/4 mile up a steep hill. they usually go up three or four times... Ground permitting, we have access to a really good sloppy field where they do canter work, up and down banks once a week as well - nothing at full speed gallop though!!
 
Always have some decent canters every ride to keep our fitness up, but galloping depends on how he his behaving, what company if any we are with as he can be a nob head, and surrounding area, ie dogs cyclists walkers ect, so sometimes gallop couple of times a week or maybe not at all for weeks on end.
 
I do fast canter / gallop work with my horses during the eventing season and on the run up to it. In the last three weeks before my first event I go to the beach every week and then through the year if I do not have an event at the weekend I go to the beach instead. I use my stopwatch so I can monitor how long we are doing the fast work for and this has helped me gauge how fit they are.
 
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