If a horse is Ridden..... (fitness question)

[3Beasties]

If a horse is ridden on average 4 days a week, and is worked twice a day on approximately 3 of those days, would it be as fit as a horse that is ridden once a day, 7 days a week?

Work consist of Schooling, jumping, hacking and fast work so lots of variety!

 

[joeanne]

Nope.
So now you will just have to ride more!

 

[Dizzydancer]

I would say it would be pretty close! They would probably have greater stamina due to hvaing to work hard twice a day. But they may be slightly less fit in general as they have 3 days off to rest, unless you mix it around by riding then day off etc rather than a block of 3 days off.

 

[much-jittering]

Ditto Dizzy Dancer - probably not that far off! Depends obviously on what the 7 day a week horse does, if it's on 2 hour hacks with 30 mins fast hill work and ready to go round a 4 star, probably not But if it's in similar work to the other I should imagine they'll be pretty similar fitness wise.

 

[ponypatter]

I'm fairly sure that Dave Marlin did some research on this and established that horses only needed to be worked 3x a week - (although more intensively than if they were ridden daily) and I'm pretty sure he was looking at 3DE levels of fitness. Was a while ago though so my brain may have muddled this!

 

[3Beasties]

Thank you all, it doesn't really matter either way as he doesn't need to be super fit for anything, was just pondering really.

It isn't ideal but it's the easiest thing to do at the moment and the beastie doesn't seem to be suffering any ill effects from it!

Unfortunately the 3 days off do tend to be all together as it is usually over the weekend.