So exercising twice a day!?!?

Toffee44

Well-Known Member
Joined
17 November 2009
Messages
6,157
Location
West Sussex almost Hants
Visit site
Never exercised a horse twice a day before.

What's the correctness of approaching this?

Samba is a very good doer and finally I have control of her grazing, she has a small patch of paddock but still grass down. Never had lami but its possible.

Thinking about 20-30min lunge /flat work in the morning and then at least a 1hr hack in the evening. On days I can.
Would this work? Or is it too much?

She happily hacks 2hrs plus in all paces including some jumping
 
When I was kid we used to tack up first thing go out for 4 hours, go home then go out for another 4 hours in the late afternoon :o. What you are proposing seems like a walk in the park :p
 
Last edited:
Go for it!! As the poster above says - easy peasy!! TBH I don't think that the majority of leisure horses get anywhere near enough work to keep them trim and fit (mine included) So if you can excercise twice a day I see that as a massive positive - after all most dogs are walked twice a day!:D
 
when i worked in a riding stables some of the horses were ridden for up to 5hrs a day on busy weekend days. Obv this was work which was spaced out and the levels of lessons taken into consideration. Build it up bit by bit, you'll be fine :)
 
I regularly work Fergs twice a day - lunge / school / jump / other in the morning, hack in the evening / some other variation on the theme. Anything from half an hour lunging/long reining to an hour's jumping/schooling in the morning and up to several hours hack in the evening. What you're suggesting is nothing :)
 
When I was younger I used to ride twice a day, would school in the morning and jump in the afternoon, or hack in the morning jump in afternoon, school in morning hack in the afternoon...you get the idea :D About an hour each time. Pony got much fitter than she's ever been actually and relished the work, when she saw me with saddle her face used to light up :rolleyes:
 
Oh to have that much spare time lol

At the moment there are approximately 16 hrs of daylight, even working 10 hr days someone would have 6 hrs outside of work to ride :) They would just have to be REALLY keen to get up early enough to ride at 4.30 :p :)
 
At the moment there are approximately 16 hrs of daylight, even working 10 hr days someone would have 6 hrs outside of work to ride :) They would just have to be REALLY keen to get up early enough to ride at 4.30 :p :)

Oh yeah.

Obviously sleeping, eating, housework, kids, stable chores etc can all be crammed into the remaining 4 hours, after a 2 hour hack or 2 hour- long schooling sessions.:p
 
In the summer I ride in the morning and lunge at night and in winter he's lunged every morning before turnout and then ridden in the school at night.

I must admit that with everything else I have to fit in on a daily basis I do feel a bit rushed at times but going to the yard for 6am I find I have yard to myself so I get finished quicker without having to stay for a brew and a chat!
 
I used to do it with my last horse as he was such a fatty. He went on the walker in the mornings then was worked again in the evenings (spring/summer/autumn). Evening work would be lungeing, schooling, jumping, hacking, whatever. On a nice evening I would easily hack for a couple of hours, in addition to his time on the walker that morning. He was also on very restricted grazing, had barely any hard feed (enough to take a supplement), and lived off soaked hay.
 
When we had a tb that we used to p2p he was ridden twice a day. OH did fast gallop work in the morning and I did the longer fattening work in the afternoon. Don't think we would have got him fit enough otherwise. He was a lazy monkey! Would like to work my current boy a bit more but not sure his joints are up to it!!
 
I work an eight hour day, travel an hour to work and an hour home so that's ten hours. I need to be at work for 0800 which means leaving the house no later than 0650 (I do M40, M25 and M4) it takes me twenty minutes to get to yard ..... I also have an OH that gets frustrated with me getting in at 1930/2000 each evening knowing he pretty much has to cook each evening because of my hobby. I then need to do a bit of cleaning/ tidying up to keep the moaning to a minimum and 'pull my weight around the house'

I could potentially get up at silly o'clock to ride in the morning but that would mean showering at work so would need to get to work about 0730 so ideally leaving the yard at the latest 0630. Turning up smelling of horses in my job is not an option (as my boss firmly told me through the winter when I had my morning routine down to twenty minutes including muck out, turn out, water, feed, hay!!)

Im lucky my YO turns out for me in the morning otherwise being at such an amazing yard wouldn't be possible.

Hats off to anyone who finds the time to ride morning and evening and I am jealous but for me there would need to be more than 24 hours in a day! :rolleyes:
 
I try to do my lami twice a day, schooling in the morning(when he isn't struggling with it being too deep) and hacking at evening or other way round.
 
Top