Some advice for building fitness/stamina in a cob

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emfen1305

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My cob has lost a bit of oomph recently and just looking for some advice on how I can help him. I can pin it on 2 things - 1) he needs clipping which I am doing at the weekend 2) we moved yards with actual grass and he's holding more weight than I would like. He's out overnight (7-7) and in during the day as I am trying to avoid muzzling him, he has a haynet when he comes in but he never eats more than half but I don't actually in kg what he is eating so I am planning on reducing the total amount he gets to around 2kg and putting it in a trickle net so I can monitor it a bit better. He has a vit min supplement with a handful of topchop zero. Rather than change anything drastic about his eating, I would rather try and combat this with more of the right work

He currently schools 2 days a week for half an hour which I know is not enough! He is quick off my leg and maintains a nice rhythm but he tires quickly and then I find him hard work. Even when tired he will still respond quickly but becomes less active and rideable. I try and hack 3 days, mostly roadwork which means mostly walking probably no more than an hour at most, I have been getting braver and have been round our grass track for some canters and trots but no more than 30 seconds each time. We have zero hills round here so sadly hill work not an option. He is also lunged once a week over raised poles and has one day off.

Where should I increase the workload? Longer schooling sessions or longer hacks? Or faster hacks? My aim to get him a bit trimmer and then try and move up to only prelim at dressage which isn't going to happen until he gets his sparkle back. He is up to date with everything and has regular physio checks so I am confident not a pain issue.

Any advice greatly received :)
 
Sounds like less grass and more work.
Longer hacks, faster hacks when ground permits.
Get plenty of cantering into your schooling.
If you have grass canter tracks then use them!! 30 secs is nothing. Aim to build up to 3 x 3 mins at least once a week.
Nothing to stop you doing your hour walk hack AND a school/canter
 
An easy way to increase the work is to school as normal then hack for 30 mins or so depending on where you can go, don't let the hack be a slop along try and keep a bit of the schooling mentality and you should find he will be more able to cope with longer than a 30 min school.
I also think coming back from a hack and doing a bit of canter work is useful, they are already warm so no need to spend time walking and trotting just get in and canter a few circuits on each rein, it should not make too much difference to how long it all takes but should have an impact on his fitness and possibly by mixing it up should give him a bit more incentive and energy.
Riding over raised poles is useful if you have no hills so maybe try and fit them into one schooling session.
 
Try and actually time your canter work on the grass track, or learn how many circuits / how far round it takes for say 3 mins cantering. I have a friend with an ID who isn't fit enough and a bit fat, and she has a playlist for her phone and puts earphones in and does one song canter, one song walk, repeat 3 times. She chose 4 minute songs, hers is maybe already a bit fitter than yours.
If you do that 3 times a week (you can do it following a walk / trot hack) you should start to see the difference. Songs are useful as if you use the same ones you can see when he started to tire, and hopefully that will get further and further through the song as the weeks go on (if that make sense!)
You can also school first for say 20 minutes and then instead of stopping, go for a hack to increase the stamina. Schooling a tired horse is frustrating and not always that useful as you won't get quality work.
 
So hes off the grass for 12 hours a day and is exercised 6 days a week. That sounds like a very sensible plan to maintain fitness and condition.
What is the menage like ? Is it too deep, dusty or badly maintained, is it smaller than he is used to ? Does he mooch along when hacking or does he walk actively forwards? It's easier to get a better quality walk when hacking out in company than alone sometimes. It's not necessarily the amount of time spent working, but the quality of work done. It could be that the new move has made him feel a bit lethargic. Is it possible to do some work with another horse and rider, or have someone to give you an informal lesson to give you both some focus and direction ?
 
Thanks for the reponses!

I agree, cantering for longer is better but I am bound to my confidence out hacking haha I am looking to build this and I am getting better. I am much more confident with trotting so could at least just do more of that in the mean time. I expect we would make it round the entire grass track in less than 4 mins in a forward canter so might need to try and find somewhere else as well! But the idea of schooling and then hacking and vice versa is a good one, at least I can canter in the school after a good hack.

@dogatemysalad actually the new menage has a much better surface than what we had before and I noticed that for the first 20 minutes at least he is much better than he was in the old arena. Hacking he is more forward by himself actually but we do hack with others and usually try and trot behind the faster ones to encourage him to shift.

I am going to pick lessons back up in September as have an expensive August - I toyed with the idea of spending my money to hire a gallops once a week but I don't have my own transport and I am not sure he is even fit enough at the mo to make it worth it!
 
Vet book I read said the way to increase fitness is to increase the heartrate - so everything already said above to do. If you trot, the horse will be fit to trot. You do need to spend more time in canter which can be on a hack or schooling although endless circling is hard work for the horse. Short bursts of faster work would help too, but short and very gradually increase.

I used to have an egg timer on a rope round my neck when I was getting my horse fit. Even a couple of minutes can seem a very, very long time.
 
emfen1305 said:
He currently schools 2 days a week for half an hour which I know is not enough! He is quick off my leg and maintains a nice rhythm but he tires quickly and then I find him hard work. Even when tired he will still respond quickly but becomes less active and rideable.
Click to expand...
all good suggestions above. Just on this bit - i tend to do 45 mins in the school at a time, and structure it to a 5-10 min focussed warm up, then the work that requires a fresh horse (the hardest stuff I'm working on) then the stuff they know but that just needs practice, followed by easier things that benefit from a bit of repetition but don't require the horse to be on its a-game.

This allows me to stretch out sessions so we are working for long enough, but at a less intense level by the end. Those extra bits at the end do help with the fitness. As you go on, you can try adding some of the harder bits back in at the end just as an experiment to see whether the horse is capable of picking up at the end of a session and delivering, even if it's not as good as it was earlier.

As an example, I appreciate this is the wrong level but I do a warm up to get the muscles working, then currently working on the best trot she can do, some rein backs because I need her to be super buzzy to do those well, and half steps. That's the top of her range, the stuff she finds hardest. Then we move on to either developing the canter collection, or some tempis - this is established work for her that she is confident in, but we just need mileage to build strength and quality. I finish with something she finds easy but is beneficial - lateral work, or basic transitions between paces. Occasionally I will bring the best quality back in to test her ability when she's tiring. then a warm down.

You can change this to the work you've been doing, obv. But thought it might help as an example.
 
Thank you @milliepops for the great suggestion. I usually do the same warm up involving lots of 10m circles in walk and transitions and then to end I always do some stretchy work but it's middle that I think I am getting muddled. Usually I work a lot in trot, circles, serpentines etc as all comments on my dressage sheets are "needs to be more supple and over the back" and we seem to lose that a bit in trot and then I spend time on the canter because I am worried if we do the cantering first he will be too tired to do the good trot work. The canter is still a bit messy as have to focus on foward but I want to work on the transition from trot to canter specifically so should I do this first when he's a bit fresher or still work on them towards the end?

I am leaving ridden lateral work be at the moment until I have eyes on the ground because he does it great in hand but clearly I am riding like a potato as it doesn't transfer to ridden work!
 
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