Those who take their eventers to the gallops?

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Have planned a couple of trips to the gallops in advance of the 2DE at the RC Champs to make sure his fitness is up to scratch. Have never been to a gallops before so was wondering what kind of regime you would use for a horse competing at BE90 level doing a long format XC? How much warming up and how much actual galloping?

Thanks!
 
If you can get a copy of Ginny Lengs book Training the Event Horse, it has fitness plans in it for the different levels, and because it's old, they are all for long format. It will give you a starting point!

Also, have a look on the Milton Keynes website - that has some guides you can download which talk about long format and prep for it.
 
I walk to the gallops which is a 10 min hack,
trot up them once
walk back down
canter up
walk down
fast/slightly faster than the pace we would event at canter up
walk down
same 'event' canter up
walk down
'event' canter up
walk down
walk back to lorry which is 10 mins

Seems to work fine for my boy sometimes I will do an extra canter up there :)
 
NEVER go at full speed on a training gallop. Stay at 3/4 pace. You are in a slightly difficult position because if you are not regularly using a gallop ,you are less likely to know exactly how much to give your horse. Whatever he does ,his recovery rate must remain quick. Once a horse is pushed past that point in training there is a greater risk of injury and it fails to achieve anything also.I would start with a 6 furlong 3/4 pace gallop and see how quickly he recovers. Then another 20 minutes later. All your other exercise is what gets him fit ,the gallop just raises the heart rate and clears his lungs.
 
We park the lorry about a 30 min road hack from the gallops which are almost 1 mile up quite a hill. I then go up at almost full pace 3 times. I walk back down about half of it and trot/canter the other half (flatter bits) then hack back to lorry. But this is for CCI* level.

So would prob just go up twice for RC Champs level.

Would not go more than every 8 days and do slower canters on the 4th day (ie between gallop trips)
 
Do you know what your competition distances and speeds are?

I am ancient enough to have done some LF back on my eventosaurus and we had good success with the interval training program set out in the USCTA Handbook - obviously unavailable to you and mine is still in a box in Canada - which was a graduated program from winter layoff up to 2*+. We also used recovery rates to tweak the program but I don't think you need to get that complicated!

There's good info on this thread: http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=9796329

This is interesting but perhaps a bit much :) :
http://www.myhorsechat.com/
 
what are the gallops like? uphill or flat? if uphill, how long (distance or time taken at trot and a steady canter, say?)
fwiw i'd go twice a week (every 4th day if you can manage it, working around comps obviously). do a long warm-up every time, this really pays dividends.
i used to, for uphill gallops of about 7 furlongs iirc: hack to gallops (at least 20 mins walk), if not that far then walk up gallops once. walk down. esp important if the gallops are a surface your horse is not used to, e.g. i used fibresand gallops, and then woodchip gallops, nothing like my surfaces at home. walking and trotting on it gets horse used to the feel of it underfoot which i think is important.
trot up at least once, walk down. maybe trot up again, walk down.
canter up steadily, walk down.
canter up a bit stronger. walk down.
see how horse feels. that might be enough.
or, if already quite fit, i used to canter up strongly (NOT flat out though), this was getting fit for Int and Adv and ** and *** long format though. in your case maybe canter up steadily again.
walk off for at least 20 mins, if not more.
check respiration rate say 20 secs after pulling up, again after a minute more, again after another minute. remember recovery times.
at end, see how long it took for resps to get back to normal 'resting' rate. recovery time is the best way of measuring fitness.
hope that helps.
 
basically the champs are in 2.5wks. due to work the only chance I've got to take him for fast work is this Sunday and next Sunday so I dont want to kill him by overdoing it and I'm not entirely sure how much 2 trips is gonna increase his fitness but I just wanted to give him a pipe opener really as normally I'd event him every fortnight and he wont have evented for a month by the day of the XC.

He is pretty fit - he can manage a 90min hack with a lot of trot/canter and be full of beans still at the end, he can do his normal BE90 XC track and recover within a few mins. He is ridden 5-6 times a week, schooling for 45-60mins, hacking or gridwork but there's just nowhere I can really let him go faster than a canter locally so I thought taking him to a gallops would be a good idea and then thought I had no idea what I should actually do there!

phase A is 200mpm and can be between 1000 and 4500m
phase B is 500mpm and 1000m
phase C is 150mpm and between 2000 to 5000m
phase D is 450mpm and between 1600 to 2800m
 
SpottedCat said:
If you can get a copy of Ginny Lengs book Training the Event Horse, it has fitness plans in it for the different levels, and because it's old, they are all for long format. It will give you a starting point!

Also, have a look on the Milton Keynes website - that has some guides you can download which talk about long format and prep for it.
Click to expand...

have just bought the book off ebay thanks! i have had a look at the MK website too :)
 
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