Young horses: fitness vs schooling?

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Walrus

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Hello,

A question for those of you with young horses: how do you balance schooling and fittening work. My boy is 5, was broken in April, I spent a lot of time hacking him for the first few months to get him going forwards. He's just had 2 weeks off and now has come back into work all guns blazing. His schooling seems to be coming together a little but there is still loads of work to do (we don't canter in the school yet). I'd like to get him fit enough to go autumn hunting once or twice (at the back with no jumping or anything, nice and quiet). So how do you balance fittening work and schooling? Currently I lunge once a week, hack 2-3 times and school 2-3 times and we have 1 day off. Also, he's a Fell so not a "get fit quick" type!

Just wondered how you approached it? I've got pointers fit before but that was daily hacking and miles and miles, there was no schooling to fit into the equation!

Cheers

:)
 
Had to bring my girl back into work earlier this year as off for a bit with lameness, and not long after I got her, and she hadn't been ridden prior to that for over 5 months so not fit at all.

I schooled her twice a week hacked twice a week and long reined twice a week with one day off, none of this was done at any real speed all hacking and and schooling was only ever done in walk and trot, however as she got stronger and built up a bit started trying to find more hacks with hills in them and then trotting her up them making sure that she was really using her back end. Was eventually hacking for just over an hour walk and trot, schooling for 45 - hour including warm up and down and long reining for 30 mins at a time.

Realised how fit she had become doing this when she had to be scoped and therefore made to blow before scoping can happen, well I can't tell you how long we were cantering and galloping around before any sign of blowing occured, even the vet remarked on how fit she was!

However she is an ISH so maybe she is a bit more a a get fit quick type, but I wouldn't underestimate how fit just schooling and hacking makes a horse, plus if you are doing a lot of trot work according to my physio it is much harder for a horse to trot than any other gate hence why one of the best gaits to build up fitness.
 
sorry to hijack thread but just wanted to ask what letslip meant by this:
"Realised how fit she had become doing this when she had to be scoped and therefore made to blow before scoping can happen, well I can't tell you how long we were cantering and galloping around before any sign of blowing occured, even the vet remarked on how fit she was!"

like to ask when i dont have a clue thanks:D
 
She had a suspected lung infection therefore the vet wanted to put an endoscope (scope) down her to look at her lungs, at the same time they did a tracheal swab, putting a saline solution down into the lungs and then sucking it back up with whatever mucus and rubbish is floating around down there, they can then run tests on what is found in the swab to determine mucus, fungus levels etc. To release this mucus etc the horse has got to be really blowing (puffing after strenuous exercise).

Hope that has helped :D
 
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