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Re: [RC] conditioning help update - Ed & Wendy HauserA 4.4 mph walk is great. I wish Ranger would walk that fast. Your measured 14.5 mph pace appears to be your horses working pace. Perhaps a bit faster than I would desire for the speeds I go. With some encouragement the horse should learn to go slower. The 5.1 mph for the 4 miles is a bit slower than desired. You must have walked much of the way. Assuming 30 minutes required holds/ 25 miles the minimum speed you need is 4.5 mph. This includes grazing, watering etc. I tend to train at 7-8 mph, for CTR which required 6 mph trail speed. Since the training is shorter, you can train a bit faster than you intend to ride. 5.1 mph would get you through an LD with about 36 min left over. (assuming a 30 min hold) Since you also have to pulse down etc. this is about as long as you want to use on the trail. It is real easy to somehow loose 15 minutes on the second loop and find that your planned 30 minutes has turned into 15. CTR competitors know this. This is the reason that often seasoned CTR competitors will be seen waiting at the 2 mile marker for 10 minutes or so. They are remembering the ride where something happened and they had to trot until the last 1/4 mile to make their time. If this horse were mine I would increase the length of time the horse is allowed to pace. Perhaps, with some half halts to encourage slower pacing, when the horse has put on some miles and is a bit tired. Part of what a horse has to learn is that the race is long. A workout could be something like: 10 min walking warm up. 15 min pace 5 min walk 15 min pace 5 min walk 15 min pace 10 min walking cool down. After 2 weeks or so: 10 min warm up 20 min pace 5 min walk 20 min pace 10 min cool down After 2 weeks: 10 min warm up 40 min pace 5 min walk 20 min pace 10 min cool down working up to short workouts of 10 min warm-up, 50 min pace, 10 min cool down. Once a week you of course want to do longer rides Slower, but taking 3-5 hours and again building the speed. It is on these longer rides that fatigue will start teaching the horse that he/she should go a bit slower etc. I have owned horses that were speed demons, at appropriate points in their training I let them move out until they were tired and wanted to walk. I then insisted that they trot on slowly for quite some time. After a few treatments like this, they were much more willing to move out slowly at the start. It is possible that your horse will never learn to pace slowly. That is doable. Learn what percentage of the time he/she must walk to keep your desired race pace (say 8 mph to run a 6-7 mph race) and ride her that way. The problem with this is that your go fast / walk pace will bug other riders sometimes. Just ride alone and try to place yourself somewhere in the pack where you won't be continually passing the same riders again and again. The heart rates and recoveries you list look normal to me. Don't worry about them. Ed Ed & Wendy Hauser 2994 Mittower Road Victor, MT 59875 ranch@xxxxxxxxxxx 406.642.6490 ============================================================ I still prefer what it is that BH100, Tevis, The Duck's Soup of Endurance, etc. has to offer...but, to see a horse canter over sand for those distances...Good Lord, it humbles me. ~ Frank Solano ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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