[RC] conditioning question on young Arabian - RHONDA LEVINSON
This summer I sorta accidentally acquired a young (5 year old) Arabian mare. She's very small (maybe 14 hh on her tippy toes), narrow, has a pretty straight shoulder and not a great butt. Good hip angle, great legs, very smooth gaits, GREAT personality. The woman I bought her from bought her at an auction just to save her from the killers and knew very little except the horse was being trained for western pleasure. She told me that prior to me riding her, the mare had never been ridden outside of an arena. Ordinarily I would have totally passed on her, but, she's just so nice and calm and willing AND I checked her pulse and respiration right after she had spent at least 20 minutes racing around and bucking and playing with a big group of youngster, and she had a pulse of 32 bpm and a respiration of 8 breaths/p/m. Not only that, she was totally okay with being removed from the group and been ridden away from them while they were turned back out to the pasture.
So anyway, I've started conditioning her and I'm really uncertain how much to do with her. We started with short rides and built up to a 12 mile ride. At the end of 12 miles of walking and some trotting, the mare was still eager and wanting to trot and canter. She was not particularly sweaty. The next several days, her legs stayed cool and tight and she had no back discomfort. We then did a four mile ride of almost constant trotting, and she sweated more, but when I hopped off and checked her pulse, she was immediately at a 36 pulse. Again, legs stayed cool and tight and no back issues.
How do you know how much and how far you can go with a horse like this? I know that I am not stressing her on a cardiovascular level, but I don't want to trash her legs. I don't want to go so far we actually end up with swelling or heat. She's so willing and big hearted that I don't think the horse would "tell" me if she had discomfort. Any advice?
