I like to give 2 days of rest, not consecutive. Say, Tuesdays and
Thursdays off.
>She also said that it is
> important to exercise fast and slow twitch muscles. In other words, one
> should alternate the types of workout every other day. One day the goal
> is to work for several hours at the walk on the trail in order to build
> endurance. The second day would involve plenty of trotting and cantering
> to build better lung capacity for stamina.
Building the slow twitch muscles would be doing sprints. Building the
fast twitch muscles would be doing lots of trotting over all kinds of
terain.
> Does this sound like a good method?
Since you are just starting out, I'd say it is mostly good advice.
I'd leave out the cantering for awhile though. The horse "works"
harder at the trot than at the canter. So trotting will build up
the horse faster than the canter. And it's just as good for building
lung capacity as well as building muscles.
> I would like to begin some serious training so that I can AT LEAST do
> some of the small races in my neighborhood.
Evaluate yourself and your horse first. Take a few long slow rides,
10 miles if you can. Check out your horse just after the ride and
the next morning. Then start adding miles and a bit of speed (at
the trot).
*SOAP BOX ON*
And they are not races! It's an endurance RIDE.
You don't race. The objective for all beginners, either horse or
rider, is to finish. On the short rides, time is not even counted.
Winner's are those with the best conditioned horse, regardless of
how long it took them to finish.
*SOAP BOX OFF*
> Plus, will a horse that is
> exposed to the "scary" things on the trail EVER stop spooking. (He's a
> six year old Arab). Or should I give up and buy a new horse????
Oh, they will always spook, it's just that the spooks are different.
Drake passed with flying colors the stress test given by the mounted
patrol (imagine 20 horses all lined up with people running around with
plastic, balls, ballons, umbrellas, bikes, guns (with blanks), llamas,
and every other scarey thing). But Drake still spooks at rocks. Go
figure. He's an Arab. He needs to spook. You just ride through it.
-- Wendy\|/ /\ -O- /**\ /|\ /****\ /\ / \ /**\ Here there be dragons / /\ / \ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\/\ /\ / / \ / \ / \/\/ \/ \ /\/ \/\ /\ /\/ / / \/ \ / / \/ /\ \ / \ \ / \/ / / \/ \/ \ / \ \ / / \/ \/\ \ / \ / / \ __/__/_______/___/__\___\__________________________________________________
Wendy Milner HPDesk: wendy_milner@hp4000 Training Development Engineer HP-UX: wendy@fc.hp.com Mail Stop 46 Telnet: 229-2182 3404 E. Harmony Rd. AT&T: (970) 229-2182 Fort Collins, CO, 80525 FAX: (970) 229-4292