We currently have 4 horses with cumulative AERC Sanctioned race mileage
nearing 16,000 miles (one is a 19 yo gelding with 7,000+, and an 18 yo
mare with 4,000+ ) and have owned several that we sold having over 2,000
miles of races , and they are still going. We use HRM at all times now,
but when we first started racing no one had heard of HRM's much less used
them. So how in the world did we get all those miles (and most of them
are Top Ten and Top Five finishes) without using all the scientific
methods I see bounced around in this forum? I attribute it to lots of
conditioning rides, combining long slow conditioning with interval speed
workouts. There was nothing scientific about the work involved, we just
went out and rode specific distances at various speeds and it seemed to
work. We live in the desert so we did a lot of "flatland" workouts, but
we combined these with hill work (there are some tall mountains around
here). Generally, we attacked the mountains using long trots and short
bursts of speed. Now that we use HRM's we can see that we get our horses
HR's up to between 200 and 220+ for short periods of time on the mountain
"speed bursts" with rapid drops in the HR as soon as the speed is reduced
or we stop.
What do these horses have in common? the intrinsic thing that can't be
seen or measured until put to use is "a lot of heart", the desire to
really travel and enjoy it. They are very competitive but all have a
great deal of common sense and know how to take care of themselves. They
are "high energy" horses but not "high strung". They all have good
large feet, good bone but, except for the 7,000+ gelding, not unusually
big bone (he is about 9" the rest are around 7.5+"). All have excellent
HR recovery and a generally low resting pulse even when they were not in
condition (upper 28+ to 32), and they all absolutely keep their condition
even when not used for several months at a time. As an example, the old
gelding was taken out of retirement ,(2 years) last summer, a week before
the ride, to mark trail for the Timberon 5 Day Ride, so he was literally
not ridden for nearly 2 years before the ride. He marked trail the week
before and was one of only three horses (out of 25 that started on
Monday) that finished all five days (265 miles), and a couple of the days
he was in the Top Ten. And I think most horses with a lot of miles on
them could handle similar situations.
Basically what I am saying is , " know your horse, conditioning only
happens with lots of miles and at varying speeds over different terrains.
There is no science or secret that makes your horse better or conditions
it faster, its the old known fact that hard work produces results".
Randy Eiland