A general rule of thumb I've always heard is 1 day for every 10 miles
travelled and that's what I have tended to follow....
Something very interesting I remember reading in TB (of course I can't
remember the issue but I could dig it up if anyone's interested) was an
article by Dr. Nancy Loving where she interviewed several top riders - kind
of a forum deal (that seem to have fizzled cause I haven't seen it..anyway)
the subject was, of course, conditioning- how much, how often, etc...
The thing she mentioned that has just -fascinated- me is this "The average
rider is in far more danger of overtraining than undertraining their horse"
Now really read that sentence again :->
She mentioned that for a horse that's already fit stressing the horse just
*2 times a week* was plenty to keep it at that level. In other words the
concussion and wear and tear that happens from mile after mile far outweigh
the benefits of riding one more 8 mile loop around the block (my
paraphrasing there).
She was also very big on rest tho I can't remember what rule of thumb she
used. Now, this is not to negate LSD for newer horses - her reference was
to already fit horses during a competition season.
Anyway, I'm sure there was more in there that was interesting however in
the interest of not botching up her words I'll wait till I find the article
to say any more - however I did change my conditiong routine somewhat over
the summer after reading that column about ten times :-> And I honestly
feel that riding *less* and resting more in between rides was better than
riding him 4 - 5 times a week. I got away with what I now see was a little
over-training IMO because I, as a generally conservative and worried rider
<g>, rode some really slow 50s earlier in the year.
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standard disclaimer - this is what has worked for me and my horse - your
mileage may vary. Also, just as a reference, Embers came to me with a good
base (almost 500 miles) of LSD - whether the above holds true when putting
those slow miles on one I will find out next year with Tony.
Tina and the Arabs who sure are getting lots of air-time lately
hickst@nichols.com