Winter Conditioning

Wendy Milner (wendy@wendy.cnd.hp.com)
Thu, 20 Nov 1997 10:02:22 MST

Winter conditioning is hard. If you are in an area where the
trails are iced over, you have to come up with different methods.
You can do some conditioning in an arena, but the LSD will have to
wait till you can get out on the trails again. If you have a
horse already in condition, it is pretty easy to maintain where
you are at. A horse does not loose conditioning at the same rate
as a person does.

If you only have an arena, I think the biggest problem is boredom.
There is an interesting book out called "101 arena exercises".
You can also pick up one of the TEAM books for some exercises to
do in hand.
I do dressage in the winter (and spring, summer and fall too).
This keeps the horses fit and thinking.

If you have 90 minutes to work, do a good warm up - warm up the
muscles and the mind. Follow by some moderate physically hard
work - trot easy and collected on the short end, long and extended
on the long end. (Always in the correct frame for the work being
asked.) Follow by a short break of easy work. Then some hard
physical or mental work such as tempi changes, or difficult reining
patterns. Then a long cool down.

You'll have to come up with a program that fits the horse's
current condition and training. The work will increase the horse's
level of fitness. Once you can get out and work trails, you can
add in the needed long distance and sustained effort.

--
Wendy


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  Wendy Milner                     HPDesk:   wendy_milner@hp4000
  Hewlett-Packard Company          e-mail:   wendy@fc.hp.com
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