Re: LD's training to move up

[terre <tobytrot@bigfoot.com>]

At 03:07 PM 08/06/99 -0500, Ed Hauser wrote:
>I would have to disagree with this:
>
>'"Perfecting" your performance at LD (if you mean
>placing higher) in fact creates a sprinter not a stayer, and HINDERS the
>horse's ability to learn to do longer rides"
>
>I have been told that modern theories of exercise state that the quickest
>way to increase endurance is to do interval training and thus train much
>faster than the expected pace of the race but for shorter distances.  This
>would indicate that as one trains to go faster one should keep picking up
>the pace at the shorter distance until you are going quite fast, and then
>increase the distance and (this is important) drop the speed down at the
>longer distance.  A few fast 25's are part of a good base for the first slow
>50.

Ah, but Ed, this is just what we are NOT talking about.  We are referring
here to someone (perhaps a newbie) who begins by doing a slow LD ride, and
from that point on does 'nothing' but faster and faster LD rides, trying to
improve their performance (ie speed) with each outing.  Their goal is to
create a horse that will win LD rides--and that is exactly what they
accomplish.  In my neck of the woods, anyone who spends much time stopping
to eat or drink on the trail is not going to come in first on the LD rides
(or some of the 50s!).  So they are in fact training their horses NOT to
eat, drink, etc on the trail, and they are conditioning a body that is
'trained' to go very fast for a short distance and then quit.  When they
get to where they are coming in first or second consistantly they say, "ok,
got this aced, now I'm ready to move up in distance" only to find that
their horse is not, in fact, prepared--and may, in fact, need to be
'started all over again'.
	"A few fast 25s" may be a good base for the first slow 50.  Several
seasons, or a career, of them is not.
	Just my opinion, of course, and different opinions is what makes horse
races!     Terre 


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