trained enough?

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From: Maja Stopek 
Email: benman@swipnet.se

This is going to be long I hope you do not mind reading it anyhow.

I have started to ride my horse on 50 km (about 30 mile) endurance rides at a speed of 10-12 km/h (about 7-9 mph), only going 9mph at some of the distanses during the ride for a few miles, not the whole ride.

The horse is a 6 year old arabian an I trained him to ride when he was five, so he has been ridden for a little more than a year now. During last summer and fall I rode him for long calm rides in the woods and trained him in the arena.

Last winter I started to train him for endurance. During the winter I rode him 3-4 days a week. Shorter rides during the week (an hour or so) and longer rides during the weekends.

About 3 months before I rode my first endurance, a clear round, I started riding him 4-5 times a week. Maybe once during the week in the arena, one ride in the woods (1-2h) and sometimes a ride, trot 10km in an hour.
On the weekends I took long rides in   the woods both days and about every second week trained to go longer distances at an even speed. 15 km in the speed I have been doing at my endurance rides and at the end he was going 30km. My horse have all the time had a great spirit, moving forward willingly with at good "motor". Back at the stable he has felt like he could easily go the same distans again. His pulse comes below 60 very easily, already after a few minutes of walking after the training.
We have trained on varied surfaces. We have walked a lot on asfalt all along. We have increased our distanses in trot on semihardpacked dirtroads gradually. In the end we have been trotting very short distances even on asfalt (a few hundred meters). 

The problem is that we canīt follow through on our endurance rides. The clear round of 45 km, went all according to plans. After that I have tried two 50km competitions. The first one I broke off after 20 km (we hade gone it in about 2 hours). I walked my horse back to the the start (about 4 km)and by then he was limping. The vet told me to call a vet the day after if he was still limping, which he was not. I let him rest for at week and then started him up slowly. We rode after a few weeks 30 km in training in 3 hours and he felt great

A month after the first ride that was a failure we tried again. The surface was ideal, really soft and nonslippery, perfect. After 20 km he felt tired allready and at the vet gate, at 32 km, the vet let me through but told me that he migth be limping when we finished the ride. So I broke off the ride there.

Now the vet have checked him at home. He is not limping unless the vet bends his leg (rigth hind leg) then it is half a degree (if that what you call it in English also, I live in Sweden). But the vet asked me if the horse had been properly trained and thatīs what I am now asking. Has my horse had enough training for the endurance rides that I have been starting him in.

All my reading and courses seem to point at that a 6 year old should do fine, but I have never read anywhere, when I now look in to it, if that means that the horse should have been trained for 2-3 years first.

Sincerely Maja