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Posted by chrisnstar on October 26, 2004 at 08:22:34:

In Reply to: fitening programme posted by Summer+Louis on February 03, 2003 at 01:09:25:

:can any one tell me how you would fitten a horse that has just had a 3 month rest and is going into a competition (endurance) in 3 weeks time.
:i need to know what you would do with the horse on each day. the horse basically just needs to be refittened i think.
:my email address is below if yuo could email me i would be really grateful
:SweetMael@hotmail.com

Why was the horse laid up for 3 months? Injury or illness? Or just not being ridden for other reasons? That makes a big difference in whether you should attempt to get him ready for a ride in 3 weeks.

I would say you probably could take a pasture fit horse out of the pasture and complete (not win) a limited distance ride... 25 miles or so. I sure wouldn't try to top ten on him.

I'd use the same strategy as for fitting up any horse for work... long slow distance. Because you have only 3 weeks, there will be a great temptation to overtrain and ride the snot out of him. Then you get to race day and he's whupped before you start because he's trained too hard.

Remember, every time you exercise yourself or your horse, your muscles, tendons and ligaments sustain microtears. The body fills in those tears and rebuilds those fibers.. that's what builds strength. But the body needs rest time to rebuild those fiber tears. That's why body builders don't work out the same part of the body every day. One day they will work upper body, the next day lower body, another day simply cardio...

I have 3 horses to keep conditioned and only one of me. I try to ride one horse every day, so each horse gets ridden every 3rd day. If I'm concentrating on one horse for a competition, I'll ride that horse 3 times a week at 5 to 6 miles a ride, then do a longer 15 mile ride or so on a weekend. If Iwere conditioning for a 50 mile ride, I'd up those mileage distances for daily and weekend work.

chris

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