[QUOTE=Kestrel;5765793]
I hope you don’t feel I’m intruding on your thread, but I have some AT/endurance questions and I was hoping many of you experienced endurance people could give some input.
First, I am not thinking about doing this myself. I’m a middle-aged amateur hunter rider and would have no business attempting a competitive endurance ride. I just know very little about the conditioning requirements for endurance for either horse or rider.
Let’s pretend that I have a 6 year old conformationally adequate AT that I wanted to take endurance riding in rides lasting several days. How long would it take to condition this horse for for this, and what would a good training program (for the long-term health of the horse) look like?
If I were a beginning rider, how much training (day per week, for how many months) would I need to safely compete?
I know that these questions are wide open in terms of the individual horse and rider, but I would like to hear your opinions, please.[/QUOTE]
Kyzteke is right in that like all horse issues - it depends.
Personally, I’m on the conservative side, - as we develop 100 mile horses here.
and we expect our horses to compete for many years.
as an example - this year I’m just retiring a gelding - at the age of 26- he’s been doing endurance (mainly 50s, usually 1 100 a year) since he was 7 - pretty good career as far as I’m concerned. He’ll be doing his last 50 this sept, and then he gets to hang out with the broodmares and be used as a pleasure horse from now on.
I find, as a general rule I go by.
year 1 and 2 - 25-35 mile rides.
end of year 2 if going well - the 1st slow 50.
year 3, 50s - gradually increasing finishing time.
end of year 3 - a slow 100 - if going well
year 4 - 100s. and multi day 50s.
- if Im starting a super difficult horse - I may even do fun rides for a while on it (12-15 miles ) I have a mare doing that this year, she’s got great potential, - but consistently works herself into a tizzy - so right now she’s learning rather then competing.
Reason being - it takes up to 2 years to develop the soft tissue and bone required for fast 50s (ei racing, - not just a completion)
It generally takes a min. of 3 years to develop a solid 100 miler horse, and even longer to develop a front running 100 mile horse.
you also need to take in other factors - how well the horse does in vet checks, how well they handle the trail challenges - do they waste energy being hyped - they need to learn the job- and some horse take longer then others to get ‘it’.
Run them too fast/too hard - your horse won’t be around many seasons at all.
Some riders do come right out the gate doing longer/faster distances a certain horse - sometimes they are lucky in they have an exceptional horse - sometimes you never see that horse in a competition again due to breakdowns, either physical or metabolic.
I know endurance isn’t always well understood by other disciplines - but it takes time to create an extreme athlete, - which is what you are doing. Same as it takes time and patience to develop a top end horse in any other discipline.
Much like I would’nt enter my 5k running self in an extreme marathon.
As for training times - again it depends.
In endurance - it gets easy (esp for new riders) to over condition their horses, until they learn how to rate their horses fitness levels.
My 25 miler horses generally only may due 10-12 miles per week on the trail - the rest in the ring (ring work is important)
my 50 miler horses generally do 20 miles a week - depending on their race schedule, they may not do any trail work other then a quick gallop if they’ve been racing steadily.
same with my 100s, - sometimes a lung opener is all they need in between -
or I may have them out doing some short interval training workouts. it all depends on the horse, some of our horses require continued work on their ‘bottom’ as I call it - or kick - so they have that little extra to give on the last loop to outrun other front runners.
the main trick (and it’s hard to learn) is to not over ride your horses. Usually I suggest finding an experienced endurance rider to ride with and mentor you - it makes a world of difference when learning the sport - and most endurance riders you’ll find are extremely gracious with their time and knowledge.
(Side note: Red’s trainer actually said he might make a real good dressage horse… I said he needs a better rider than me!)
