This posting is being discussed on the AERC Facebook page:
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Once my little mare is less green and we start working on trails I’m going to be curious about her HR correlation to her gaits.
A few years back I was conditioning a polish gelding and his owner basically said that she believes trotting uses more energy so if I could mostly (not always) trot him that would be great so when they competed she could let him canter more and it would be easier on him. However, we ended up rarely rarely trotting because he simply had this cute little tiny trot and couldn’t keep up on the training rides but did fine at the canter. I sure felt a lot more comfortable on him cantering than many of my companions looked.
However…. I spend a good bit of time watching the horses in the field and Gretch (“my little mare”) trots everywhere. It’s this effortless looking floaty trot that looks nice and slow but she can out trot the other horses who are cantering (or even at a hand gallop) into the barn. It’s almost odd to watch because she just doesn’t look like she’s going that fast but she really must be. Thus I wonder if she’ll naturally just prefer to trot under saddle even after I introduce the canter? We shall see eh?
Also, From my years in wanna-be hunter land I had this big goofy nut ball of a TB and I recall on more than one instance where he would attempt to kill me; my trainer would hand me a lunge line and tell me to try to get him into the biggest trot possible without cantering him to take the edge off before getting back on.
So basically to me it makes sense that trotting would be best utilized as a conditioning tool but that cantering is most definitely easier.
Interesting.
Just remember that heart rate is only measuring the cardio-vascular efficiency of a gait, and while it may have ties to the bio-mechanics and muscular/connective tissue burden in that increased pain = increased heart rate, I’m not sure I’d live and die by a HRM. In fact, I don’t own one.
In addition, the concept of success for many is not in ‘winning’ the ride or even necessarily in going fast. For many of us it is about going further, like 100s or multi-days even if it means slowing down, or about doing the best we can over a number of years (like the “Decade Team” award) with a horse who is traveling in excellent biomechanical balance.
I do believe and many studies have shown that a “big trot” takes its toll, particularly if it causes the horse to drop its back and use its underneck, etc. Likewise some of the inverted, crooked cantering I see on rides is almost painful to watch.
I’m with the folks who say that I’m sticking with the dressage cross-training and have no desire to emulate the hollow, galloping fools (as I see them) who are winning rides like the WEG. To me, that’s not horsemanship, regardless if it lands the rider on a podium.
Some frank personal thoughts on this one.
–Patti
