A generic schedule for ODH
What level were you eventing? Where are you hunting? What is the terrain like? If you P.M. I can give you a much better flexible schedule.
In general, if your horse is prelim fit and you are first flight, and your horse is handling the long runs well, you have enough base conditioning. You would be able to handle the Old Dominion territory once your horse got use to the long steep hills and small mountains. It is key to be able to rock back and stay round up or down. Use the top of the hill to regroup to set up the half halts for the down hill.
You have to listen to him to feel when he needs a breather. Drop back to second field or the hilltop/green horse group and let him rest. He may just hang out at a trot for awhile. My horses will pick up the bit and get a touch forward when they are ready to pick the pace up again. The hunting is different in that you are building endurance, which you would use if you were going to do a long format 3de.
It makes sense to take your horse in early if he feels like he is getting tired. Go in before he is too tired to enjoy the outing. Tell the fieldmaster that you need to go in before you really need to go in, so an escort can ride back with you. You have a long hack back, may get lost, and the adrenaline drops. The hack back is one of the most dangerous times of hunting. Horses and riders get sloppy and the reaction times are slow.
Once you have the conditioning for your hunt territory, you don’t have to work more than 2-3 times a week. I am basing this on my experience. My horse are turned out 24 hours except for eating feed and hay. (Everyone gets different amounts of hay and I have some piggy ones that drive the others away.) I live in the territory, so I have hills in my pastures.
Most of the time I rest my horses 2 days after hunting.
Ride day 3: slow walk/trot/ hills/ dressage. You don’t have to be out a long time. This is relaxed stretching for 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on how you and the horse feel.
rest day 4
ride day 5 or 6: walk/trot/canter, smidge of slow hand gallop. Lots of transitions.
Ride day 6- slow work. walk,trot, transitions and make sure the brakes work.
30 minutes of sustained trotting will keep your base tendons and ligaments in good shape. Ride on hard level surfaces for the 30 minutes for the concussion. You will see other foxhunters on the road during bad footing, doing this leg maintaince.
Don’t jump when you aren’t hunting unless you have to for your hack out.
I do dressage work while I’m hacking. Walk hills and do the lateral work on the way up.
Back up the hill a few steps at a time. Practice opening and closing gates from horseback, using SI, HI, and lateral moves. Teach your horse to help you by pushing the gate shut, holding it shut and standing while you work on the latch.
Teach him to stand in odd places while you mount from a fence, gate, log or bank.
Teach him to standing a ditch or depression for you to mount.
If you join the hunt, you are going to be in the back and you will be expected to get gates, help other riders, hold horses and generally be helpful to the masters.
If your horse is in condition, he will hold the condition for up to 6 weeks with light work. That’s longer than a person can hold condition. Stay fit yourself so you can keep up with your horse after some time off for snow or bad weather. Enjoy the relaxed schedule, rest when you need to, and do something fun with all that spare time!
Ps. I have been known to use an endurance rider’s trick of putting glow sticks on the chest of the breastplate. Most of the time, I carefully scout for holes the path I want in good light and teach it to the horse. Then I can ride in the dark. Horses see better in the dark than humans. The bonus is horses are much less likely to spook in the dark. The starry nights are beautiful, too.
Preferably, I’d rather hunt one day and ride an additional 2 or 3 on the flat. But I don’t want any injuries because she’s under-conditioned. I’ve never conditioned a horse for hunting so I’m feeling a bit lost!