It's time for canter sets!
Apr. 17th, 2019 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickThe footing is halfway decent, the horse is halfway shed out, and the weather is finally halfway fit. It's time for canter sets!
Fitness is a thing. It's important for a horse's health and injury prevention. It's important for a rider. Being fit is good.
At the tail end of winter, my horse is not particularly fit and I'm pretty out of shape, too. He's been carb-ing it up at the round bale most of the winter (or at least the truly awful parts of it) and I've consumed entire seasons of television instead of logging time in the saddle. It shows on both of us.
I typically start spring off at the walk. We do a lot of walk. Hill marches. Walking trail rides. I try to get on the horse for low-intensity rides about four or five days a week. An hour a day, not a whole lot of stress, just get out there and log some effort. Horse is still in Actual Winter Fur and ground is typically muddy and/or frozen. So, walking is good.
I do a couple of weeks of walk and trot (there is cantering but just in a "Hey, buddy, you remember about leads, right?" sort of a way) work where my goal is to get the horse nicely warm and "smelling like a horse". During these efforts, he can get lightly damp at the girth area and on his chest, but he should not be all the way wet all over. I monitor how he's doing and keep an eye on this so that I don't overdo him. Winter-hair ponies can overheat very quickly if exerted in warm weather.
Due to sleet, I got started with Bird back to work in the third week of March. 4 days that week, 4 days the next week, 4 the week after, 1 the following week (I had a cough & sinus infection), 5 the next week, and then 2 so far this week. He's starting to pick up a little fitness and is handling our marching walks with good cheer.
I've been adding in some trot work, not extensive amounts but enough to break up the walking, here in the last week or so. And that's going fine. It's time to start a weekly canter-set effort.
In these parts, that means Bird canters around the copse of trees in the hayfield. I start out as walk a lap, trot a lap, canter a lap, walk a lap, canter a lap, walk a lap, canter a lap. (Reverse direction and repeat.)
Here's a picture of the copse of trees.
It's approximately 350 meters around the "track" of the copse, which we do three times. At the beginning, there is a walk loop around in between each canter loop. As time goes on, there will be less break until we can canter three loops in one go and not be dying. That's about 6/10ths of a mile, give or take, so he'll be doing a mile and two tenths total of cantering. Right now it's spread out into six little efforts with walk breaks in between the loops. (N.B. We break to trot for the "in the woods" section of the loop every time because there are Very Lumpy Tree Roots in the woods. It's a very small section of the loop and I don't care enough about purity of effort to attempt to canter that part.)
The near field (has Terrain Of Death, which I have previously mentioned) is about 900 meters around and we are working up to being able to do that this year, for sure. I promise.
This picture does not adequately show the Terrain of Death but I assure you that there is some terrain going on there and it's terrifying.
The near field is about a half mile around. It is not unreasonable to expect my horse to be able to sedately canter half a mile in each direction by the end of the summer, especially if we're doing fitness work all summer long to get there. My fear issues notwithstanding, I feel like we can totally do this thing. Yeah. Go us! (I'm hoping we can do more than this much, but this is our low-end goal. I would also like to run him in a 30-mile ride by fall, so watch this space.)
At least in my little backyard horse world, 350 meters of cantering in one go is a fuckload of cantering. Mucho canter-o. Back in the days of history past, when I was fearless and bareback and feral in the summer, Glenda Jo would yell at the pony-riding children thusly: Don't you kids be runnin' them ponies! and there were strong looks of disapproval for anyone who brought a sweaty pony back to the barn.
I am 49 years old this year. My hair is shot with silver and I have to wear fucking bifocals to read. I do not have an endless supply of riding days left in my life.
I make sure I warm my pony up for work with a solid fifteen minute hike at a brisk walk before we do any trot or canter work. I responsibly cool out my pony EVERY TIME he gets hot from work. I make sure he's cleaned up before I throw him back in the field. I gradually and sensibly increase his workload so that he has time to fit up to the task at hand. I pay attention to his feet and legs because I am very interested in soundness. I am not irresponsible or thoughtless and damn it, Glenda Jo, I am totally, totally, gonna be runnin' the pony.
Fitness is a thing. It's important for a horse's health and injury prevention. It's important for a rider. Being fit is good.
At the tail end of winter, my horse is not particularly fit and I'm pretty out of shape, too. He's been carb-ing it up at the round bale most of the winter (or at least the truly awful parts of it) and I've consumed entire seasons of television instead of logging time in the saddle. It shows on both of us.
I typically start spring off at the walk. We do a lot of walk. Hill marches. Walking trail rides. I try to get on the horse for low-intensity rides about four or five days a week. An hour a day, not a whole lot of stress, just get out there and log some effort. Horse is still in Actual Winter Fur and ground is typically muddy and/or frozen. So, walking is good.
I do a couple of weeks of walk and trot (there is cantering but just in a "Hey, buddy, you remember about leads, right?" sort of a way) work where my goal is to get the horse nicely warm and "smelling like a horse". During these efforts, he can get lightly damp at the girth area and on his chest, but he should not be all the way wet all over. I monitor how he's doing and keep an eye on this so that I don't overdo him. Winter-hair ponies can overheat very quickly if exerted in warm weather.
Due to sleet, I got started with Bird back to work in the third week of March. 4 days that week, 4 days the next week, 4 the week after, 1 the following week (I had a cough & sinus infection), 5 the next week, and then 2 so far this week. He's starting to pick up a little fitness and is handling our marching walks with good cheer.
I've been adding in some trot work, not extensive amounts but enough to break up the walking, here in the last week or so. And that's going fine. It's time to start a weekly canter-set effort.
In these parts, that means Bird canters around the copse of trees in the hayfield. I start out as walk a lap, trot a lap, canter a lap, walk a lap, canter a lap, walk a lap, canter a lap. (Reverse direction and repeat.)
Here's a picture of the copse of trees.
It's approximately 350 meters around the "track" of the copse, which we do three times. At the beginning, there is a walk loop around in between each canter loop. As time goes on, there will be less break until we can canter three loops in one go and not be dying. That's about 6/10ths of a mile, give or take, so he'll be doing a mile and two tenths total of cantering. Right now it's spread out into six little efforts with walk breaks in between the loops. (N.B. We break to trot for the "in the woods" section of the loop every time because there are Very Lumpy Tree Roots in the woods. It's a very small section of the loop and I don't care enough about purity of effort to attempt to canter that part.)
The near field (has Terrain Of Death, which I have previously mentioned) is about 900 meters around and we are working up to being able to do that this year, for sure. I promise.
This picture does not adequately show the Terrain of Death but I assure you that there is some terrain going on there and it's terrifying.
The near field is about a half mile around. It is not unreasonable to expect my horse to be able to sedately canter half a mile in each direction by the end of the summer, especially if we're doing fitness work all summer long to get there. My fear issues notwithstanding, I feel like we can totally do this thing. Yeah. Go us! (I'm hoping we can do more than this much, but this is our low-end goal. I would also like to run him in a 30-mile ride by fall, so watch this space.)
At least in my little backyard horse world, 350 meters of cantering in one go is a fuckload of cantering. Mucho canter-o. Back in the days of history past, when I was fearless and bareback and feral in the summer, Glenda Jo would yell at the pony-riding children thusly: Don't you kids be runnin' them ponies! and there were strong looks of disapproval for anyone who brought a sweaty pony back to the barn.
I am 49 years old this year. My hair is shot with silver and I have to wear fucking bifocals to read. I do not have an endless supply of riding days left in my life.
I make sure I warm my pony up for work with a solid fifteen minute hike at a brisk walk before we do any trot or canter work. I responsibly cool out my pony EVERY TIME he gets hot from work. I make sure he's cleaned up before I throw him back in the field. I gradually and sensibly increase his workload so that he has time to fit up to the task at hand. I pay attention to his feet and legs because I am very interested in soundness. I am not irresponsible or thoughtless and damn it, Glenda Jo, I am totally, totally, gonna be runnin' the pony.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-17 09:51 pm (UTC)Shedding season is upon us - my house is covered in fur just from cats, and I can only imagine how much fur a horse can drop. (Is it fur or hair?)
no subject
Date: 2019-04-18 12:12 am (UTC)Bird's winter coat is an inch plus long and it's fairly thick. He's an Arab, so not as fuzzy as some. Ponies (real ponies, like Shetlands and Welshes and such) and some draft breeds can grow longer, thicker winter coats than he does. Some horses grow less winter coat, too. There's a pretty decent variation in horse winter coats, even in the places where it gets winter-cold.
Horse shedding is daylight mediated, so some folks keep their horses under lights to speed the process up. I am not one of those folks because my horsekeeping is redneckier and lower-end than that. But, when shedding happens, it looks like it's snowing around the horse. There is A LOT of hair and it tends to come off in a hurry when it is shedding season. Horses act itchy at shedding season and appear to enjoy being groomed during the spring and fall sheds.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-18 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-18 10:49 am (UTC)https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=766290073497653
no subject
Date: 2019-04-18 11:24 am (UTC)