Conference noted::equitation

    If I have a horse that is totally out of condition then I start very
    slowly with light lunging.  3-4 times/week (every other day) starting 
    at 15 minutes, alternating walking and trotting.  I don't work the 
    horse until its visibly tired...just enough to take the "edge" off of 
    a high strung horse or get a lazy horse starting to work.  After a 
    couple weeks I slowly start to increase the amount of trotting up to a 
    maximum of 20-30 minutes on the lunge.  Somewhere in there, I start 
    replacing some of the lunging with light riding, such as trail walks.
    
    Mary

It's also a good idea to condition the horse's back to the saddle before
starting to ride, by working them with the saddle on for a week or so before
you get on them. 

Ponying a horse with another one is also good to help them get conditioned, as
is long lining. 

Good luck!

    I've got a very similar problem with my horse.  Or rather will have in
    7 months time.  
    
    My horse is in England and is not being riden due to various unforeseen
    circumstances before I left for Australia.  In February 1991 I go back
    to a horse that has not been ridden for one year.
    
    She is highly strung at the best of times.  Any suggestions?
    
    Suzanne
    

    
    I had someone come over and look at my mare and evaluate what should
    be done to get her ready for riding. What they found was that the
    muscles over her back around the loin need to be developed. If we
    were to get up and ride her now, she would hollow her back, and
    it would get sore, causing problems. Also, we found that the crest
    of her neck and down to the withers is very tense...she has developed
    muscle at the roots of her mane down the entire length of neck.
    Using a yearling filly it was shown to me how flexible and loose
    her neck should be in this area. We are massaging her neck before
    and after working to help remove the tension, and help her to relax.
    We found on longlining her that the middle of her neck is very tense,
    she has been using her neck to compensate for the lack of muscling
    in her hindquarters. Longlining every other day is our proposed
    starting plan. Getting her to bend and use her muscles is the plan
    for building them up. There are 2 ways to tell if you are accomplishing
    what you want. First, when longlining the horse (especially arabs)
    can fool you with a false head carriage. Oh, look how nice the head
    carriage is you think, when actually they aren't on the bit. If
    you can see the horse is getting lighter in their gait and the hind
    foot is tracking up to the hoofprint of the front feet, the proper
    muscles are working from the rear and redistributing weight to the
    rear which results in a lighter gait. Second, after the work look
    to see where the horse is sweating. The horse should be sweating
    on chest, behind front legs , in front and behind rear legs, but
    not on the sides of the neck or the top of the back which tells
    you the wrong muscles were being used.
    
    	The first longlining lesson shouldn't be more than 20 min. 
    Also, don't leave the horse sweating and dusty after working. If
    the horse is hot, walk and cool them out. Either way, then take
    a bucket of warm or room temp water (not cold) and add vetrolin
    or some other linament wash approx. 1/4cup to 1/2 full water bucket,
    and using a towel or cloth, wet it totally and wring out excess
    water and rub the neck, shoulders, withers, then the back,belly,
    and finally the rump a couple of times to sooth the tired aching
    muscles you are developing. The linament helps to remove pain so
    the horse isn't aching the next time you take him out to work. 
    If you were all dusty and sweaty, wouldn't you take a shower? Well,
    why leave the horse uncomfortable? Also remember to wipe the dust
    off the mane and tail. Take a handful of strands and with the towel
    in your hand grab the section and slide it down the entire length
    of hair and repeat with the next section. Rub the face and wipe
    the dust off the cheeks and muzzle to help make horse feel refreshed.
    
    Well, this is our progress so far,
    
    				Nancy

    
    
    	Spring is only 5 weeks away.  What is eveyone doing 
    	to get there horses in shape to go riding once again..
    
    	Donna Fultz

    Good topic idea, Donna! Jan and I were just talking about "spring
    conditioning" yesterday.
    
    We have an added problem in that Ben(of the fractured coffin bone) is
    still not sound and won't be sound before April.
    
    What we were considering is starting off very lightly with 10 minutes
    of walking on the lunge line 5 days a week. After a week of that increase 
    to 20 minutes with a saddle. The third week, 20 minutes walking with a
    rider. Some of that may be done on the lunge line so the rider can do 
    exercises to help with position, flexibility and security in the saddle. 
    We riders need to get into shape too!
    
    The fourth week we would probably do 30 minutes riding at the walk 5
    days a week. Then introduce trot work and gradually extend the total
    riding time and the amount of trot work until we(horses and humans)
    were fit enough to canter. Our goal is to get to a routine of 45 min to
    1 hour hard work with a 10 min warm up and about a 10 min cool down. We
    sometimes "cheat" on the "hard work" section by putting some walk work
    at the end so cool down doesn't take so long. In our definitions, work
    is anything done on the bit and/or with a training/conditioning effect while
    cool down is a leisurely walk on the buckle.
    
    We do lots of trail work for conditioning even though we are basically
    dressage riders. (Aside to other dressage riders: Schooling on the
    trail is effective and allows both you and the horse a more relaxed
    atmosphere than the arena) We also do cavaletti work and sometimes
    jump. This kind of variety keeps a horse's mental attitude fresh and
    minimizes them doing things by rote..."Ho hum, we go around the circle
    6 times then change direction and go around that way 6 more times...."

    One of the recent issues of 'The Chronicle of the Horse' had an article
    about conditioning. If I can find it, I'll try enter the highlights of
    the article.

    
    
    I cant even think of conditioning my horse, until i think about me
    first .... oh this winter has been awful.
    think gawd there was no snow ;*)
    
    		wendy o'
    
    

    I've been riding on weekends as much as possible, so I'm hoping my
    horses aren't too bad off. My mare always bounces back quick anyway,
    I'll do a few weeks of warm up work only in the ring at night and long
    trail rides on the weekends  before working her heavily in the ring
    (where the sand is deep in spots). I've never had the gelding idle
    through a winter before, this is his first year living at home, so 
    I really don't know how he'll be. He's pretty full of himself right,
    I'll probably start with a week or so of lunging and then begin light
    ring work and just work him until he seems tired. I certainly hope
    the ring melts early, right now it's under about an inch of solid
    ice! GAWD, I hate winter.  As for conditioning *me*, what the heck,
    a few aches and pains never killed anyone..:-)...
    

    
    
    	I went out last weekend.. My arms still hurt.. holding
    	pencil was pain ful.. 
    
    	She is great though-- I have been giving her alot of grain
    	because she had such a bad start in life and boy she's got the
    	go go's.. but never a buck or slide (well may one time when
    	she saw some plastic flying.. 
    
    	but.. it never fails when I go out people want me to stop
    	and pet her.. I had kinda of waved and went past a about 
    	5 mph hour.. No standing for her...
    
    	All in all it was cold but I had a great time.. She was 
    	really tierd at the end.. 
    
    	Had to watch that she didn't drink any water.. 

    I found this in a recent issue of "The Chronicle of the Horse" and it 
    sounded like something lots of us(e.g 3-day, competitve trail, endurance, 
    racing etc) might be able to use especially after competition or a hard 
    training workout:

"Proper cooling out definitely helps prevent lactic acid buildup in the 
muscles of performance horses. Lactic acid is the by-product of muscle 
mtabolism, created when the horse exerts. If not cleared away promptly by the 
bloodstream, it leaves the muscle stiff and sore.

The goal of proper cool-out is to help the body flush the lactic acid from the 
muscles. Time spent cooling out a horse after a hard ride will leave him in 
much better shape than if he has no chance to do a little slow work to allow 
his body systems to gradually return to normal.

The Animal Health Trust of Newmarket, England used a high speed treadmill to 
study proper cool-down. All the horses in the test were performing a 
standardized test at racing speeds. After the speed work, the horses were 
divided into 3 groups. One group stood for 70 minutes, another group was 
walked on the treadmill for 70 minutes, and the third group was trotted for 30 
minutes and then walked for 40 minutes.

The horses that were trotted and then walked cooled out better. The rate of 
lactic acid clearance from the bloodstream was significantly faster than in 
the other groups. The horses that were idle following their exertion had the 
slowest lactic acid clearance.

The interesting news however was that the traditional cool-out method of 
walking a horse is not as beneficial as trotting him and then walking. After 
hard work, the body can return to normal more rapidly if the cooling out is 
more gradual, keeping  the circulation going for awhile and enabling the 
bloodstream to clear awawy the waste products more rapidly.

Cooling out is crucial after a game or race, and that's why you often see the 
human sprinter or long distance runner continuing on after crossing the finish 
line. They slow down gradually, flexing their muscles and squeezing out the 
waste products, flushing out and using up most of the accumulated lactic acid.

A proper cool-out gets rid of the waste products and dissipates the 
accumulated body heat, getting the temperature down to normal. as long as the 
horse keeps working and moving, the evaporation of sweat helps cool him.

By contrast, if he suddenly stops working, the 'radiator effect' of his 
sweating mechanisms can't function and he stays hot and over-heated. Cool-out 
is most rapid and efficient and least harmful to the horse when he is allowed 
to keep moving, letting all systems wind down gradually."

    I won't say I always do it but after a heavy duty work out I usually
    trot for 10 minutes before I walk for 15-20.  People always looked at
    me as though I had lost my mind - it good to find that something I have
    been doing and suggesting for years has been backed up by recent
    research - I don't feel such a fossil.

    i always trot for 10 staight and then walk (same amount)
    my dad yells at me for not colling out the horse (hufpth) :*)
    
    
    
    wendy o'
    

    Please forgive me if this note should be a reply to an existing note,
    but I'm new to this conference, and I couldn't find a related note.
    
    I was just presented with a golden opportunity.  A friend of a friend
    of a friend (no kidding) has a horse, but doesn't have an opportunity
    to ride very much (once every couple of months).  As a result (and the
    fact that apparently she overfeeds the horse), the horse is overweight,
    and the vet strongly suggested that the horse needs more exercise.
    
    So, this where I come in.  My friend knows that I love to ride, but
    haven't done so in years, due to lack of access to horses.  So, the
    bottom line is that I have unlimited access to a wonderful registered
    quarterhorse and tack, 15+ minutes from my home.  I'm in heaven.  I
    guess I'm getting off the topic here, so here's my question:
    
    Since this horse is out of shape (and, so am I, for horsebackriding,
    for that matter!), what is the best approach to getting her back into
    shape?  I rode her yesterday, and she's raring to go.  I tried to keep
    her to a trot most of the time, thinking that I should ease her into
    it, but she seemed pretty anxious to break into a canter.
    
    Thoughts on the best approach?  (If it matters, she's ridden English.)
    
    Thanks in advance,
    
    Leslie Harrison

    
Hi Leslie

Congrats on finding a horse to ride.  First of all I'd like to know a few
things:

1. How old the horse is?

	I ask because you don't want to give to much exercise all at once to
	a horse..and if the horse is an older horse, you could run into
	other problems.

2. How much weight does the horse need to loose?

	You want to take the weight off slowly.  Just like people if you
	take it off to quick you can get sick.  You asking a big question
	and I think there is  big difference in taking off 25lbs and 100lbs

	25lbs you could do w/ exercise..50 to 100 you need to change the
	eating habits and exercise slowly

	but don't over do the exercise..maybe start off w/ 20min for a 
	a few weeks and then work your way up from there.

3. Is the horse on pasture or paddock?
	
	If you need to keep weight off and your horse is pastured you may
	want to limit is turn out time..if he is in a paddock you may
	want to really watch how much hay he is getting and cut back just
	a little

4. What is the horse getting feed?

	Is he on grain?  How much grain?

    Unfortunately, I only know the answer to the first question, concerning
    the horse's age.  She is 7 years old.
    
    Since I will only be involved in the exercise aspects, I'm really not
    familiar with the feeding situation.  This is a VERY sensitive issue
    with the owner of the horse.  She apparently knows that she overfeeds
    her, but has a hard time "disciplining" the horse, as she puts it.
    
    So, sorry that I've asked for advice without the ability to provide the
    necessary details.
    
    Thanks for the input.
    
    Leslie

    Since she is young, starting out with an easy 20 mins the first
    week x "X" amount of days riding, then increase the time slowly,
    say 10 mins per week, until you are riding the time you want to
    be riding should be a safe bet.  Remember, however, that she will
    start to lose weight with the increased exercise, and could even
    start to lose too much weight when the exercise starts to overtake
    her calorie input.  It should take about 6 weeks to get her into the
    shape you want (depending on how many times a week she gets ridden).
    
    
    L
    

    What does the horse's diet have to do with "disciplining" her?

    I don't know what the horse's diet has to do with "disciplining" her. 
    This is how the owner phrased it.  I guess that she equates thinking
    that maybe the horse is still hungry and not feeding her more with
    discipline.
    
    Leslie

    In addition to what Lynn said in 1304.17, I would suggest that you
    stick to the walk for 2-3 weeks to give the horses' tendons and
    ligaments a chance to get used to work without irritating them. By that
    time, you'd be up to 30-40 minutes of walk. After those 2-3 weeks, 
    introduce the trot for about 10 minutes of your total riding 
    time and increase the trot work by about 10 min per week for another 2-3 
    weeks before introducing canter work. Gradually increase the amount of
    canter work until you're doing as much trot and canter as you want. Try to 
    keep at least 20 minutes of walk in your workouts; 10 minutes for warmup 
    and another 10 for a cool down at the end.
    
    This sort of schedule would gradually increase the duration and intensity of
    the workouts slowly. At the end of about 2 months or so of increasing 
    duration and intensity, you'll both be fit enough for just about
    anything in the way of pleasure riding. If you're goal is 3-day,
    competitive trail, endurance or racing, that's another story!
    
    John