Training for fitness

There are two types of fitness that one must work on with the horse - the aerobic fitness, and fitness of joints and ligaments. Aerobic fitness is developed by cantering and galloping. Fitness of joints and ligaments develops through lots and lots of walking. Virginia Leng (an eventing guru, and my hero) used to walk her horses for three weeks, every single day, before doing any other training.

I take Crownie into the state forest where we walk down to the valley. Then we do a fast canter up the road - about 1km. Then we walk down into another valley, and do another canter up the other side - about 700m. Then a very very long walk - around 4km I think. Then I let her gallop. Walk over the rocks, then gallop again up to dead cow. We mainly walk the rest of the way home.

The aim of the exercise is to work primarily on the ligament fitness, but to also start making some headway into aerobic fitness. So all the fast work is done uphill on nice smooth tracks.