I am pretty lucky that we have a 4km grass farm ride a 20minute box out from our livery, it’s got some awesome steep hill sections, lots of twists and turns and best of all a water feature jump, that’s also used for carriage drivers that’s big enough to use as a good area for some hydro work and cooling down their legs.
I use the track for training in a few different ways. Firstly for youngsters it’s a good first outing, all enclosed but a good practice of loading up and going somewhere new, experiencing scary jumps, other horses and water.
The I use it for training in 4 different ways:
- Interval Training: The natural layout of the course allows for sections of faster work and slower work and this is what I normally start with. Walk some bits, then trot and canter short sections.
- Speed work uphill: I canter the uphills and trot the downhills.
- Constant speed: If you focus on control and balance it is possible to do the whole 4km at a nice even pace. Using the corners to change canter leads or diagonals and trying to maintain the horses heart rate in a set zone.
- Competition riding: I don’t canter uphill at a competition (unless on the last loop and it’s for a position) but I do a lot of faster hill work in training. So occasionally I like to ride the 4km loop like I would a competitive ride, which means cantering the downhills and flat and then a steady trot on the uphills, it’s all about practising riding to effort for me, making the pace as efficient as possible.
For this outing however it was just all about letting Tissy choose the pace and having a bit of fun together. She loves to fly around this course and when in full training I would usually do anything between 4 to 6 laps. We did 3 this time and getting faster every loop, she’s an opinionated horse at the best of times and when she want’s to go she will throw quite the strop if she’s not allowed, but seeing as we’re not training for anything I thought I’d let her have her way…..which was gallop at every opportunity.
I absolutely adore this horse, I love riding her, I love how she loves to go out, I love how well we know each other and how after all these years she’s never boring. She’s the horse of a lifetime and I miss competing her so much, the feeling of being out on a last loop, the pride of 12 weeks of hard graft getting to a competition, but I didn’t think I’d love her retirement quite so much. But I do, I love riding just for fun, I love exploring new rides on the calendar just to see what they’re like, I hope that I have many more years of getting to fly on Tissy’s back to come.
Beth Endurance 