Another setback…

Let’s start with the positives. Training has gone so well the last 12 weeks, to still be on plan A coming into June is somewhat of a miracle. I am really happy with how I have trained Roo this year, starting with 3 weeks walk in the steep Welsh hills, followed by slow incremental increases with plenty of rest time built in, there is nothing I wish I had done differently, he has slowly been introduced to canter work over the last 8 weeks, none of which has been flat or fast.

Roo has been getting recovery times of under 2 minutes from untacking and has a heart rate in the 40’s within 4mins, he is never out of breath, like never, it’s a bit weird actually, but maybe that’s because I haven’t been pushing him hard. He’s mentally tired quite often but the last 4 weeks he’s been flying and I couldn’t have been prouder of his attitude. He was definitely ready for his first 80km.

Over the last 12 weeks we have done a total of 34 training sessions and one 42km competition. He has had 3 weeks off, one after the 42km and two because I was away. The shortest ridden session was 4km and the longest 26km. Here are the stats:

• 3x Lunging over poles
• 5x lunging with a Pessoa training aid
• 3x Schooling session
• 9x Hacking
• 10x Interval training on a 4km grass hilly track
• 4x Continuous canter training on a circular sloping gallops

• Total ridden distance = 336km
• Average speed of combined training sessions 9.5kph
• Slowest average speed 7kph
• Fastest average speed 14kph
• Top average speed in a session at trot 14kph
• Top average speed in a session at canter 20kph

Now for the bad news….Just two weeks out from his 80km Roo fell over during training, like a ton of bricks, no warning, just went straight down, his face full of sand. He got up, no scrapes, he walked and trotted sound, nothing to see, so I hopped back on (now I feel so guilty for this) and we did another 1km of canter, but towards the end of the lap he kept switching leads, which is unusual for him, we pulled back and he was hopping lame at walk.

Silver lining, he did it just before the closing date for Cirencester, so I could withdraw and get my entry fees back. But just like that, my ray of hope, my excitement of doing an 80km again, gone. Now, it isn’t that bad, we’ll sort him out, bring him back and try again. But I think the accumulative effects of the last few years and all those disappointments, injuries, accidents and losses really weighed down and I felt so so sad.

All I want is to race again, but it seems I’ve become a pro at rehabing and producing lower distance endurance horses and I feel eternally stuck in my novice season. I start off with so much hope and optimism, I back them, we get out the psycho horse phase, an injury happens, we discover something odd, I rehab them and they make someone else very happy. I’m so proud of the horses I’ve produced, their new humans love them, and they are, on the whole, well-behaved and very good at their job, but it still hurts, it still feels like failure. I’m not willing to push a horse with known bony issues, keeping my fingers crossed that they won’t break, I would never forgive myself for knowing and still doing the long distances (80km +).

It has me questioning every element of my training and my horse management. They have all had unusual bony issues (that weren’t there as a result of training), a pelvis fracture as a foal causing compensations elsewhere, side bone in all four feet as a 5yo, a missing piece of bone in the shoulder.

But although at the time it really gets me down, my passion doesn’t diminish, I want to keep trying. So if anyone has some friendly advice, some constructive criticism, then I’m all ears.