Estrid is progressing really well. I’m enjoying the laid back approach to her education, in the past I’ve been more intensive when backing my horses, going from nothing to riding out in probably 6-8 weeks, this time due to other commitments and general life stuff it’s meant that Estrid is taking the ‘little bit, every now and again’ method. For some reason, this feels like far less pressure and I’m enjoying getting to know her without thinking about our next goal.
She’s currently in the phase of she’s got her confidence but also everything is quite scary, so she’ll go and check everything out, do a 360 spin, snort at it and unlike her siblings, actually just looks, assesses and calms down…..which is a welcome change from the full blown meltdowns of the previous two horses I backed.
Although I have no set in stone goals, timeframes or schedules with her (I mean when do horses ever stick to the plan anyway), I would like to go on our first Pleasure ride this year. Something local, quiet and easy just to dip our toe in the water.
I also must apologise now for the number of times I say ‘Good girl’ in this video…….I have no idea how many it is, but it is A LOT!
There is nothing like a little spin out to somewhere new for an adventure with your favourite pony!
Upper Boothay Farm ride, is a lovely mainly off road (one quiet village lane) sign posted ride (I measured it at about 10km). You can book time slots to head out on your own or have up to 6 in a group. There are some lovely inviting cross-country jumps and hedges of various sizes, and word is they’re working on a water feature too.
The rosette at the end is the nicest one I’ve ever had and the owners are so lovely, you can even get a bite to eat at the end. You can go around as many times as you want, plus there is the option of going rouge and checking out the local bridleways using the Farm ride as your base.
Tissy was somewhat spicy…..the first time she’s reared with me in about 20 years! She bucked furiously if she wasn’t in the lead for the canters at first but with much persuasion, she eventually settled and tootled along behind without resembling a rodeo.
But the best bit! We had our first ever Pub stop, I’ve never enjoyed a diet coke and salt & vinegar crisps more!
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.
I’ve had a few messages about how Tissy is getting on recently. I think mainly as she hasn’t been in the YouTube videos very much but let me assure you that she is doing just fine.
Yes she’s definitely had to take a step down in terms of ridden work this year. Her jaw arthritis means that if she does too much exercise she loses too much weight, so she’s been ridden once to twice a week just for fun little hacks or as a training buddy for Roo to help him up his speed.
Tissy is a speed demon and actually quite naughty these days when it comes to not getting her way. For her, life is about how fast you can go and if you don’t let her strut her stuff she gets very cross about it……and she kinda gets away with it because she’s a little legend and she’s old!
However, this need for speed has been quite handy at getting Roo to put a little more effort into his canter intervals. Roo is great at sitting in one speed and going all day, excellent for an endurance horse, what he’s not so good at is really opening up his pace and getting that extra gear going.
With the help of Tissy, Roo has increased his canter intervals from 17kph to above 20kph, he even clocked a max speed of 25kph the other day, which is pretty impressive for him. He much prefers to be in company. It’s great that he couldn’t care less about horses bombing off without him and it’s a good thing that he conserves energy and uses a minimal effort strategy but if he wants to grow up to be a racing endurance pony he needs that little extra in the tank.
I’ve had Tissy barefoot for about 9 months now and she’s doing really well. She had great feet anyway, proper little rock crunchers, so I guess she was an ideal candidate for the barefoot life. Tissy can only be ridden a couple of times a week because I just can’t keep enough weight on her if she’s in any proper training, due to the arthritis in her jaw she struggles to get enough calories down her, even if it’s sloppy. So the maximum distance I’ve done with boots is 30km but usually Tissy does 5-20km at a time once or twice a week, on grass barefoot and tracks with her boots, which means I haven’t really had the opportunity to have a horse in full endurance training barefoot/booted.
I know there are some really successful barefoot endurance ponies, but you don’t see many of them at FEI, is that because tradition dictates shoes or is it because the barefoot ponies don’t make it to that level, I don’t know. In reality I know very little about being barefoot and my comfort zone is shoeing my horses.
Estrid doesn’t have the best feet yet, a bit flaky, a bit wonky, a bit cracky. But they are getting so much better. She’s got a bit fat over the last few weeks and she really needs to start getting more exercise in, but her feet kept getting chipped by the gravel on the roads around the yard so I couldn’t take her out, it was time for her to get some boots and quite literally start boot camp!
We got the lovely Hoof Boot Shop out again, it’s just so much better for my peace of mind for someone else to try several types of boot and sizes, and select the right one, rather than me trying to figure it out. We went with the Flex Hoof Boots, which I was really glad about as I’d got on with them so well with Tissy and I found them so easy to use. This time we got some snazzy blue gaiters to easily tell them apart from Tissy’s (although they have the sizes clearly written on them anyway).
For now I’m keeping Estrid barefoot, I guess time will tell when or whether we need to shoe. If I’m honest I’d be wary of having a horse barefoot above 40km, but that’s because I have no experience of it, all I know is shoeing and coming out of that comfort zone will be an experience I’m looking forward to learning more about.
I love the stage of getting to know a new horse. I love finding out their quirks, personality, what methods they respond best to and generally just building our bond. Estrid is clever, she’s sharp and she’s a thinker, which has meant she’s also an incredibly quick learner and quite sensitive.
I’m by no means a professional at backing or training a horse in any way but I love to do my own. I get it wrong all the time, I kick myself when I haven’t responded to a que or I forget how I’m meant to react to a behaviour, or I haven’t given her enough time to think and push her a bit too soon, but there are also times where I feel like we’ve done really well, our objective was achieved with no drama and I have a happy responsive horse.
Estrid is pretty brave, she’ll be the first to see something, she assesses the situation and then she’ll act accordingly, so far she’s never overreacted to anything and takes most things in her stride. Prams, traffic, BT guys up a telegraph pole, flags, me jumping around on a mounting block, pigs…..the scariest thing she’s encountered are the ornamental rocks on one of our walks….truly terrifying!
I started the backing process with ground work, my main method is pressure and release with the concept of we’re working until you get it right and then we’ll stop. I started off with basic leading commands, then added some obstacles. We finish each session at the mounting block learning to stand and getting used to me stood above her.
I then moved to ground tying and running a rope over every inch of her, followed by a numnah and circingle, then saddle, then stirrups. Bitting was fairly easy as I covered the bit in some mollases and she basically nibbled it into her mouth herself!
We then did a few walks fully tacked up, our and about and in the school. I then started putting my foot in the stirrup at the mounting block and leaning on the saddle. Finally I got Dan to have her on the lead rope while I lay across her and then sat up in the saddle, we had two dramatic bronk attempts and then 3 lovely stands and dismounts.
So that’s where we’re at, the next step is literally to take some steps whilst I’m on board and just continue to give her a varied training routine of hill walks in hand, pole work, educational obstacle type stuff and some ridden bits.
I don’t do very much canter when training for the distances below 80km. The canter we do is mainly for fun, education or as little short bursts during interval training. But now my next goal with Roo is to do an 80km GER we need to start upping our game.
So we’ve started to introduce more canter work, which is by far Roo’s best and preferred pace. We started our canter training off with 10km interval training sessions with approx 1km trot to 1km canter. Now we’re adding in continuous work, so we’ve started with 10km of continuous canter at about 17kph, the focus is on maintaining effort, not speed, so when the gallops go slightly uphill we’ll reduce our speed to reduce the effort, if Roo is tired we’ll reduce the speed if he’s feeling fresh we’ll up it. Not until Roo is ‘race fit’ and we’re training for 90km will we start doing ‘speed’ work uphill and focus on a set speed rather than effort.
The gallops we’ve started using have only just re-opened to the public. I used them about 8/9 years ago but they closed so I’m so excited for them to open again. They are only 30mins drive from the yard and a wonderful 1.25km oval with a gentle hill. They do 45min private slots so you get the gallops to yourself or you can bring friends too.
Firstly, have a big smile and give your horse a hug! Well done for getting to the finish line! But the work isn’t over quite yet.
You need to make sure the Timekeeper knows you have finished, usually they will say ‘hello number 23, you have finished at 3:08pm’ make a note of this time as it is the start of your 30minutes to present to the vet. Some rides will give you a little card that you then take with you but some don’t, so just ask if you need to collect anything.
I always start my stopwatch as I cross the finish, and remember to be mindful about how long it will take to get to the vets from where you’re untacking and crewing. You don’t have to take the full 30minutes, if you are ready you can present to the vet anytime within those 30mins, but don’t take longer because once the 30mins are up, you are eliminated from the competition if you haven’t presented.
Now if you don’t have crew, remember to set up your post ride area before you set off, make sure you have drinking water for the horse, something to wash them down with, a lead rope, easy access to a rug if you need, a hoof pick, a way to take a heart rate and somewhere to put your tack. If your lucky enough to have crew just have a discussion about what to set up and where for your return.
The first thing we do is remove the bit and clip on a lead rope, before doing anything else we offer the horse a drink. I like to have plain water, electrolyte water and sugar beet water all on hand so they have lots of options to hydrate. If they drink we do nothing else other than wait for them to finish. Once they have finished drinking we take off the rest of the tack, don’t forget to take off any leg boots too.
Then we wash down the horse like we would post training just to take the sweat and dirt off, this takes less than 30s. Once we’ve done that initial wash down, we take the heart rate to gauge how much water we need to throw on. I have a stethoscope and an electronic HR monitor, I like to use a stethoscope so that I can hear what the heart is up to, is it regular, is it dropping or staying stable, but the electronic one is great for continual monitoring. If the heart rate is high and the horse is hot I then literally pour buckets of water from the neck to the tail, I don’t scrape, I just keep adding water until the heart rate has dropped, the horse has cooled or the water isn’t running off hot anymore. Wind, air temp, water temp and each individual horse will be factors in how to cool down, so getting to know your horse and how they react is super important.
Once I’m happy with the heart rate I like to check the legs & feet, pick out the hooves and take them for a little walk so that they don’t stiffen up and so that I can check how the heart rate reacts to movement. If the heart rate shoots up I might pour some more water on or continue to walk until it drops and remains stable.
If the heart rate is stable and I’m happy then it’s time to present to the vet. This might be all done in under 2 mins or 25mins it really just depends on the horse and your experience. A steward will take the timing card off you if you have one and give you your vet sheet. You will then be given a vet lane to go to, where they will begin your final vetting.
Vetting out the way, I like to take my horse back to the lorry, if there’s plenty of grass let them have a much and a walk, and give them a sloppy hard feed, before washing any bits off we missed, rugging up and loading into the lorry. I usually give about 20-30mins before heading back to the secretaries tent to hand in my number and pick up my results.
Never have I ever been so grateful, elated and generally pleased to finish a 40km. Now I don’t mean to belittle a 40km, it’s a great achievement for very many, it’s still a long way for most, but I had always taken it for granted that we’d get round, we’d be successful and we’d hop onto the next level without a single doubt. That’s because I had an incredible horse, who completed every ride she ever set her hoof to, and I truly didn’t appreciate how incredible that was.
Over the last few years, I have had many an issue, many a doubt and failure. I have never lost sight of where I want to be and how I can get there, but there have been times where my hope has dwindled. The major positive of this, is that I have learnt to appreciate EVERYTHING! Every week of training completed without injury, just getting to the start line of a ride, every km ridden, every crew point, just every single damn thing that goes right, and I truly believe this is a much better mindset than I had before.
I go into competition with the mindset of ‘this is going to go right, we are going to do well’, but I don’t expect the outcome to always go my way anymore, so when it does I get all the feels I would of crossing a 160km finish line for every ride we do!
Roo had one 40km left of his Novice qualifications, we chose a ride I’d never done before due to it’s proximity to the yard. Roo has proven that he can handle tough terrain so I wasn’t worried about tackling something unknown.
The ground was so hard though, and there were moments on course where I thought ‘is this going to be too concussive, will he stand up to this’ but he never faltered. Roo has a very laid back trot, he puts so little effort in it feels like you’re going in slow-motion, his real love and best gait is canter, we’d started to introduce more canter work two weeks before this ride so I let him canter wherever we could, he ended up doing 12km of the ride at canter and we trotted the rest with very little walk.
Although Roo looked tired when we presented to the vet (he always looks like he might fall asleep any second) his recovery at the finish was impressive, we could have presented in under 2mins. But because I want to learn how his HR reacts to certain aspects of crewing, walking, eating, sloshing I wanted to wait longer as an educational exercise for me. So we waited 12mins before presenting with a HR of 41, a typical Roo minimal effort with added dramatic effect big sigh trot up, an average speed of 11.8kph (it was actually 12.9kph but I added 6km onto the route by doing a section twice, oops) and a Grade 1 to upgrade him to Open!!! YAY!
Thank you to all the ride organisers, helpers, vets, farrier and stewards for a lovely ride and relaxed atmosphere. So now we plan our first 80km together, eeeekkkkk!!
Beth Endurance 