Now I fell off the flatwork bandwagon in March when Estrid and I roly-poly’d our way to injury whilst schooling. I had been working hard over winter and even enjoying it, but sub-consciously I think I was associating schooling with increased injury risk so I wasn’t doing it. In my head straight lines were safer and I was justifying not doing it by saying I needed to do fittening work and focus on ‘endurance training’.

We all know I was wrong, being balanced and responsive, able to maintain a rhythm, maintain impulsion from behind in a nice self-carriage is essential to an endurance horse. You can do those things without going in a school, but for me, being in an arena focuses my mind on the task at hand. So I scheduled our weekly flatwork session back into the planner.

Our main focus at the moment is getting length through the back and neck and being able to maintain a relaxed and lengthened posture through the transitions. We’re getting there, it’s not perfect but it’s definitely improved. We’re a bit on the forehand, we sometimes lack impulsion, we lose a bit of direction every now and again (it’s like I can only focus on maintaining one thing at a time, the stretch or the steering) but overall I am starting to get a relaxed horse and rider. Dare I say, I’m even looking forward to putting the focus back on flatwork this winter!

As we edge closer to Estrid’s first 64km I thought I’d share her last training sessions. The two weeks before a competition is all about tapering for me. Sessions are purely educational and/or time in the saddle as the fitness and strength should already be there and it’s essential that there’s time for recovery before competition.

I’m really looking forward to upping her distance as she’s not physically been tired yet. I still feel a little daunted about managing her anxiety in the vet gate but our last one went surprisingly well and I should take comfort in that.

I’m not taking getting to the start line for granted either. Every morning as she trots to me for breakfast I breath a sigh of relief that all her limbs are intact! I appreciate my transport getting from A to B and that my body hasn’t fallen apart yet!

Estrid enjoyed our nice quiet, slow last 16km training ride. As usual she’s wonderful to ride if you ignore the random spooks at irrelevant objects, which you can forgive as she’s so good with actual scary things.

It’s that time of year when the Swallows are starting to spend less time in their nests so less time pooping over everything and I can finally give my stable a bit of a spruce up! They are still popping in and out so there will be further poop clean ups to do but I thought it best to take advantage of the warm weather while we have it and pressure wash the winter/spring dust away before it’s too late!

To add to my sort out excitement the yard has also re-instated the feed room, which has been a pony stable for the last couple of years but said pony now has a big grown up stable and we can move the feed bins from the barn back into the feed room. I’m extra lucky here as I now have my stable in between the feed room and tack room for super easy access to everything!

It has made me unbelievably happy to find this gem of a place! It’s got long grassy canters, gentle uphills, tiwsts and turns, tracks through wood and little log jumps to give a go (or avoid if you want). The whole course is about 8km long and it only costs £12 to park and ride for 3 hours. To me it is the perfect endurance training loop.

You can book through this link: Tong Parm Farm – Park & Ride

I made the hour journey from our yard with Estrid and she loved it! We did 3 laps, mostly walk but 11.7km of trot and 6.3km of canter thrown in too. I would love to get a group of endurance riders together to train there as Estrid definitely needs the practice of riding in a group and it’s the perfect set up for vet gate practice.

Estrid’s canter is starting to settle down now it’s not so much of a novelty and we’re now at a 20kph average speed which is much more acceptable than the 26kph from our gallops trip. Eventually I’d like to have a few gears in every gait that I can ask for and she’ll stick to but for now we’re just working on relaxing.

I can honestly say I’ve never been more wet before even starting a ride. The Wirral has been on my wishlist of rides to try for a while so when it opened for entries I had alarms set and was poised ready to click enter as it fills up so quick. Luckily Tissy and I bagged a space and so did Izzy and Fluffy!

It’s a bit further than I’d usually travel for a pleasure ride but I’m trying to make the most of my time with Tissy and she’s worth the extra miles. I’ve been thinking more than ever about her future and when would be the right time to implement an end of life plan, there have been a few factors playing on my mind so it makes me appreciate our little outings all the more.

The ride looks like it would ordinarily have fabulous going along the purpose made horse path to the beach, unfortunately the weather gods made the ground very wet and boggy, not a problem for us as we could take our time until heading onto the beach for a nice canter. Tissy was keen as ever and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride despite the rain. Thank you to all the ride officials and helpers who braved the weather to give us a good day out!

I absolutely love summer yard jobs, they may be never ending but there’s something so nice about bimbling around getting jobs done. Summer always feels slower to me than winter. In winter I want to be efficient and done to get out the cold and dark but in summer I like to take it slow and spend as much time outside as possible.

Having horses is 80% jobs and 20% riding so I really appreciate it when that time is warm, dry and sunny! I think I’ve reached a new level of adult horse ownership with how excited I was to buy my new strimmer and the dry weather meant it was the perfect time to take it for it’s first outing of tackling the dreaded docks!

As well as getting lots of jobs done. Estrid saw the farrier, Physio and Saddler to make sure everything is good before we start increasing her training. I’m holding out for Reactor Panel to launch their new panel system before I buy a new saddle as I want the stirrup bars slightly further back for longer distances, so fingers crossed for next year.

Amongst all the tasks I did also get out to a new location for us, a straight gallops only 20mins away, for Estrid to start introducing a bit more canter into her training. She doesn’t need to do specific canter work until next year but I’m keen to add more into our normal training. She much prefers to canter and I’ve been trying to keep her mainly in trot until now so she was definitely a little over exuberant when I said yes you can go, so we’ll need to work on a nice steady easy canter but I’m sure that’ll come when the excitement wears off.

Who knew I’d get emotional over a 46km! For someone who’s never done that distance it’s an awesome achievement and getting emotional is totally cool, but for someone who that distance can be classed as a training ride (me) it’s quite funny.

I took my time bringing Estrid back into work after we both hit the deck back at the start of March and she hadn’t had the run up to the start of our competitive season that I wanted. I had planned to head out to lots of social rides, get her used to the venue atmosphere again and generally build her confidence. Instead we’ve spent 3 months by ourselves at home. So I wasn’t sure what she was going to be like for vetting, never mind whether she would settle enough for a vet gate!

Estrid’s heart rates are rarely under 55 when we’re away from home, she’s almost always stressed. But she’s so brave because she tries so hard to internalise her anxiety and not do anything ‘naughty’. So she may stand relatively still for vetting but I can physically see her heart racing in her chest, the tension in her neck and those eyes out on stalks. I’m hoping this will just improve with experience.

She gave me a wonderful ride. She was a bit spicy and chaotic for the first 10km and then she did go back to her old habit of not wanting to pass people and then just as you think she’s on her way stopping dead in front of them (for anyone who experienced that I do apologise), but once she was actually in front away she went.

She was pretty singularly focused out on course if she saw another horse up front and keeping her pace steady was tricky as she just wanted to get to them. I can’t fault her enthusiasm I just need to negotiate with her on the method. She’s naturally pretty fast and has a big trot so our speed was perfect for what I wanted her to achieve, 13kph for the first loop and just over 14kph for the second.

She came into the vet gate a bit pumped as she didn’t want to leave the horse we’d been riding with, but she did tolerate water being poured over her and after a few minutes she resigned herself to staying with her humans rather then seeking out her pony friends. It meant that we had a respectable but not ground-breaking 6minutes in to vet. We struggled in general with her heart rate at the vettings as unfortunately we’d go in with plenty of other horses milling around and out of pure coincidence mid way through our heart rate, all 3 times, all the horses would leave. So we started with 57, vet gated with 60 and finished with 58.

She ate really well and drank a little bit. Which is excellent progress for Estrid as she’s usually too stressed to eat. She was good at the crew points, all be it a little eager to get back on the move. She didn’t seem to even question going out on another loop, she even gave me that ‘last loop’ feeling heading out, the feeling that she’s full of energy and keen to get back out there and your all fuzzy and proud and excited all at once, which I normally only get at the end of a race. So I’m super excited to see what her future holds.

I decided to level Estrid up through the distances gradually rather than do the bare minimum of what is required for EGB and FEI qualifications. I’d always been of the mindset that I wanted to put the least amount of competitive miles on my horses legs but I think the experience doing more rides of various lengths gives will be invaluable for Estrid, and now I’m not sure if FEI is financially viable for us it seems less of a priority to work our way up through to 1*.

Our first ride of the season was always meant to be a 40+km so that we would have the opportunity to try a vet gate with her. Her heart rates are always high out and about, I don’t think we’ve vetted under 50bpm yet but as I’m not concerned about Grades and trophy points, as long as it’s under 64bpm it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is how quickly we can get that HR under 64bpm and whether Estrid would cope with the slightly more rushed/stressy environment of a vet gate rather than a final vetting.

For the lower distances your crewing for the vet gate and your hold is usually at your trailer, which is slightly novel for me as I have historically only done vet gates for 80km + rides, which have a separate vet gate and hold area near the vetting. It essentially meant I needed to pack much less stuff than I would normally have on my ‘vet gate list’.

So I took my usual crew car kit of human drinks, slosh bottles, water containers, crew car feed, plain water, electrolyte water and sugar beet water. My plan was to use the same drinking buckets for Estrid for the crew car and vet gate as we’d be able to park right next to the trailer and we wouldn’t need that much water with it being a shorter distance. I added an extra plain water bucket at the trailer in case for any reason the crew car didn’t get back to the venue but thankfully that didn’t happen.

In addition I packed three water containers, two biggish water buckets, two small handled buckets, two sponges and a sweat scraper for the ‘vet gate/trailer’ crew area. Alongside three choices of feed: chaf, cubes and endurance mix, and of course a haynet. Then finally my ‘vet gate box’ which holds my spare shoes, ice boots, waterproof cover for the saddle, bandages, girth/numnah and boots for the second loop, HR monitor, lead rope and rugs.

There are things that stay in my trailer and crew car like first aid kit, tack spares, rugs, grooming box, stethoscope etc so I don’t really have to pack them. Hopefully Estrid appreciates all the extra equipment we’re taking for her and chills out for her first vet gate!

Before a competition (before the closing date for entries if possible) I will do a ‘check in’ ride. Usually 25%-ish of the competition distance just to make sure I’m happy with how my horse is going, that their heart rate recovers to below 64bpm in under 5 mins and that all our transport and equipment is as it should be.

It means that if I’m not happy with anything that close to a competition then I just withdraw and get my entry fee back. I firmly believe that in order to have a good competition the week running up to it needs to go well. I’m not saying if I stub my toe I don’t go but overall I need to be confident in our preparation, relaxed that we’re ready and have a smooth run up so that my head is in the game. I never want to go into the competition environment with doubt in my mind because it eats away at your mental grit and starts making decisions for you.

I’m happy to say that so far Estrid seems more than ready to get back on it so fingers crossed we get to finally start our 2024 Endurance season.

What a 3 months it’s been. I’ve applied my Physio rehab knowledge and we’ve had a nice steady return to the level of work we were at before our roly poly. So here’s hoping we can now progress her fitness work, increase our strength and have a few nice outings in the 2024 season.

My core principles for rehab start with something a little controversial, but something I’m seeing more and more equine Physio’s and vets adopting, and that is active recovery. We stopped box resting humans a long time ago and although you can’t tell a horse that it’s allowed out in the field only if it stays in walk and straight lines there are things I have applied to Estrid’s box rest to ensure she’s not just resting and staying still.

So while she was in her stable 24/7 I used electro muscle activation for 20mins a day to help maintain her muscle tone and activation. We did daily carrot stretches, pelvic tilts and tummy lifts. We used wobble cushions to shift weight and activate joint stability and we hand walked on a hard surface in straight lines.

I then break my rehab down into 3 week blocks (normal training I use 6 week blocks) and focus on one pillar of fitness at a time. For example 3 weeks of walk increasing the time by 50% a week. Then 3 weeks of strength, adding in hills and poles to the walk work. Then 3 weeks of adding change of direction such as circles and lateral work. I then increase the intensity by raising the poles to make it more challenging and bringing in trot work but not increasing the overall time of the sessions and never introducing more than one new element a week.

Our rehab has been fairly linear in it’s progression so I’m hoping we’re out the other side but this is horses so anything could happen. I’m confident that I have done everything I could do to get her back to where we were. Now we start ‘training’ instead of rehabing and see what happens.