Fitness, horse anatomy and other randomness

Leo is back in action!

It was cold and windy on Tuesday, and I was expecting Sally's lessons to be in the indoor - but nope! They were in the outdoor ring! I suppose you can't go back to indoors after being in Aiken for 3 months. Leo was fantastic! It's the first time he's jumped since early March. Sally said it was the best she's ever seen him jump so needless to say I'm really happy with the hock injections. Everything that has transpired this winter has made me hyper aware of how my training program will affect his muscle development and level of soreness. Bringing him back into work last week, we walked for 30-45 minutes each day, with just a smidgen of trot and canter thrown in. For the walking, I incorporated one day of road walking, along with the trails. I was a little worried that I didn't do enough going into my lesson, but he felt great the day after.

MCTA

Sally approved my decision to aim for the MCTA Horse Trials as my first event of the season. She said Leo looks happy and is in great weight; getting him fit should be no problem. I sent in my entry this week! I'm excited!

Fitness Schedule

Wednesday I did trot sets out in the xc field (5 minutes trot, 2 minutes walk, repeat 3 times).  I wore my stop watch and boy did Leo get excited when it started beeping! We'll do more trot sets Saturday and next week add in three slow canter sets to the mix.

Jimmy Wofford publishes a lot on fitness - there's a whole chapter in his book Training the 3-Day Horse and Rider. In this Practical Horseman article, he says, "As a rule of thumb, I think your horse is probably fit enough for Novice and Training competitions if you can slow canter twice the distance (or a little more) of your cross-country course. If you are aiming at a cross-country test that will take five minutes, build up your horse gradually until he can slow canter a total of 10–12 minutes. Once you have asked him for this amount of work, he should tolerate it easily. His temperature should be almost normal, and his pulse and respiration should return to near his personal baseline within seven minutes."

The trot sets serve as warm-up for the canter sets. The 10-12 minutes of canter should be broken into sets and the length of time should be a goal, not something you achieve the first day. He says to aim for 9-minutes of canter to start (3 minutes sets of 400 mpm canter) and build up to 4-minute canter sets.

You never know what life has in store...

I came across a great blog the other day (google search 'eventing blog'): Comedic Eventing. The blog follows rider, Maggie Deatrick and her horse, Divine Comedy (Dante). What's cool and different about this blog? Maggie never competed above Novice before Dante, nor is she a professional. She's an amateur rider who juggles work with riding. She got Dante when he was 4 and together they have made it all the way to the advanced level of the sport! Maggie said in her blog she had no idea how far they would go. She never actually planned to make it all the way to advanced, it just sort of happened that way. Dante was not an ideal jumper - he jumped over his shoulder at the lower levels and didn't appear all that scopey. But as the fences got bigger, he just kept jumping higher. "Dante only ever jumped as big as he needed; he always jumped as big as he needed..." Here's her story and it's great!

The Anatomy of Stretching

Thanks to my new anatomy book, I have learned about the nuchal ligament. The nuchal ligament support's the horses head and neck, and helps maintain spinal posture. It essentially enables the horse to sleep standing up; the neck muscles can be at rest and the nuchal ligament holds the head up. In dressage, the neck muscles are responsible for raising the poll and carrying the head in a more advanced outline. When training, these muscles can tire which manifests itself with a fussy and resistant horse. In these instances, the horse should be encouraged to stretch down. This allows the nuchal ligament to come into play and absorb the weight of the head and neck, allowing the muscles to relax and recuperate. When the nuchal ligament is taught, the back and ribcage will raise which in turn helps develop the back muscles.  

Other interesting anatomy related factoids....

• Horses can see both near and far simultaneously. Combined with their almost panoramic vision, and it's amazing we ever have their attention. 
• Horses don't see much in the red spectrum - so the next time you have to jump a scary red fence, don't worry about it :) 
• Over-heating can damage tendons, which is why boots need to be well-ventilated and explains why so many new xc boots are focused on improved air circulation. 
• Lower leg injuries are slow to heal because of poor blood supply in the lower limbs
• The anatomy of a horse's brain does not allow for any pre-meditative actions. They can only respond to a situation based on memory and instinct.