Training for 2017 Competitions – December 2016 & January 2017 Workouts
I’m going to keep a log of what sort of training I do as I gradually get Gamble up to appropriate fitness for Eventing in 2017. The medium-term goal is to get to Bromont’s CCI 1-star event in June, and then we’ll look at doing some Intermediate or maybe even 2* horse trials after that, likely in the U.S. (New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan). Assuming, of course, that everyone stays healthy! As part of this training, I’ll be heading to Aiken SC from mid-March to mid-April so that I can get a jump on the competitive season. Dec. 26 2016: Training officially started today! We started with a 4k trot cardio on side of the road, from Baamoral Acres to the corner of Denfield and Medway Roads and back. 4.2K at an average pace of 5:01 per k: https://www.strava.com/activities/815222874 Dec. 27, 2016: Trassage (trail dressage) for 30 minutes. Worked on collected sitting trot and collected canter, plus leg yields. Dec. 28, 2016: Rapport died this morning. A tough day. Just did a trail ride with Tori and Joey for 30 minutes. Dec. 29, 2016: 4K trot cardio. Gamble was a little more confident going out than the first day. Always faster coming back. Average pace: 4:42 per k: https://www.strava.com/activities/815222949
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Dressage Lesson with Michaela Pisters
I had an excellent dressage lesson with Michaela Pisters today. I was looking for exercises I could do in order to work on proper collection. We ended up with both exercises for that goal, plus working on collected movements such as shoulder-in, travers and half-pass. After warming up I should do a couple of 10 m. circles to a shoulder in, and then straighten. Then a couple of 10 m. circles to a travers. Then a couple of 10 m. half circles to a half pass. I need to remember to keep my torso relaxed. Keep my right shoulder down, hands together, legs down. My shoulders back, arms in. I need to work on gradually keeping Gamble’s head higher and rear-legs more underneath him. Keep the energy up. If he stalls on a shoulder-in or travers, straighten him out and move him forward. When doing a medium trot across the diagonal, a couple of quick taps with both legs once we are set up and pointing in the correct direction.
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A Quiet Summer — Slightly Bowed Tendon…
Every time I go out to ride, I look at the back of my horse’s legs. Even if I do virtually nothing else before tacking up, I know that if there is a problem with a horse’s legs, it is most likely to be exhibited the tendons and ligaments that go down the back of their legs — and mostly on the forelegs. So when I went out to ride Gamble on a morning tempo-run hack on June 3 — two days after my dressage lesson with Phil — I did my normal look and, much to my dismay, Gamble was showing a slight bow in the superficial digital flexor (SDF) tendon that runs down the back of his right leg. Crap. So I called Dr. Tara Foy out to have a look and she confirmed my fear that he’d “bowed” a tendon. We’d dodged the bullets with Gamble for 3 years, but sure enough he’d done something to stress the tendon. It wasn’t at an event and certainly not in the dressage lesson 2 days ago. So he must have done it in the paddock during his day off, of all things. Gotta bubble-wrap these guys I guess. Note, however, that he wasn’t ever lame. But one has to let this sort of issue heal, or you could ruin the horse. At just 8 years old and having completed 2 Intermediate level events, Gamble has lots of time left to compete. Tara took an ultrasound and sure enough there Continue Reading →
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Pace Run – 6 km at Prelim Speed
It has been 5 days since our Intermediate event at Grandview and while I don’t think Gamble over-stressed himself on the XC there (it was just 3 km), I didn’t want to work him too hard tonight. It’s always a balance of trying to find that workout that keeps him fit (and gets him fitter) but doesn’t stress his legs too much. With a month until the next Event, we have lots of time to get him fit, so I aimed for 6 km at Preliminary speed — 1:55 per km. Now, we were doing it along the side of the cornfield and there isn’t a lot of area to turn around at the top end, so we were galloping a bit faster than the 1:55 target in order to get time for our turns. Here are our splits: 1:58 1:54 1:56 1:54 1:59 1:57 He was definitely working at the last two repeats.
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Pre-Will O Wind Event Extreme XC
With our first CIC * event coming in 2 days, it was time for me to do our mini-extreme XC course in the valley behind our house. It went well — especially the big table fence, which Gamble sailed over. Here is the table fence: I’d say we’re ready!
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Speed Work – 6 x 1 km repeats…
Just one week until our first CIC * event, so I wanted to get our speed work in with enough time for Gamble’s muscles to fully recover before the Event. After warm-up, my goal was to do 1 km at 1:55, then 1:45, 1:35, 1:35, 1:30, 1:35, with 2 minutes between each repeat. Here are our splits: 1:57 1:46 1:36 1:36 1:29 1:39 It was warm out — 25 degrees C. — so Gamble had quite the sweat on by the time we were done. We walked out for a good 25 minutes (including 3 splashes in the river and water park) plus a rinse off when we got back. I was quite happy with his response. No problem getting making the target times — other than the last lap, where I had to slow down to pass Tori and Rapport. The CIC * next weekend will have a distance of 3,120 m., so he should have no issues with that. Even a CIC *** has a maximum distance of just under 4 km, so I suspect he’d be able to handle that even today. But one step at a time.
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Dressage Lesson with Phil Parkes
Today, Phil came up to Hearthstone Farm to do a lesson with me. He does an excellent job of explaining things in a way that my non-dressage mind can understand. He reviewed my test — both the marks and the video — and we set to work on getting improvements in the various elements. Here are the main take-aways: 1. Trot down the centre line: Make it very forward. Sit up — tall and proud — in such a way that if Gamble was taken out from under me, I’d still be able to stand up in the position I’m sitting on him. So not leaning forward, not leaning back. (We shortened my stirrups one hole — my feet should not be dangling.) 2. Halt at I: Don’t rush it. Keep leg on into the halt and don’t use reins to stop him – use your seat. You don’t want it too abrupt. Once he stops, take a deep breath. Then salute. Then take another deep breath. Then onto the next movement. 3. Working trot to S: Work on getting him to go from halt to trot smoothly — no walk steps. 4. Change rein from S to F in Medium Trot: Assume it is 100% effort — extended trot. 5. Collected trot: Bring him back and get him balanced for the next movement, the shoulder-in. 6. Shoulder In from K to E: Very little neck bend. Make sure it is 3 tracks, which is a fairly significant angle (15%-ish?). Continue Reading →
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Jumping lesson with Holly Hayman: Hold mane! (Really!)
Tonight I had my first jumping lesson in a long while. Seems like roughly 5 months! And while the jumping at last week’s event at Woodwind went okay, I know that we could be doing better. The 1.2 metre fences don’t look big, which is a huge help from a confidence perspective, but we’re getting over them due to my lack of fear and Gamble’s athleticism. When I got to the arena, Holly had a surprise for me: She was warming up Loyal, a Grand Prix level jumper. Apparently his personal best was a 2.2 metre puissance wall in Austria. So this boy could jump! And she wanted me to ride him so that I could feel what it was like to have the energy of a real jumper underneath me. It was an eye opener. While I’m continually giving Gamble “encouragement” with my legs, spurs and occasionally crop, with Loyal it was all about harnessing and managing the energy. He had energy to burn and you especially had to watch it as you pointed him to a fence! Holly had me going as slowly around at a canter to approach the fences and then no later than 9 feet away from the fence, let him pick the distance and get over the fence. And once over the fences, collect him back again. It took me a while to get used to the fact that I didn’t have to give extra encouragement with my legs which would cause him to Continue Reading →
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New Speed Work / Tempo Run Hybrid
Today we did our cardio workout, but instead of doing 1 km repeats or a 6 or 8 km tempo gallop, I did a bit of a hybrid: 400 m. gallop repeats with a 100 m. canter rest in between each repeat. Here are my paces: 401 m. – 1:59/km pace 94 m. – 2:30/km pace 401 m. – 1:53/km pace 118 m. – 2:21/km pace 421 m. – 1:57/km pace 109 m. – 2:02/km pace 389 m. – 1:42/km pace 108 m. – 2:08/km pace 412 m. – 1:53/km pace 107 m. – 2:04/km pace 447 m. – 1:43/km pace 147 m. – 2:11/km pace 410 m. – 1:56/km pace 111 m. – 2:07/km pace 426 m. – 1:42/km pace 129 m. – 2:06/km pace 420 m. – 1:55/km pace 106 m. – 2:09/km pace 422 m. – 1:47/km pace 332 m. – 2:23/km pace 437 m. – 1:49/km pace In total, we did just shy of 6 km in 11:57 — an average pace of 1:56 (so, Prelim level, on average). My Intermediate level pace is to be 1:49 — but because I’ll slow down at each fence, we need to be faster than that between fences — ideally 1:40/km., in my view. It’s interesting, above, how little we seem to slow down during the 100 m. rests. That is because it takes some time for us to slow down when we stop the tempo gallop. It can easily chew up half the 100 m. rest break. So, Continue Reading →
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Woodwind Horse Trials – May 4, 2014
Today’s event went pretty well. Not in terms of our score or placement, though: We were dead last, which is exactly where I expected we’d be. But we got through all of the elements and did some pretty substantial fences in the process. My dressage mark sucked: 49.3%. But I didn’t think the test itself was that bad. Here it is: And here is a link to the dressage test results. Anyhow, we clearly need lots of work on this element. (One contributing factor that I don’t think actually was an issue, was that Gamble didn’t want to leave his stall (low ceiling, skinny aisles) so we only had 15 minutes of warmup.) For Stadium Jumping, Gamble did lots of fences from up close — almost stalling out. But we got over everything with just one knock-down, so I’m happy(-ish). But then came XC: Lots of big fences, although a lot of them I’d already done at the Prelim division last year. I’d say 30% of them I’d done previously. The biggest one was the Barn — 3’8″ high x 6′ wide. Quite a few were max height — 3’9″. Anyhow, Gamble did them all and by the end, he was doing everything with confidence. While I screwed up and didn’t have my helmetCam going (no battery power), Kate got some video of a lot of the fences: Some things to remember: 1) ALWAYS review the video. I got 20 penalty points and a few time faults for missing fence Continue Reading →
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