Training your horse involves a lot of work and focus on improving your horse’s skill set in a chosen athletic endeavor. Yet, similarly important is the degree of conditioning your horse achieves over time. Conditioning has multiple benefits with improvements of not just musculoskeletal tissues of the limbs, haunches, abdominal core muscles, the topline and neck. It also improves the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, nervous system, proprioception (awareness of position and placement of limbs and body), and balance, as well as providing mental stimulation along with building a horse’s confidence. All these benefits improve with fitness.
Varying the surfaces on which a horse is exercised brings additional benefits that develop the physical strength of a well-rounded equine athlete that is mentally engaged in the work.
Injury Prevention
Probably 90% of equine injuries are due to repetitive strain and an accumulation of microdamage. The majority of “acute” injuries develop over time. With this in mind, the use of various surfaces in training allows distribution of varying strains across various musculoskeletal tissues – bone, ligament, tendon – thereby minimizing repetitive stress. Bones and soft tissues of young horses are highly adaptable and strengthen in response to exercise on varying surfaces. For an older athlete, use of different surfaces minimizes the amount of daily micro-damage of musculoskeletal structures while allowing time for repair of injuries.
Gradual introduction to new riding surfaces is important. Early in the competitive season, it is not unusual for a horse to be acutely sore after their first event. This is often because they are worked on one type of footing at home, sand for example, and are then asked to compete and train on a completely different type of footing such as fiber or different track surfaces. With initial exercise on a new surface ridden at reduced intensity, such as flat work and easy exercises, a horse adapts gradually to new footing.
It is best to expose a horse to the same surface as the competition surface twice weekly for at least six weeks to give muscles and other soft tissues time to adapt. Consider the effect of repetitive exercise on the same surface day after day: Exercise regimens that lack variation increase wear-and-tear on joints, while bone remodels with adaptation only to a specific constant surface. This leads to a potential for bone stress fractures, especially in horses involved in speed-related sports. Additionally, repetitive exercise without variety is likely to have mental impacts on both horse and rider. A horse may become sour and resistant; a person becomes bored or frustrated with lack of progress. Changes in scenery and variety in training skill sets can work wonders for temperament of both horse and rider.
How Long Until Benefits are Apparent?
Development of fitness is in part related to how fit a horse is prior to a lay-up period or if moving to a new surface. Horses detrain rather slowly and can maintain fitness for longer than human athletes. It is best to pursue at least three weeks of low intensity exercise to establish an aerobic base. This is then followed by long slow distance training to build a sound foundation. Then, the horse can progress to moderate intensity training. During these conditioning strategies the horse undergoes cellular changes that begin around weeks 4 – 6. By weeks 6 – 12, muscle fiber types start changing to adapt to specifics of the required athletic endeavor.
Once a solid conditioning base has been established, interval training is incorporated to optimize skeletal and muscular strength. Bone responds best to short (5 – 10 minutes) intervals of high impact loading three times per week. Adding in 5 – 10 minutes of trot on a firm surface achieves maximum bone response without damaging cartilage and soft tissue structures. Too much pounding damages joint cartilage and starts the path toward osteoarthritis. Tendon tissues are more adaptable in young horses (1 – 2 years); then a subsequent conditioning objective is injury prevention. Cross-training in different tasks and on different surfaces prevents the accumulation of microdamage that leads to soft tissue injury.
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