We continue to work on that trotting speed. The first split is our warm up which kind of gets us where we are going. Split 2, 3, and 4 involved a .33 mile flat trot and a short .14 mile very steep hill climb which she trots up. Then walks down (and eats time).
Split 5 and 6 are just back to the flat trotting. 7 gets us out onto the other side of our loop (includes the melt down) and 8 is the cool down. Her flat trotting was a little stronger tonight, noticed we were in the 8 mph range a few times. I'll bet it will take me all summer to build that trotting strength. If the shoulder heals up.
Split | Time | Distance | Avg Speed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summary | 2:33:34.5 | 10.74 | 4.2 |
| 1 | 36:23.0 | 2.29 | 3.8 |
| 2 | 5:24.0 | 0.47 | 5.2 |
| 3 | 5:12.4 | 0.47 | 5.4 |
| 4 | 5:14.5 | 0.48 | 5.5 |
| 5 | 2:47.1 | 0.33 | 7.1 |
| 6 | 3:03.6 | 0.33 | 6.5 |
| 7 | 1:04:34.0 | 4.38 | 4.1 |
| 8 | 30:55.9 | 1.99 | 3.9 |
Oh no!! Better go get that checked out... I hurt my shoulder this past winter.. I never did get it checked out but I certain I tore something. its better but not 100% and it's been 6 mos.. take care of yourself... !
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about the shoulder!
DeleteI have the same problem with my gelding. Yesterday we did about 5 miles in the fields, with a definite "away from the barn" / "towards the barn" pattern. He usually crawls away from the barn, races back. So for a few months I've changed from the regular pattern we do which is mostly all-away and then all-back to doing a bunch of back and forth.
We pick one short straight portion, trot away from the barn a ways, turn around and trot back towards home, turn around trot away.. you get the idea. I do it five times. Then onto another short portion, back and forth 3 or 5 or 7 (vary it) times again. My horse gets tired of this really really fast and eventually just sighs and stretches his neck down and gives me a nice trot both ways. Boring as hell, but that's the idea. Have you ever tried that? We covered the 5 miles in 45 minutes
KT
A variation of KT's suggestion is to use a little reverse psychology - Journey says she wants to be with her buddies, you say, here let me help you and trot her right over to her buddies and start putting her to work - circles, side-passing, whatever you think. Then go away from her buddies and let her relax and maybe even graze a little. Then if she wants to go back to her buddies, lather, rinse, repeat. I'll bet it won't take long before she decides that being with her buddies is not so great after all. This really works with Doc. He is happy to go away from the barn and his buddies because he has learned that I will let him rest and eat some grass somewhere, sometime. In the beginning, you have to reinforce your idea a lot, but after a while, it is their idea. :-)
ReplyDelete