When do we train vrs. condition?

My advice is to train before your horse runs you over running away from the very scary bridge.
Unfortunitly I did not follow that advice! Not that she really ran me over, but just bumped against me, which even that she is well trained enough to know not to do. So I have decided that it is time to get her over this whole bridge thing, she is eight after all, she should be used to them by now!

So on Sunday (the day I tried my new saddle out, yes I did get it!) rather then heading off on a long conditioning ride up into Big Basin, I decided to end my ride at my bridge (that I have been getting off to walk her over) and just work her over the bridge for a while.

First I worked on her going over it without my getting off, she came really close to going over but she got so worked up that I held her back and didn't allow her to go over since I was concerned about what she might do that freaked out on the bridge. Once I decided that she was at least willing to consider going over I got off and walked her back and forth over it about six times. Then I got back on and rode her over it about four times.
She did great! She was much calmer about it after that.

In the end we did get some conditioning in when we decided to trot up most of the hill! We trotted about a third of the way up then power walked the rest of the way. I was very pleased because she is getting closer to being able to trot up the whole thing ( which will bring her back to the level of fitness she was at before she got sick).

So I need to remember that sometimes I need to train vrs. condition.


I might as well put todays ride into this post as well. It was fairly uneventful other then being my first real ride in my new saddle! Very exciting! Oh something kinda cool did happen. Lucy and I heard a tree fall. I don't know why its so cool, but I found it to be really cool!

I think I have hit upon our current conditioning regime. I don't really have one but was following one without realising it!
So currently our rides are roughly about 10 miles long, so they can be anywhere from 8 to 11 miles. We are riding from home so about 3/4 to 2/3 is walking. We walk down our road, then up Gazos into Big Basin then we do off and on trot for a couple miles (generally not more then 4) then we ride back possibly doing some trot up my road. So all in all we only do about 2 to 3 miles of trotting. So over the last couple of weeks I have been uping the langth and duration of trotting but not the over all langth of ride. I have to not only condition her body slowly, but I am also conditioning her mind to trotting for long periods of time.
So far its working well and I am very pleased!
I think once we start trotting almost all of the flat I will up our langth of ride to 15 miles (with some 10 milers still added in) and have medium langth walks inbetween longer trots.
I need to start cantering her more so she gets used to it so we can do interval training down the road.