When preparing a horse for an event that is going to require a lot of them physically, interval training can be a good way to get them ready. Consider a horse that will be required to travel at a speed of around 600 metres a minute, over the duration of 4 minutes.
When training the horse, many people may opt to use continuous training as their method. This would involve working the horse at a faster pace, but over a shorter length of time, or at a slower pace, but over a period of more than 4 minutes. The idea of continuous training is to avoid the exact replication of what will be required of the horse during competition, but to make sure that they’re capable of carrying out speed faster than will be required, and exercise over lengths longer than will be required.
Being able to carry out such tasks can become an issue if facilities aren’t available to work the horse over such conditions. For example, a horse that may be required to work over a mile (1600 metres), cannot be tested over this distance at a fast speed if the property only has room for an 800 metre track. This would involve either:
- Finishing, going back to the start and working over the same ground a second time; or
- Turning the horse around and working backwards over the ground just covered
This doesn’t allow for continual training of the horse and therefore doesn’t mimic the same conditions as would be required for a horse to continually work over 1600 metres. In this regard, interval training can be appealing.
Interval training allows for smaller bouts of exercise, carried out multiple times. In between each exercise is a relatively short rest or recovery period. The idea is to push the horse, allow them a short rest, and then push them again through the same exercise.
Benefits of Interval Training over Continuous Training
Consider a horse that is required to gallop 2000 metres. If asking this of the horse in a continuous training method, the full 2000 metres will need to be covered in one exercise. The longer a horse works, the more likely they are to fatigue, increasing the risk of injury.
Another option is to make use of interval training by having the horse gallop over 800 metres, three times, with rests in between of walking for around 10-20 minutes. The argued advantage of such a method is that the horse is given a short space of time to recover and is only being asked to gallop 800 metres at one time, lessening the risk of injury. The end result however, is that the horse has actually covered 2400 metres, rather than 2000, increasing the amount of ground that the horse has been worked over.
Although not necessarily ideal in all circumstances, interval training has its place – especially on properties that may not have the facilities for a horse to carry out long periods of galloping. With the short rest in between each session of exercise, interval training is seen as a less risky way to ask more of a horse.
Source:
- Equine Exercise Physiology, Marlin, D., and Nankervis, K. Blackwell Publishing 2002. ISBN 0 632 05552 9.
Chris Thomas - C. Thomas has studied and worked with horses since 2001. She teaches horse studies part time and is undertaking an Equine Science ...
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