iloveequine40 - 2016-06-15 10:42 AM Let me preface my comment by stating I'm not an nfr qualifier, I do know a few and have seen some of them conditioning their horses and I'm NOT trying to be combative just making an observation as a human personal trainer and athlete myself. The 4 miles of cardio training is great however our horses are not only running straight lines. They are turning/pushing off (squatting) and reaching/pulling(think upper body, like pull ups). Long trotting and loping alone while keeping those muscles condition on some levels need simulation exercises, such as turning a barrel to be completely developed to make that turn more powerful. This can be achieved in a variety of ways using different drills and ground conditions(resistance). I'd be interested to see what types of exercise they do in say off season to keep these muscles in shape. I'm not referring to training, in a sense of knowledge, but physical training.

iloveequine40 - 2016-06-15 1:42 PM

Let me preface my comment by stating I'm not an nfr qualifier, I do know a few and have seen some of them conditioning their horses and I'm NOT trying to be combative just making an observation as a human personal trainer and athlete myself.
The 4 miles of cardio training is great however our horses are not only running straight lines. They are turning/pushing off (squatting) and reaching/pulling(think upper body, like pull ups). Long trotting and loping alone while keeping those muscles condition on some levels need simulation exercises, such as turning a barrel to be completely developed to make that turn more powerful. This can be achieved in a variety of ways using different drills and ground conditions(resistance). I'd be interested to see what types of exercise they do in say off season to keep these muscles in shape. I'm not referring to training, in a sense of knowledge, but physical training.

Herbie - 2016-06-13 12:32 PM

Marlene McRae outlines a 4 mile warmup in her book.  She talks alot about conditioning and exercise and the importance of a thorough warm up. 

She even talks about venues that don't have a good warm up area and her stopping somewhere close to the rodeo and getting the warm up in before she gets to the rodeo grounds....it's that important to her. 

I'm a firm believer that a warm up such as this, combined with an exercise program that builds a horse up to being able to handle this type of warm up is a fantastic way to keep a horse from ever starting to bleed and getting a bleeder back under control. 
 

Herbie - 2016-06-13 12:32 PM

Marlene McRae outlines a 4 mile warmup in her book.  She talks alot about conditioning and exercise and the importance of a thorough warm up. 

She even talks about venues that don't have a good warm up area and her stopping somewhere close to the rodeo and getting the warm up in before she gets to the rodeo grounds....it's that important to her. 

I'm a firm believer that a warm up such as this, combined with an exercise program that builds a horse up to being able to handle this type of warm up is a fantastic way to keep a horse from ever starting to bleed and getting a bleeder back under control. 
 

scwebster - 2016-06-15 9:34 AM

FLITASTICs mom qualified for the NFR. Maybe he knows a little. 

skye - 2016-06-15 2:27 PM

Wow!  How exciting!   

CanChick - 2016-06-15 3:12 PM When I hauled hard in 2008, I can honestly say that my horse got more rest time than exercise time.  During the winter run, there was plenty of time off during the week to exercise them 2 or 3 times a week, but from about June on, he rested during the week as much as possible.  If he made 4 or 5 runs a week, that was plenty, IMO, so he got to rest.  I would take him out of his stall and let him roll, graze etc, but if I had him in portable panels, I would try to just let him rest.  My horse slept alot so he enjoyed his "down" time.  As for exercise, I would try to long trot him and maybe lope some circles.  I didn't work him on the barrels unless I felt we needed to fix something but I also have different beliefs than most when it comes to barrel work. 

As for feed, I kept hay in front of him all the time, even when hauling.  Grain, he got a molasses based feed twice a day, 1.5 pds twice a day and then of course his supplements, which there was only two of them.  His hay is a good grass/alfalfa mix, probably 60/40.   

Hope that helps. 

 

winwillows - 2016-06-14 6:32 PM Not my intent to turn this tread into an advertisement. I can only show those feed programs that use RG simply because those are the people we work directly with. On the topic, I do see a lot more horses running on less grain based concentrate and better roughage than we did in the past. The stress of hauling to as many rodeos as it takes to make NFR does not need to be increased by having an unbalanced digestive system. You can't feed a horse to be faster than it is genetically capable of running. More and more people are looking at reaching the absolute potential of the horse by maximizing digestive efficiency rather than thinking that more and more high starch feed will give them a faster horse.