How many hour per year do you ride

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How many hours per year do you ride

0-20
1
6%
20-50
0
No votes
50-100
0
No votes
100-150
4
24%
150-200
1
6%
200-250
7
41%
250-300
2
12%
300-350
2
12%
 
Total votes: 17

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musical comedy
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How many hour per year do you ride

Postby musical comedy » Tue Jan 16, 2018 9:11 pm

I put hours instead of days because some people consider it a ride when it only lasts a few minutes. Hours are a better measurement imo. Doing it by year is better too, because some people may ride for 1 hour 5 days a week, and then miss months at a time.

Do you keep track of how many rides you do? I do. I keep a daily journal; otherwise I would forget.

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Chisamba
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Re: How many hour per year do you ride

Postby Chisamba » Tue Jan 16, 2018 11:08 pm

I have a weekly white board, it has all the horses on it, and days of the week, then I check the horses, and have an initial for what kind of ride I did on each horse. At the end of the week I take a photo of the white board and then I erase it and start over.

Not including, trail rides, beach rides, hunter paces or horse shows, and averaging out for six months and then doubling it, because it was easier than counting every photo, and I did not know how accurate you wanted me to be, ( i am not sure what your reason is for asking) you do not have a number up there high enough for my vote.

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musical comedy
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Re: How many hour per year do you ride

Postby musical comedy » Tue Jan 16, 2018 11:50 pm

Chisamba wrote:I have a weekly white board, it has all the horses on it, and days of the week, then I check the horses, and have an initial for what kind of ride I did on each horse. At the end of the week I take a photo of the white board and then I erase it and start over.

Not including, trail rides, beach rides, hunter paces or horse shows, and averaging out for six months and then doubling it, because it was easier than counting every photo, and I did not know how accurate you wanted me to be, ( i am not sure what your reason is for asking) you do not have a number up there high enough for my vote.
Chisamba, I was thinking of hours per horse, not hours per rider. My reason for asking is just curiosity. I read on the goals forum so many people don't ride for weeks, even a month or more, at a time. I don't know how anyone can keep a horse in reasonable fitness unless they ride it consistantly at least 3x a week and if one is on a path towards higher level work, they need to ride even more. This number comes from Hilary Clayton, whose opinion I respect immensely.

I also don't think some riders realize how many days they miss. As I wrote, I am forgetful. Without logging it it, I don't remember.

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Re: How many hour per year do you ride

Postby Kyra's Mom » Tue Jan 16, 2018 11:56 pm

Well, due to my health issues, I have probably ridden about 6 hours in the last 2 years. Not by choice but damned, I wanted to sit down a little bit. I really miss having my butt in the saddle. My body has fallen apart since I had to quit riding. I think it really does help with fitness and back health. At leas that is what my back is telling me :P .

Prior to all my infirmities and surgery, I probably rode about 100 hours per year. Again, due to the tailbone spur I had, my saddle time was limited. Even with shorter sessions, I felt I could make some progress. What I like to do normally is a nice warm-up and a 20-30 minute arena session then another 15-20 minute hack for cool down. That would bump me up to about 200 hours per year. Not a lot of time but it is my hobby and recreation, not my job. When I could ride, I was pretty consistent with it week in and week out. If I were trying to show, I would definitely spend even more but alas, right now that isn't to be.

Whether I can get back to a decent amount remains to be seen. I am super involved with elder care this winter so decided to just give the butt a rest to finish healing and get out to 1 year post-op before I give it another try. If that try doesn't work, I will probably sell the horse.

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Chisamba
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Re: How many hour per year do you ride

Postby Chisamba » Wed Jan 17, 2018 12:41 am

oh, hours per horse, that is different, lol, i did not understand you to mean that. I will have to go back to my white board photos

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Re: How many hour per year do you ride

Postby Fatcat » Wed Jan 17, 2018 1:18 am

200+ Hours per year. I ride my horse an average of 4x/week year round. Winter is harder as I have an outdoor arena, but weeks without rain or in the summer, I'll ride 5-6 days. Some weeks I'll get rained out to only 2 rides. Arena rides are an hour, trail rides are 1.5+ hours. I also have a driving pony now that I try to drive 2-3x/ week weather permitting. She's current laid up with a lameness though.

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Re: How many hour per year do you ride

Postby StraightForward » Wed Jan 17, 2018 3:31 am

For the year or so that I was training Maya intensively, I'd say I averaged 4 rides per week. I would shoot for six but then subtract out times I have to travel for work, or something else coming up. Probably 150-200 hours. Even in traveling for work, I would prioritize squeezing in a ride before leaving town Monday morning, and then riding Friday evening when I returned if at all possible, to avoid missing days.

Annabelle currently gets 3x a week riding and 2x a week ground work, for a total of a little over 100 hours of saddle time annually, and another 50+ hours of ground work. In a few months I'll bump her up to 4 rides a week with total saddle time about 45 minutes per session.
Keep calm and canter on.

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Re: How many hour per year do you ride

Postby Dresseur » Wed Jan 17, 2018 2:44 pm

I can't math well at all lol.

I do 30-45 min 4-5 days a week, but life gets in the way from time to time.

My own personal saddle time is much more than that. Often I ride 2 horses throughout the week. And at least once a week I ride 7-8 horses at 30-45 mins each. That gets rough after a week of sitting at my desk lol.

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Re: How many hour per year do you ride

Postby khall » Sun Jan 21, 2018 1:25 pm

Well I try to ride 4-5 days a week, does not always happen and it is not always for an hour. I have had rides where I get on get what I ask for and get off in 20 m. 2017 was a very unusual year for Rip and I, between his health issues (thought I was going to have to PTS in May from NCS) to on vacation for over 2 weeks (week in Spain riding Andi"s!! and a week in Rome with DH and DS) to brutal hot summer (you guys have too cold to ride we have too hot to safely ride especially when there is no shade:( ) to DS a senior now and aging parents and dad diagnosed with Alzheimers i.e. lots of doctor appts and testing I am going with them to.

Having said all that though I think there are IMO 3 issues involved in riding dressage horses well. Fitness, strength and flexibility. Fitness is cardio, strength is muscular and tendon/ligament and flexibility is muscular, tendon/ligament. All require different approaches and IMO need more than just rides in the sand box. Coming from an eventing background, trot/canter sets are my go to for fitness, why I like to ride out in the fields. One of the best strengthening exercises is piaffe and lateral work is essential to build flexibility in our dressage horses. Rip's fitness is not where I want it to be this year due to various issues, but because of the in hand and US piaffe work we have done his strength is really coming and his flexibility with the lateral work we do is there in spades. Hard to believe my big massive boy can be as flexible as he is now.

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Re: How many hour per year do you ride

Postby Chisamba » Mon Jan 22, 2018 2:51 pm

Musical comedy, I did notice that if i had just thought about how many hours i ride ( about so many times a week and hour a day) it tended to add up to quite a few hours more than when i followed my white board, which is honest and accurate. We miss more rides than we realize, for one reason or another.

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Re: How many hour per year do you ride

Postby piedmontfields » Mon Jan 22, 2018 3:06 pm

I do keep a journal of rides (what we worked on, anything I noticed + any health observations). But I don't think "hours per year" is that meaningful in terms of training. I don't do the long trail riding (6+ hours a ride) that I've done in the past; however, that kind of riding also involved a lot less training and progression IME.

As members of my barn community will attest, I show up and ride even when the weather is terrible (as long as it is safe to do so). I find my horse does best with a least 4 rides a week and better with more (including a mix of activities in and outside the arena).


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