Good morning, all

[Dave McWethy]

What a pleasure to wake up to the Fjord list! Hello Percy and Inger, and Julie.Hearing about Nordfjordeid makes me want to call the travel agent.  I'd love to be there this year, but I don't think it's going to happen. Brian, never hurts to remind us about the rich grass.  I nearly foundered just hearing about tall grass.  We are just seeing a carpet of green in the valleys, and just the hint of it on our hills.  I was leading a mare yesterday - a notorious grass diver - who put her head down, because I think she could hear the grass growing, but she only got a mouthful of dry dead grass. Steve, you mentioned fitness after the winter.  I am told that horses that are very fit, like endurance horses, do not lose that fitness over the winter, as people would.   I would expect this retention of fitness would be the same at every level of initial fitness. To put things in a sentence: when in doubt, walk.  The best thing to do, starting fitness work is walk.  With a horse with no fitness at all, I would mostly walk for the first month.  They'll handle anything, uphill or down, with no problems at a walk.  As time goes on I trot where it is easy for them.  Understand that where I live, in NH, most of our terrain is up hill or down, with flat places being rare.  Even when my horses are fit, I don't trot up or down a hill with any steepness.  They can do it, and they might want to canter up or trot down a hill, but my belief is that it is an invitation to lameness.  My strategy is to make my time on the flats and gentle hills, and walk the rest. In competition I have seen that this enables you to go the farthest.  This is confirmed using a heart monitor.  Trotting up hills can get you heart rates over 150.  I am not sure at what point they go anaerobic (can you answer this, Brian?) but you will see dramatically increased fatigue over heart rates of 135.  I have found the heart monitor is a terrific tool to let you know how much stress the horse is under. In an unfit horse, I want to give the heart and lungs, joints muscles and tendons a chance to develop under low and moderate stress. Fitness, with horses as well as people, is not an overnight thing.  For endurance horses, as a rule of thumb, you can figure it takes two full years of consistent work to get a fit horse.  Within the first year you will see dramatic improvement, and you can start competition.  After the second year you will still see improvement, but in smaller increments. When I started driving horses, I had no idea of what I was asking of them, and what the limits were.  Through competition, and using the heart monitor, if anything I have become more conservative.  I don't want to worry folks to the point where they are afraid to ask anything of their horse.  Rather I would encourage people to think of it as a long term program.  Competition, especially competitive distance rides and drives, will tell you how you're doing.  For me, the competition was also an ongoing motivation to do the day to day work. No doubt about it, the conditioning is a lot of work, for horse and person.  Not everyone will be able or interested in doing it.  Not everyone really needs a fit horse.  But when you have one that is fit, it is a delight.  The horse will look good, behave well, you can do anything with them, and you get a great feeling of personal accomplishment. A major goal for me is to not have any - zero - lameness that could be avoided by not overstressing or prematurely stressing of a horse.  With the good strong legs and good conformation of the Fjords, this should be an easily attainable goal. Great sunny day here today.  I'll have the mares out putting on some miles! Dave