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I pulled that number out of my ass.
I don't even know where I came up with it. Really.
The other day, I determined that I was absolutely going to time one of my rides. I looked at my phone. Got on. Rode. Got off. Put horse away. Cleaned tack. Went home.
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Sooooo. No clue. It seems like important information as far as measuring fitness levels, so I'm going to redouble my efforts (if I remember) at some point in the near future. In the mean time, does anyone else have any idea how long they spend in the saddle on an average day?
Before all this surgery nonsense, my typical ride was right around 40-45 minutes. Now, of course I'm a lot more limited than that- 12 minutes woohoo!
ReplyDeleteOn average, between 45 mins to 1 hr. More if we run into problems or I'm on a long hack, less if I'm doing trot/canter sets or am generally short on time or the pony is magically wonderful that day.
ReplyDeleteYes, same here!
DeleteIncluding warm up & cool down probably 45 min - 1 hour.
ReplyDeleteI'm a watch wearer so I do time the majority of my rides from when I actually swing my leg over until dismounting at the end. I keep a riding log and also a spreadsheet of riding and lunging times (I'm a huge nerd when it comes to obsessively tracking things ;-D ). My rides in the last year have ranged from 10 min (after a hard lunging session), to 3 hours (long chill trail ride), but my average is 50 minutes. Just a note, I've found it's really necessary to check time when you are actually mounting up or dismounting. I used to check my watch while tacking up but then if my horse is being a jerk about bridling, or I stop to chat to a barn friend on the way to the arena, it throws the length of time completely out of whack.
ReplyDeleteI admire your system. I kind of wish I could do that.
DeleteI set an alarm because Fiction gets too antsy and loses his brain if we work for too long. 10-15 minute warmup (longeing or other activities), followed by 30 minutes of pure work.
ReplyDeleteMikey worked for about 40-50 min, with a break. Penn works for 20-30 min, sometimes with no break and sometimes with a break if we're going for longer than 20 min. I don't want to fry him, and when he's good, I want to finish up quickly so he knows he's been good.
ReplyDeleteI ride for about 30 minutes if it's just us messing around and working on stuff. But when we go on trails or go to do some ranch work around our place (checking fences and all that fun stuff) we're gone from anywhere to an hour to three hours. He loves the latter.
ReplyDeleteI try to ride for at least 45 minutes. Anything less and Tucker starts to look a little pudgy.
ReplyDeleteI'm usually at 30-45 minutes. My horses are old, and I don't like to push them so hard that they're exhausted at the end of every ride. I pepper in longer work on the weekends, but never much more than an hour and a half (and most of that is at the walk).
ReplyDeleteLessons are always over an hour. When I'm hacking on my own, it depends on time and efficiency but I'll go from 20-40 minutes.
ReplyDeleteI'm a solid 30-35 minute rider, unless out on a conditioning ride. I work HARD for that time, barely any walk breaks, and I start the ride with a general game plan of what I want to work on. I think its less about time and more about accomplishing your gial for the day or ending on a good note.....
ReplyDeleteAnd by gial I mean goal...blerg
DeleteIt depends on what I'm trying to accomplish. Anywhere from 20 minutes to 60 minutes. On average, about 35 minutes. I am a fairly obsessive clock-watcher because I work hard to make sure Tris has enough warmup (solid 15 minutes of walking) and I can get wrapped up in our work and lose track of how long he's been trotting or cantering, so watching the clock is my safeguard against overdoing it.
ReplyDeleteI am working multiple horses, so I go for as long as it takes to get something good and move on as fast as I can. Sometimes my 2-year-old will get just 15 minutes to work on one ground work task and then on to the next horse. When I need to get out and just hack for a mental break, usually a half hour is about right. Lessons are tough on me because riding for an hour straight only happens at lessons!
ReplyDeletei try to time my rides fairly consistently, tho the optimum time depends on what we're doing. if it's show prep, and the horse feels schooled and ready to go in 13min, then so be it, we're good (and yes that actually happens with my saintly mare). if it's just a regular schooling, i shoot for about 40 min, sometimes longer.
ReplyDeletedepends on mood too, really. sometimes if i feel like we're getting good enough work but to keep pushing would cause a fight, we'll just be done. other times we feel like we really *can* push the envelope and keep going. but it usually evens out to about 40min.
I just recently started wearing a watch to see just how long I ride. Usually it's been about 40 minutes, not including cool down, but including a relatively long walk warm-up and two or three long walk breaks. Anything more than that and it becomes counter-productive - although I do push through the last 5 minutes when we're both tired so that I know we CAN put in quality work when we're tired.
ReplyDeleteWhen my horse has a fully intact brain, he gets ridden for 20-30 minutes. But when his brain escapes and we have to go on an epic longeing quest to find it, we're probably doing 25-35 minutes of longeing (trying to get that down a bit but it's not working) and then 15-20 minutes of riding afterward. So we're more in the 40-50 minute time frame more often than not at the moment.
ReplyDeleteIf i'm hacking on my own, usually about 20 min. Unless he's being a turd and we need to work longer, but mostly I keep it short and sweet.
ReplyDeleteLesson are 30 min to an hour depending how many people are riding with us. And I do love a long leisurely trail ride, 45 to an hour on the loops I know so far.
For me it depends on the day. Am I hopping on to cool them out after long line work and reinforce some of what we worked on, only now with LEG? Or am I getting on from the beginning and working on one thing when I have actually planned on working on something else? This is usually what happens, right? How much time do I really have before I even get on? It's a crap shoot at any time.
ReplyDeleteI have 1 hour lessons twice a week so I'm pretty set on my timing even when I'm riding on my own. 10 - 15 minute long rein warm up, 30 minutes hard work with some breaks scattered throughout depending on heat and intensity, 5 - 10 minutes cool down. The timing can get shifted around but the warm up is essential and not to be messed with or I suffer for the rest of the ride. If it's a hard jumping lesson, we'll work for less than 30 minutes. If it's a position lesson or something light for mi papi, we'll work for longer and take less breaks.
ReplyDeleteI am similar to this. I have 45 minute lessons usually, and attend those already warmed up (I try to do 10 minutes of long rein walking and some lateral), some trotting, and some cantering. So probably a 10-15 minute warm up. I generally WORK for about 30 minutes, with several long-ish walk breaks in the middle. I'm thinking of trying to be more exact with my timing this winter though, as I want to start getting more fitness into my dressage rides.
DeleteOn a good day, between 4 and 5 hours. On an indoor day, 45 minutes to an hour.
ReplyDeleteWith Indy it just depends on the day, it really just depends on how long it takes her to start attempting to behave. Some days it takes her a half hour while others it only takes a few minutes. So, I guess I'd have to say that I try to get in 15-20 minutes of quality work with her. I'm trying not to build up too much endurance yet because it's quite easy for her fitness to come along much faster than her behavior.
ReplyDeleteI ride until I feel like I accomplished what I set out to do. Some days that's 45 minutes, some days it's 15. I only time my conditioning rides and that's easy because I'm crossing off w/t/and canter sets as I go.
ReplyDeleteI'm neurotic and most sessions get timed. If I'm outside of the arena, I'm also counting miles with an app like Endomondo or MapMyRun. Arena rides are usually between 30-45 minutes because we are focusing on stuff like transitions, quality of gait, lateral movements and flexibility, and I don't like to drill excessively. On trail, my minimum is an hour, and during that hour I expect to cover from 5 to 6 miles. For true conditioning workouts, I look to cover 10 miles in 1.5 hours. My longest conditioning rides average from 2 to 3 hours, with the expectation of covering up to 17 miles during that time.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with most posters- 45 to an hour- but usually on 30 minutes of work work
ReplyDeleteWhen Pig is in shape and working normally, we usually do 40 minutes to an hour. Warm up for 20, work for 10, break, work for another 10 or 20.
ReplyDeleteRight now we're up to 30 min of walking and 5-10 min of trotting. Whooo!
It depends on what we're doing that day and how good the horse is.
ReplyDeleteRiding wise, I'm still trying to remember how to just sit the trot without flopping around like a dead fish, so I manage to make it through about 20 minutes of work before I am totally exhausted. But, it gets a little better every time.
Driving O, it depends on how ramped up she is, and how long it takes to either wind her down or get her going. Usually when driving, she starts out a bit lazy and then gets into a good working groove. Generally my rule is that if we're doing something above general braindead fitness work (i.e. trotting down the road for miles without even thinking about what we're doing), as soon as she mentally handles it well, we finish. For fitness work, we set a mileage and a speed and work off of however long it takes to accomplish that.
I rode Gogo a solid hour or two hours six days a week when we were in peak fitness. I'm not sure I would do that again now though, looking back.
It really depends on what we are doing.
ReplyDeleteIf it is just a quick after work hack, it's probably 30minutes.
If I am going out to school and WORK, it comes out to 1 1/2 (the arena is a 20min hack away which adds up to about 40min of walking to and from...)