A truly horrible view. Photo by me, Kate Samuels.
Yesterday I woke up to a black sky, and a full morning of thunderstorms and heavy rain and generally miserable conditions. Then, halfway through the day, it all completely blew over, the sun came out, it became beautiful and I even saw an incredible rainbow in the afternoon. Sometimes, I think that Virginia truly can’t make up it’s mind what season we are in at any given time.
U.S. Weekend Preview:
The Fork CIC & H.T. [Website] [Entry Status] [Ride Times] [Live Scores]
CDCTA Spring H.T. [Website] [Entry Status] [Ride Times] [Live Scores]
Chattahoochee Hills H.T. [Website] [Entry Status] [Ride Times] [Live Scores]
Pine Hill Spring H.T. [Website] [Entry Status/Ride Times/Live Scores]
Spring Bay H.T. [Website] [Entry Status] [Ride Times]
News From Around the Globe:
John and Beezie Madden announced the retirement of the amazing Cortes ‘C’ yesterday on Facebook. Tiny, as he is known in the barn, is best known for his cross-legged jumping style and was successful with Beezie for many years, including a Team and Individual bronze medal at the 2014 WEG, and competing in the 2016 Olympics before sustaining an injury. We’ll miss you Tiny! [Cortes ‘C’ Retires]
Gold Cup Fast Facts: The Fork and Chattahoochee Hills
Hot on Horse Nation: Goat Equitation
Doesn’t your perfect pony deserve the fluffiest of fluffy sheepskin shipping halters? For all those long hours on the road to get to events, clinics, and lessons, you want your precious darling to keep his/her head safe while traveling, and there is no better way than outfitting them with a giant fluffy halter. SmartPak has an excellent one that won’t break the bank. [SmartPak Product of the Day]
KER ClockIt™ – Session of the Week
In this week’s session, a rider takes her horse out for cross-country training using hills. As you can see in the session below, the horse’s heart rate (purple line) increases when the horse goes up each hill (blue line), despite minor changes in speed. By using a hill, riders can easily raise their horse’s heart rate into a higher conditioning zone without increasing speed.
Multiple KER treadmill studies have shown that exercising horses on an incline greatly increases work intensity as measured by oxygen consumption, heart rate, and lactate production. These studies have shown that at a canter speed, a 1% increase in grade increases a horse’s heart rate 6 bpm—the same effect on heart rate as increasing speed 35m/min on a level treadmill. Therefore, equal heart rates can be obtained by cantering horses on a 6% grade at 490 m/min as from galloping on the flat at 700 m/min.
To see a detailed report like the one above, go to the KER ClockIt website and log in to your account. Once you are signed in, you can view your detailed sessions under the “Sessions” tab.
