Action Ambrose

Action Ambrose

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

8 miles under saddle.

  01/18/2010, Tuesday

Ambrose seems to do everything well for where he is at.  We are lucky that he is a very good eater and we are able to maintain his weight with the amount of work that we are doing.  Today was a ride day, so we booted and saddled up.  Plan was to do the 8 mile down into the canyon and up the other side, this ride has about 2000 feet of elevation gain.

Ambrose trotted all the way to the lake, which is 1 mile and change, there is a 1000 feet of elevation loss to give you some idea of how steep the grade is.  Ambrose kept the pace at a fast trot all the way up the other side, I remember seeing 175HR, but only for maybe 30 seconds, is was then back to around 160.  Upon reaching the first plateau is HR dropped to 120 within 30 seconds, which I consider good.  We continued on up to the top and turned around.  You can tell he is going to be a go home horse as he immediately pick up the pace as soon as we turned around.  The trail is still very muddy and slippery so going downhill it is mostly at a walk.  Once back at the bottom then we have a nice road back up to the top.  Ambrose has only trotted this so far, so today I let him canter a little.  He seemed strong all the way up, HR did top out at 170 or so.  Once we reach the top we then walk for another 20 min for our cool down.

Next we will teach Ambrose how to stand and how to stop and backup.   Right now I have to mount while he is in motion,  if you asked to stop and stand, he does not seem to know how to do that.  I try and do a one rein stop with him when mounting, but need to take some time and teach him properly.

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