More than once have I made fun of someone for being a weekend warrior. I’d see people struggle with their fresh unruly horses and tell them that if they bothered to ride during the week, they wouldn’t have these problems. I’ve rolled my eyes at amateur jockeys who managed to make gallops only on Saturdays and holidays, and then asked for rides. And then real life hit. I was a single mother. I had jobs. No time and less money.
Suddenly the only way to ride at all was if I was willing to compromise… I had to be a weekend warrior one way or another.
(But see my related post: The dangers of infrequent exercise.)
The best way to be a weekend warrior
My first solution was to step back. For years I only rode other people’s horses. I galloped for trainers at the racetrack in Madrid (Hipódromo de la Zarzuela). Being an experienced amateur jockey (i.e., free skilled labor) means you get to ride out on the safest, best horses, and you don’t have to do anything other than groom, tack up, ride, and rub down. (Sometimes your horses are tacked up for you, but I prefer to do my own.) It’s great. No vet bills, trained horses when you can.
Above: Bringing up the rear as we rode out to the main track on a Saturday morning long ago. Being a weekend warrior was great at the racetrack in Madrid.
Yes, I was 100% a weekend warrior. And no, you cannot get as fit that way. I couldn’t have ridden a race. Maybe I could have, if I had spent 4-5 intensive weeks to regain form. I was running 2-3 miles during my lunch breaks at least 3 times a week, so it would have been possible. But when you are a single mom with small children, you don’t get 4-5 weeks to do what you want. Ever.
Being a weekend warrior (nearly) in grad school
In 2009, we moved from Spain to Arcata so I could get a Master’s in Psychology at Humboldt State. (About the academic me.) At first, I had too much to worry about as a single mom going back to school to think about riding. After a few years, withdrawal set in, and I began to look for horses to ride. I found them at Paragon Arabians, where I began riding Arabians on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Weekends with benefits!
Ultimately, riding for Rosalie Stephens at Paragon led me to Fantazia. Before Fantazia, however, I had her full sister Lady in Oklahoma while I was a PhD student at University of Oklahoma. The thing about being a grad student is that you have flexible hours. Yes, you work upwards of 60 hours on a good week, including class, studying, writing, research, and teaching or working on a grant. But lots of those hours can be done in the middle of the night or other times when you wouldn’t want to ride anyway.
There were weeks when I couldn’t ride at all, but there were other weeks when I rode every day. In Oklahoma I began riding Morgans again, thanks to an old friend. I also got hooked on endurance, thanks to a new friend, Melissa. As I soon learned, endurance adapts well to a busy life that might include being a weekend warrior out of necessity.
I’ve avoided being a weekend warrior for the most part…
Since I came home to California in 2020, I’ve been teaching as adjunct faculty. At first, thanks to COVID, I could ride nearly every day. This was great, because I could spend a lot of time with first Fantazia and then my Morgan gelding Beroni.
By the time I had to teach in person, Fantazia was fit and doing 50s. A fit endurance horse needs very little work between rides. In fact, Fantazia needed so little riding that I missed Beroni more than ever. (See my post Saying good-bye to Beroni.) But when Fantazia started her extended rest (hopefully she’ll get bred too), I got Jazz. Jazz is notfit for 50s. He’s still at the building stage.
Above: Ponying Fantazia with Beroni in spring 2021. I had plenty of time last spring, because I was teaching online (and only twice a week in the morning). But ponying is a good way to work two horses at once when you ARE forced into being a weekend warrior!
But now that I’m bringing along Jazz, I’m a weekend warrior out of necessity!
Yes, Jazz could benefit from a more flexible riding schedule. Ideally, I’d be riding him 3-4 days a week. Next best would be spacing his two rides (Wednesday and Saturday, for example). I’ll be able to do that in July, but I’m teaching a summer session now (General Psychology Monday through Friday mornings). Yes, I could get up at the crack of dawn and ride, if I sacrificed other responsibilities. But I’ve got family, and I need to be able to think in the evening. So Jazz gets ridden Satuday and Sunday.
Life of a weekend warrior’s horse
On Saturday, we do arena work. It’s hot, but I still use the outdoor arena in the name of heat-training. Typical ride? 10-15 minutes warm up at a walk, with leg yielding, turns on haunches and forehand, bow-ties. 12-15 minutes trotting, making sure to exercise in each direction equally. 5-6 minutes cantering/loping. Cool down in cow pasture and driveway, walking and grazing, for 20 minutes or so.
On Sunday, we go out on the trail. Jazz is at the walk-up-increasingly-steep-hills stage. Last Sunday we did 5 miles with 1,800′ total elevation gain. Slowly (nearly two hours). Jazz is a very talented horse with amazing lungs, so he’ll progress quickly. But at a once-a-week schedule it’s better to go slowly. Tomorrow (today is Saturday) we’ll do the same loop, but the other way, which has steeper up-hill grades. I lead him down, so it’ll be more work for him this new way.
Jazz’s weekdays
Fortunately, Jazz has a lot of room to exercise himself. During the day, he’s in his barn quarters: big open-sided stall attached to a paddock that’s about a tenth of an acre. Fantazia is right next to him in her own space. I put them out in their pasture at 5pm, and they stay there till we get up (usually between 5 and 6:30am in the summer). It’s a great pasture, nearly three acres on a steep hill with an irrigation ditch running through it.
Of course, they prefer to be in the barn because they are closer to other horses there. Too bad. It’s better for them to be out, and they’ll appreciate the grass in the spring. The best thing is that they move around a lot. Right now, Fantazia is at the vet to be bred. This means Jazz paces the hillside. I’ve had to block him on the far side of the ditch to keep him away from the fence, where he gets worked up when there are people around and kicks up dust. On the hill he just walks calmly between bites of dry grass.
Pacing drives me nuts, but it’s serving as a free hotwalker at the moment. I figure walking several hours a night will add up to quite a bit of free conditioning.
Abive: Jazz entertaining himself with a treat-dispensing toy… keeps him busy during the day and slows his eating. (It’s got alfalfa cubes in it.)
Is being a weekend warrior bad for my horse?
No. (As long as you don’t overdo it when you do work. More on that in my next post.)
It’s not ideal. Jazz won’t be as trained as I’d like as quickly as I’d like. He’s quite fresh when I get on Saturday, and we spend time just settling down. Then we just do forward, working on rhythm and relaxation. Never really get around to fine-tuning, because that requires the calm focus that comes with more regular work.
Nor can I follow an optimal conditioning schedule. I won’t be able to build his lungs, hard and soft tissue as efficiently as I otherwise could. But it won’t hurt him, and I’m not in any hurry. Barring unforeseen circumstances, Jazz will still be ready for an LD this fall (my original goal).
It’s a good thing he doesn’t have to live in a stall though!
No horse should be stalled 24/7 without daily exercise. Even if turned out for a few hours a day, a horse needs exercise. Hotwalkers or ideally something like a EuroXciser can help, but of course most of us don’t have those!
Even better, it’s only till July
Summer session ends in a few weeks, and I’ll have all of July and half of August before I begin my new job. New job is great news–I’m excited about it, and it will mean a decent paycheck and benefits. The downside is that it’ll mean back to being a weekend warrior, at least part of the time. I’ll be out of town Monday through Thursday during the semester, with occasional Friday meetings.
Still, some Fridays I’ll be able to ride, and there’s always holidays. And once Jazz is ready for an LD, I’m fairly certain he’ll progress quickly to 50s. At that point, being a weekend warrior is an advantage, because that’s all the work he’ll need!
And that, friends, is one of the main attractions of endurance for a working person. You can do much of it on the weekend! If you’ve got any suggestions for making weekend-only riding work, please share in the comments!
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