Building a training session

Lessons & Training

One day’s work: warm up, exercises with gait and effort, cool down, plus stop conditions, substitutions and who does it.

Inside a program, each day is a card. Select Add on a day to write a session, or open an existing one to edit it. Drafts and active programs are both editable.

The basics

  • Date and time - a time is optional; “Any time” puts the work mid-day on the queue.
  • Type - Training, Lesson, Competition, Rest day or Other activity. Only Training builds out into a full workout and reaches the care queue.
  • Title and Objective - “Trot sets”, “Aerobic base without strain”.
  • Total minutes - how long the session should run.
  • Copy from a saved session - start from another session in this program instead of a blank one.

Warm up, exercises, cool down

Add one or more warm up and cool down blocks, each with a duration and instructions (“Walk, big turns”, “Loose rein walk”). In between, add exercises - “Forward trot intervals”, “Hill work” - each with:

  • Reps and Duration each - “3 x 5 min” is 3 reps of 5 minutes each, not 5 minutes in total.
  • Gait - walk, trot, lope, canter, gallop or mixed.
  • Effort - Very easy through Maximum. This is the effort you are prescribing, not a reading taken from the horse.
  • Recovery between reps - how long the horse recovers, and the gait to do it in. Walking unless you say otherwise.
  • Instructions - cues and details for whoever rides it.
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Stables checks your arithmetic

If the timed pieces add up to more than the session’s length, you get a “Check the timing” note telling you by how much. It is arithmetic, not a judgment about the horse — shorten a block or extend the session.

The rest of the card

  • Stop or shorten if - one condition per line, like “Any head bob”.
  • Substitutions - acceptable swaps when footing or weather rules a block out.
  • Equipment and Location - “Ground poles, cones”, “Outdoor arena”.
  • Price - what this session costs. Blank means it isn’t billed, even inside a priced program.
  • Assigned to - the facility (anyone), a specific staff member, or a service provider.
  • Rider notes - visible to the horse’s owner.
  • Internal notes - staff only, never shown to the owner.

Rest days and other non-training sessions keep just the basics: they mark the plan without prescribing a workout.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can two people edit the same program at once?
Stables refuses to overwrite silently. If someone else changed the session while you had it open, you are told and shown the current version so you can re-read and redo your change.
Does removing a session undo work already done?
No. Removing a session takes its upcoming queue item away. Anything already completed stays on the horse’s record.
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