10/17/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DptyLa9xj/
Random galloping or timed interval sets for fitness?
I started eventing in 1962, but until I was chosen to be part of the USET 3-day squad in 1974, I’d only heard about interval gallops, but wasn’t familiar with how they were set up.
I can’t remember specifically what I’d done prior to 1974 to get my horses ready for long format 3-day events, where the four phases of the second day might amount to 15 miles, but it was some combination of lots of trail riding, usually hilly, with some random gallops.
When I went to the USET headquarters on Bridge Street in South Hamilton, Massachusetts in June of 1974, all that changed.
Our coach, Jack Le Goff, had learned from the trainer who’d helped Roger Bannister break the four minute mile, and he explained that stress, followed by brief rest, followed by stress, then rest, in a clear sequence, triggered recovery systems in the body.
Fifty years or so ago almost every USA upper level event rider was using some variation of Le Goff’s interval training, and that system was producing horses who were consistently winning the biggest international competitions.
I am sort of out of the loop, and my question is this---Is interval training still the primary system used today? If not, what is?
