LSD and dense tissue (was Early Training)

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

>
> All athletic horses need a certain amount of LSD (three to six months)
> to develop a foundation of hard-tissue strength. Bone responds directly
> to the stresses applied (Wolf's Law). The earlier you start, the greater


Just happened to read this again while cleaning out the mailbox---as usual,
Bobbi's explanation is excellent, EXCEPT.  I wouldn't want anyone to get the
mistaken impression that 3-6 months of LSD produces the end result of
rock-hard bones, tendons and ligaments ready for any challenge.  Yes, it's a
good start, but the only tissues that can really be brought to a full level
of response in 3-6 months are heart and muscle, NOT the dense tissues.  It
takes a good year or more of incremental and consistent work to get even
close to a full response from tendons and ligaments, and up to three years
for full response from bone.  So for a horse that has not previously had
consistent work, then 3-6 months IMO would be the bare minimum for a horse
to then safely go through a SLOW 25 mile ride---not one where his muscles
and heart and brain are writing checks that the legs can't cash!

There's a good reason why the horses that rack up long career miles are
generally the ones that first spent a few years poking along at the back of
the pack, or spent time doing ranch work, or CTR or whatever.  Yes, you can
condition a horse to top ten a 25 or a 50 within a few months, and every now
and then those horses are still around after the first year.  But you can't
fight physiology and no one should fool themselves that just because the
horse was standing on all fours the next day and they couldn't feel any
obvious heat or swelling doesn't mean that damage didn't occur.  It did.

Just my two cents as usual.

Susan G