Re: [RC] Horses staying in shape and knees - Truman
Catfish,
I ride my mare on a 55 - thing I finished 5 galloping past 10 horses in
the last 10 miles. I went home and got on an airplane on Monday. I was
going out to support a major military exercise and was going to be gone
for abour four weeks. I asked my wife to ride her some. While I was
gone I asked her if she had ridden the mare and she said, "she is being
a real bitch, there is no way I'm going to risk my life riding her." I
get home 3 and 1/2 weeks later, climb in the truck and drive up to the
Carolina ride where I was going to do the 100. The mare had done
nothing but be in the pasture for 31/2 weeks.
The first 10 miles we are galloping sideways and about 15 miles I gave
up - actually gave out and we ended up doing the first 50 in 5 1/2
hours - a lot faster than I wanted to go. This ride was in Nov so
there wasn't much daylight so we had to slow down in the dark. We would
have done it in about 13 hours hadn't we not gotten lost (different
story ) for two hours 1/2. She really wasn't tired at the finish. She
was too damn fresh going into the ride since she came close to killing
me.
Bottom line to all this is if they are out they tend to maintain pretty
well. It all depends on the type of shape they were in prior to the
lay-up and for how long they were in top shape. An experienced
campaigner will maintain condition much longer than a horse that just
got into top shape. My experience - and this has been documented by
studies - horses maintain conditioning a lot longer than humans.
As far as your knee. A good friend of mine went though this and ignored
his doctor. By the time he finally decided on surgery - easy
micro-surgical repair was not an option. He had to have a cadavers
ligament used to repair his. The next step for him is an artificial
knee! There will be another Tevis - there won't be another knee.
Truman
Catfish Daniels wrote:
Hi everyone:
Just recently two topics
were discussed, to which I sorta
didn’t pay much attention to. Today I wish I had, and any
comments/suggestions would greatly be appreciated – and I apologize for
the repeat.
This morning I
mis-stepped why standing on the back of my
truck, and landed with a fully extended knee below – hyper extended it
pretty badly. Anyway, can’t walk or put weight on it, it’s
pretty swollen. It feels like a prior meniscus injury I’ve had 18
months ago to which I elected to physical therapy and exercises rather
than the
recommended surgery. Long story short, same swelling, same knee. No
sympathy, please…my own stupidity. My question are these:
1)For all 100 milers: If
this injury is the same
as the last one I had, I won’t be back in the saddle for about 4-5
weeks,
about beginning of July (if I’m lucky). I’m on the entry list
for this year’s Tevis Cup. I know timing is very bad, but given
what I’ve got to work with, how long can I “sorta” expect for
my horse to stay in shape without being exercised? My mind’s
playing tricks on me, and I swear he already gained 900 lbs when I
missed this
morning’s training ride. Tevis is July 31st.
2)As for the recent
discussion about knee problems,
what is the best experience any of you have had with different knee
braces for
best support while riding?
Just like last time, the
doctor’s orders (and I’ll
see him on Tuesday) will be either surgery and/or lay off for a good
while. And obviously that Tevis is “out”. Stupid on my
part – yes – but any suggestions on how to successfully “attempt”
to break the doctor’s orders would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much for any
suggestions you may have. I’m
sorry to bother you guys with this sorta stuff.
