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Re: [RC] Barefoot horses & pavement - heidiRegarding the pavement issue Kari is having with her horse, Doimas does the same thing when the pavement is smooth. He doesn't like those little sharp stones along the side of the road. I try to look at things from my horse's perspective. He walks where it feels the most comfortable. This is very true, and particularly for a barefoot horse that has any thinning of the sole. The immediate comfort is what the horse reacts to--he doesn't factor in such things as repeated concussion causing soft tissue damage in the future, or excess wear that might also cause future discomfort. He looks at the here and now--and the pavement is in his eyes often the more viable choice. FWIW, I like doing some riding on hard roads (I avoid pavement, but more for the traffic, as we have a good hard county road that serves the same purpose) as a part of my LSD training, as it helps to toughen up the soft tissues and helps the bone remodeling. One doesn't want to do this at speed in the beginning, but with a green horse, hours and hours of WALKING on such surfaces will do wonders. I really admired the horses in Europe that conditioned regularly on pavement and cobblestones and then went on to compete on same--I rode a horse on his first endurance ride (120k, or 75 miles) in Bremen, Germany, several years ago, and nearly the entire ride was on pavement or cobblestones. But he had been conditioned on such surfaces in Denmark, and never had a problem with it. I was sure a lot more freaked out by it than he was! Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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