Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

My new 3.5 year-old gelding Leo and I are off to a great start, and I 
have LOADS of questions and thoughts about bringing along my new 
partner.  Luckily he's completely untrained so I don't even have to 
think about over-conditioning problems.  But here are a couple of 
wonderings:

James the Wonder Farrier plans to bring up Leo's underrun heels over 
time (they're medium, not terrible), and now I'm torturing myself over 
what's happening to his joints in the meantime.  Is this silly?  Say it 
takes 6 months to straighten out his feet, will he have suffered 
permanent joint stress?  His owner believes that "Arabians shouldn't 
have real short toes", so pushed her farrier to leave 'em too 
long--again, not horribly so, but enough that the heel sloped under.  
Should we be being more aggressive by using shoes, or is handling the 
problem with frequent trimmings on his bare feet best?

The second thing I'm mulling over is the use of surcingle and side 
reins.  As a future endurance horse, or for any horse really, should I 
be letting him stretch freely with nothing or use the surcingle and 
side reins on either the low or middle connector?  It's been a long 
time since I messed with any of this.  My last horse was so mellow I 
just waited until he was old enough and did most everything while he 
was loose in the round pen, then from his back.  Leo's not currently 
suited to that approach.... (read:  he'd send me flying 3 or 4 times a 
day for weeks.)  My other thought is to use driving reins instead of 
side reins.  Anyone with experience out there care to comment?

Mary K. who today talked Leo into sticking his own nose into his own 
halter while standing next to a bright blue umbrella.  He was soooo 
proud when he finally touched the umbrella and discovered it didn't 
bite.  So he bit it. 
 


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