RE: [RC] conditioning on old roads - Alison Farrin
Several
years ago when I went to Ireland, we rode for three days out of Killarney on
Irish Sport horses that trotted for hours on the asphalt roads.
Side note –
it was quite amusing to see a horse and trap or a couple of horses go by with
no riders or drivers.The “short
trail ride” (not the 3 day ride we did) was about 5 miles.At the end, they turned the horses
loose in the direction of home.The horses went home by themselves to the stable where a waiting
stablehand removed their tack and turned them out.The riders went on to dinner with their guide.
I asked
about lameness on these horses that did 10 miles a day, several days a week on
asphalt.The guide said that they
had the occasional tendency toward suspensory soreness.Any horse showing soreness was usually
pulled and rested for a week, then put back into work.Some of their horses had been doing the
trail ride for 7-10 years at this rate with very little lameness issues.They did get the winter off for the
most part, although some of the same horses hunted in the late fall and early
winter.
Made me
less worried about riding on asphalt and more inclined to condition on it more.
Alison
Innovative Pension Strategy & Design
-----Original
Message----- From:
ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Barbara McCrary Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 3:59
PM To: Jonni; Ridecamp Subject: Re: [RC] conditioning on
old roads
From what I have always
heard, conditioning on hard roads eventually leads to horses that can handle
hard roads better than the rest of us. I am amazed at the way horses in
the Mojave Desert and the hills around Reno and Carson City, NV handle the rocks
and hard surfaces. Ask Dave Rabe (Carson City) whether some desert or
other has a lot of rocks and he'll say, "Nah, not many rocks in this one',
and then we coastsiders with soft footing to train on will do that ride and end
up with footsore horses. What you train on is what kind of terrain your
horses seem to become adjusted to. Having just bought a horse used to
rocky high desert, I realize how resistant he is to the few rocky areas we have
here. Unfortunately, after he goes through one of our winters, his feet
will soften and he won't have that resistance any more.
I
think this thread is sort of like ones on "rocky" trails. What might
be rocky to one rider, is hardly rocky at all to another.
What
might be a hard packed dirt/gravel road to one, is good footing to
another. The fire access roads I used to ride on in So. CA around the
local mountains was a very hard packed decomposed granite. But that was pretty
nice footing compared to the current condition of our gravel/dirt roads here in
No. TX right now. We've had little rain, and our gravel roads are packed hard
and smooth. More like riding on asphalt or concrete. There is no
"give" to the surface when the horses foot lands. They sure don't
leave foot prints.
Someone
send us some rain please........
Jonni
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