Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Take a horse that is used to driving his hind feet into the sand and 
pushing hard as the sand cups his foot. His foot didn't move and he 
could push as hard as he liked. Now transport that horse to somewhere 
with a muddy trail and he drives that hind foot back - expecting it to 
stop and have something to push against - and you can have a bad case of 
hyper-extension.

To some extent it's all what you are used to. In the sand the horse 
needs to learn how to get up out of it. A daisy clipping trot which is 
normally great - is a real problem since it will force the horse to 
change his way of going to get his feet up out of the sand so he can 
bring them forward.

I would have thought that the upper midwest would have had a lot of 
rides with sand - particularly in Michigan.

Truman

Sisu West Ranch wrote:
> "....I suppose that if a horse was not used to it at all there
> would be some risk. But I would expect that if a horse had a good base
> that risk would be minimal..."
>
> There used to be only one ride in the MN WI area that had a fair 
> amount of deep sand.  The RM's (I was one) used to carefully warn the 
> participants that they should go slowly through the sand.  There were 
> always lots of slight lamenesses and a few tendon bows.
>
> My takeaway is that the lack of bounce (??) really puts strain on legs 
> that they are not used to it.  I know that Valerie K. carefully 
> trained Cash with sand and hard going before her win in Holland (half 
> sand, half hard roads).
>
> On the other hand, I did ride the Big Horn 50 with 6 other riders from 
> the Midwest.  We were out to have a good time, didn't push and found 
> that our flatlander horses did the hills fine.  I know my current 
> horses benefit from the hill work we do.  Some is unavoidable here.  
> My most flat training loop has probably 1000 ft of up and down in the 
> 7 miles.  When I want to do hill work, I can go from 3500 to 6070 ft 
> in 8 miles up the mountain.  That surely gets the hearts pumping and 
> the back end a workout.  We usually charge up the hills, and go 
> relatively more slowly down.  The idea is to not put tremendous strain 
> on the front legs.  Seems to work for us.
>
> Ed
> Ed & Wendy Hauser
> 2994 Mittower Road
> Victor, MT 59875
>
> (406) 642-9640
>
> ranch(at)sisuwest(dot)us


--

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite 
of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."    Niels Bohr 
-- Nobel Laureate, Physics




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