[RC] Conditioning a New Horse - Early Years, and Turn-Out - Karen Everhart
I so agree with Stagg.
My competition horses are on 240 acres of rolling, rocky
pasture with at least 14 other herdmates. They move all day,
eating, playing, walking uphill and downhill. They often run
flat out over sharp flint rock, without taking one misstep. My current
life doesn't give much opportunity for anything but a rare pleasure ride yet
they never show signs of distress during competitions.
Horses evolved moving for miles over irregular terrain in
search of forage and water. If given the opportunity to do something like
that every day, I suspect they can perform quite well at many stressful
endeavors.
Of course, the same could be said for humans. We
also evolved moving from place to place following the "food". Now, if we
just did more of that everyday, and less sitting at our computers with an
abundance of food already hunted, killed and dressed and cooked for us (read
Pizza Hut, etal) we could most likely go out and run a 10 K without much
stress:-)
