Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

oops, I meant draw reins not side reins!!  Sorry about the typo.

Jackie

Jackie Causgrove <fairhairwolf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I used to use roads to condition horses all the time when I lived in Michigan.  I just had shoes on the various horses' feet (anything from Tb's to QH to Shire/Tb cross) and they did fine.

 

Crazy drivers are everywhere.  I had people throwing stuff out their windows, blaring their horns at us and yelling "Hi ho Silver etc", trying to make my horse spook.  The drivers thought it was funny. Some drivers would just zoom by!   However, horses became literally idiot proof and bomb proof; so something good comes out of it.  When I had a horse straight off the track, I would ride in side reins. 

 

I only took one "hairy" ride.  I had ridden down to the feed store to put an order in.  While I was placing the order (I was dismounted and standing slightly in the doorway of the office, holding the reins) and the air brake of a semi went off.  My horse was spooked but nothing too badly.  The next thing we encountered was cows.  This horse was not happy seeing cows but was doing wonderful piaffes!!  Finally (and the deal breaker as far as this horse was concerned), we encountered a silver balloon caught in some trees with the sun glinting off of it.  Well, that had to be an UFO and the aliens were going to get us.  The shoulder of the road was narrow and then a deep drainage ditch.  My horse literally went all 4 feet off the ground and moved sideways.  We were going to come down into the drainage ditch.  I figured I had 2 choices.  Either hang onto his head and risk him not being able to balance himself upon landing or give him head and deal with the run away charge that was sure to happen.  I choose the latter.  Something about a horse falling on top of me that didn't appeal to me.  Of course, next to the ditch was a thicket of trees and we shot straight into those trees.  In order not to get to whacked in the face, I bent down and laid down on his neck; which being off the track, only meant to run faster.  He just tore out of there!  We popped out into a large field and then jumped a fence into some guy's yard.  It was about then that I finally regained control (not one of my better rides and fortunately, these are few and far between!).  Of course, I had no idea where I was at and we finally got home a couple hours later (ever try to ask directions at a gas station on horse back.  Ya get laughed at!  :)  I had several cuts and scratches from branches but other than that, we were too worse off for wear.

 

However, I did do a lot of road riding in those days and on some rather green, flighty horses.  So, I figure one crazy ride in the lot isn't too bad.

 

The only other thing I did consistently was to support my horses' legs when riding on the roads.  They always had splint boots or bandages on.

 

I would use the horse's physiological response to slowly increase the amount of road work we did.  12 miles at a fast working trot is what I used for a goal (although I was conditioning horses not for endurance but for the show ring).

 

Jackie

 

 

 

 

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