>I'd like to hear from some of you that do some of your conditioning on the
>pavement.
I believe the horse benefits from a moderate amount of pavement
conditioning. The horse is going to encounter pavement or very
hard-packed roads on some rides, and should be prepared to handle it.
During Kahlil's conditioning, particularly in the early years, I would
sometimes ride on the pavement when a nice grass shoulder was available,
just for the conditioning benefit. To avoid giving him the idea that it
was "OK" to move from the shoulder onto pavement whenever he felt like
it, I always did that riding down the yellow line (on a low-traffic
road, of course!). Trot only -- I never willingly cantered on pavement
even in competition.
The whole point of conditioning is to stress the body enough to produce
a response. If you avoid the stress of concussion during conditioning,
you don't strengthen the body to handle concussion on rides.
You must be careful, though. It's all too easy to overdue hard-surface
conditioning. Start slowly, with short distances, and increase
gradually. At any sign of joint or tendon soreness, back off.
As most of you already know, Kahlil completed over 11,000 miles in 17
consecutive years and is sound today in retirement.
--Joe Long jlong@hiwaay.net http://fly.hiwaay.net/~jlong/home.shtml