No Mountains for training

[Wendy Milner <wendy@wendy.cnd.hp.com>]

For the "newbies" starting their training, let me explain a
bit about mountain training.

I live in mountains, my horses are "stabled" on a mountain,
and the rides I do are mostly in the mountains.  Thus, mountain
training is a must.  

Mountain training does several things for a horse.  

First, the horse learns how to use his back end going up and down
mountains.  To me, it is the easiest way to teach a horse to
really use himself.

Second, going up and down mountains is an easy way to increase the
difficulty of your training without putting on speed.

If you don't have mountains, you can overcome the limitations:-)

Any hill or ditch can help you teach the horse to use himself.
I told one person who had only flat farm land to ride in, to use
the ditches at the side of the road.  Walk your horse down the ditch
and then back up.  Make sure the horse can do this well.  Then,
walk a stride down and stop. Another stride and stop.  Repeat all
the way down.  Do the same thing on the way up.  No charging.
If you do this regularly, the horse learns how to tuck that rear
end and really use it.  After the horse learns the walk stop,
you can do half halts.  What you are after is not only that the
horse does it on the ditch, but that the frame of the horse
carries through on the flat.  And you must learn how to feel
what the horse is doing.

If you don't have mountains, but do have areas with soft dirt or
not so deep sand, use that to increase the difficulty of the
ride. Be very careful with sand.  If the ground is too soft,
and you start too fast, you could end up with injuries.  I only
have sand in the arena.  Everything else is rocks and hard pack.
But, since I train at least once a week in the arena, my horse
has conditioned himself to some sand.  If the sand gets deep,
I will go slow.  If there is just a little sand, then I can
push a little more.  You might want to go out in the sand,
on foot, and try running yourself.  This will give you an idea
of what your horse has to go through.

For conditioning your horse, you need to use whatever the land 
gives you.  Check out the rides in your area that you might do.
See what sort of terrain the ride goes over.  This is what you
need to condition for.

--
Wendy

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 Wendy Milner                     HPDesk:   wendy_milner@hp4000
 Hewlett-Packard Company          e-mail:   wendy@fc.hp.com
 Mail Stop A2-5UB3                Telnet:   898-2182 
 3404 E. Harmony Rd.              AT&T:     (970) 898-2182
 Fort Collins, CO, 80528-9599     FAX:      (970) 898-2038