Re: Conditioning young horse?

[fmechelh@c-s-k.de]

Anastasia Hurley wrote:

> I have a question about the early conditioning of my new young horse -
> Bingo . He will be 4 in June. I have been riding him on wide fireroad
> type trails - dirt road  2 - 3x (usually 2x) a week at the WALK - 3
> miles round trip. (...)

Hi Stasia,

the difference between "sufficient" or "too much" depends on the horse. A horse
which has natural ability and is well confirmed , grew up and kept sound, and
started carefully with a rider suitable in weight, should bear your schedule
with no ill effects.

Small signs of physical or mental discomfort will tell you something is not
right. Then backup, find the reason and try to eleminate them. Small failures
always happen. The "Art" is, watch the horse carefully enough to see them
developing... every hour of every day.. experience is important, but feeling is
invaluable...

keep records of every aspect of your work, but not stick to a hard day-to-day
schedule. For some horses (and riders), this may be a way to disaster.

> (...) I do not have
> regular access to a ring with good footing.

as far as young horse's bones and joints are concerned, walking straight on
pavement is far better than longeing tight circles on sand. slowly. "hard
ground, hard tendons", as old cavallerists saying here. natural hard surface is
no hazard if the speed is slow and shoeing job is done well. He has to look
where he goes.

> He has been under saddle
> for 2 months and has been very good out on the trail.  We have the
> company of  another rider and my other horse Elvis  - who is very
> steady.
>
> The rest of the time, Bingo is turned out with Elvis in a largish
> paddock on a hill

sounds like a good approach to me.

... I bought my filly with 2 yrs. Within 3/4 of a year, she was capable of doing
the hardest training work ponied beside my race mare, and enjoyed it. All the
year they are outside on big pastures. I started her with 3 yrs, riding her 1/4
hour with halter, changing saddle between horses the way back. Then 20 minutes.
then 1/2 hour. then rode her alone. adjustments with saddle, bit and stuff like
that. This took half a year.

As she was 4, I rode her on our regular hacks, 2-3 times a week. some friends
(these who regard a 2 hour hack for a long distance ride) tried to uninsure me:
"you are doing tooo much with the young horse". Nadasha grew nicely (15.3 now?),
always look and behaved as if she still did nothing, eat like a hog. when she
was a little workshy, I let her at home and cut the ration that day.

She is 5 and now *she* is doing most of the work and can go farther and faster
then the older horse, capable of 50 km in 4 hours, or 80-100 km a week. I feel
she is fast, but stil anxious about testing her... maybe next year... no problem
or injury till now (knock on wood)...

of course, as most horses, she's not perfect to the critical eye. hocks and hind
fetlocks looks like a weak point. looks fine now, but time will tell, said the
vet. she's not intended for a dressage horse. what else he said was, some have
galls and bovin spat at her age. So we are not too bad, so far...

keep the eyes open, go on, and enjoy riding.

Frank
(Germany)