Re: Pain Releif in Hard Rides

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/6/99 2:27:51 PM Pacific Standard Time, arabs2go@yahoo.com
writes:

<< I don't give quite that much time off. However, the type of riding I
  do for up to 10 days after a ride is not a typical training ride. Lots
  of walking and easy trotting just to keep limber. >>

With us, it depends on where the horse is in his career.  Young first-season
horses are flat turned out for two weeks after a ride, then brought back and
not taken to another ride for at least 6 to 8 weeks following the last one.
Old campaigners are treated depending on their individual needs--our two
horses who were PNER mileage champions had almost opposite "requirements" in
that one needed to be ridden 3 times a week no matter what (her Tuesday and
Thursday rides were just 5 or 6 miles of walking and slow jogging, but that
was enough, and then the weekend was either a ride or a slightly longer jog)
and the other one did better if he was simply turned out and just ridden at
rides while he was campaigning hard (granted, as a stallion, he stayed
reasonably active in his paddock next to "his" girls).  That's the sort of
thing you have to "feel" your way through as you develop a horse, and
hopefully after 3 or 4 seasons when you are riding to that horse's capacity,
you have most of the kinks ironed out in terms of their individual needs.

Heidi