ridecamp@endurance.net: Re: 25's to 50's

Re: 25's to 50's

Joe Long (jlong@mti.net)
Thu, 30 Oct 1997 16:01:21 GMT

On Thu, 30 Oct 1997 07:06:31 -0600 (CST), Samm C Bartee
<bartesc@mail.auburn.edu> wrote:

>Joe, I too think that doing a couple of 25's is a good idea. It will give
>your horse an idea of what being at a ride is all about, including the
>start and such!!

Amen.

>I have had a couple of very good endurance vets tell me that horses only
>have so many miles in them, and if you use it all up conditioning, then
>it's gone!! NOT that conditioning isn't important!!!

Wow, I haven't heard that one since the early '80s. Talk about an
old-wives-tale that is counterproductive! You know, there was an
article in Endurance News in 1978 titled "Can 1,000 mile horses still
win?" Note that is ONE-thousand, not 10K. People actually believed
that a horse that had gone a thousand miles was all used up!

A variant once heard was "There are only so many *downhill* miles in a
horse's legs, so don't use them up in training." Of course, it's just
the opposite -- conditioning downhill makes the horse able to compete
downhill without damaging himself. The rule that I use is, never ask
a horse to do on a ride what you haven't done in conditioning. That
is, speed vs. terrain/footing, not length. If you're going to trot
downhill on the ride, trot downhill in training. I sometimes
deliberately rode on paved roads to give Kahlil concussion
conditioning! (Folks, if you're going to do this, start slowly for
short distances and work up gradually -- and don't overdo!)

-- 


Joe Long
jlong@mti.net
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