Re: RC: Jumping to Conclusions?

[Tivers@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/12/00 9:52:43 AM Pacific Standard Time, kjz2@juno.com 
writes:

<< I have heard several times:  "A horse has only so many jumps in his
 lifetime."
 (don't we all?!) I tend to understand concepts better when I have an
 extreme picture in my mind's eye.  A horse jumping, like a dressage horse
 doing piaffes (correct term?) stresses out the "hind end" in the take
 off, then the "front end" in the landing.  I hear that many trainers
 working with grand prix jumpers practice on low jumps and tend to do the
 hugh ones only in the ring.  Please help me if I'm off base. I've worked
 on grand prix jumpers (massage-wise) and boy are they stressed!  Just
 worked on a reining horse - a young arab mare and she's already getting
 hock injections!  Something tells me they aren't designed to do these
 things like we want them to.  Anyhow, isn't a horse doing a jump
 "landing" a bit akin to a horse going down hill?  A variation of the
 theme?  Do horses have only so many HILLS in their lives?  I guess we
 could go back to their evolution and what kind of land they were designed
 to truck over. Do horses run, canter, extended trot STRAIGHT downhill
 when left to their own devices?
 
 Am I asking a dumb question???
 Karen in PA >>


An excellent question. What the horse has "only so many" of is physical 
insults that tend to accumulate. Some will say that a horse has only so many 
strides in him (TB & QH flat racing trainers who think that two miles at a 
time is a marathon).

The truth is that the horse can do as many of anything that he has been 
prepared to do. The "no surprises" rule. If the components of the horse's 
body that are going to experience stress in a certain athletic endeavor have 
been prepared to accommodate that stress, no problem. If, however, the 
trainer is under the delusion that lots of non-specific work is going to 
prepare the horse for very specific stressors, or if the trainer deludes 
himself that sitting on a keg of beer watching the horse spin around on a 
hotwalker is the best thing he can do with the horse to avoid injury, then 
the horse will certaily have only so many strides in him.  

As for hills, I can see how a horse can be "hardened" to accommodate hills. 
Tricky, though. The risk of missteps due to interference or the attempt to 
avoid interference is great--and nothing prepares for that. 

ti

ti


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