Re: RC: Conditioning Question

[DESERTRYDR1@aol.com]

Yes!  When are you going?  That is a LOT of work for a horse, especially if 
there are any hills.  I've seldom seen a place to go horse camping that is 
entirely on flat ground.  When I first got my mare, she was five, and had 
been a pasture ornament for about a year.  I rode her for about an hour at a 
time about 5 days a week, mostly walking for four months, then I took her up 
hunting, probably about 25 miles a day for two days, and her legs were 
swollen for about a week.  There was only a couple miles of medium hills, the 
rest was a very gentle slope up and down.  We never went faster than a walk.  
If you really like this horse, it would be kinder to give him some 
conditioning first.  I know lots of hunters doing NOTHING all year long, then 
take some fat horse out of the pasture for hunting trips, but those kind of 
people are not horsemen, and really don't care about the horse, if it goes 
lame they just take it to the sale and get another one .  jeri