Re: Re: ponying & conditioning

["LAURIE AND WADE PEARSON" <WADEPEARSON@worldnet.att.net>]

Michelle:

I just wanted to share with you what I have seen over the past 20 years of
racing Arabians. Six days a week the horse comes out of the stall and is
tacked with a tiny saddle. Then he or she is walked around the track, about
3/4 of a mile. Then they start the trot a few furlongs( 8 in a mile). Now
they start the canter for the 1/4 or 1/2 a mile. That's it!.

Back to the barn. Washed and walked for the next 20 minutes. Then back in
the stall. On Sunday they get time in the pasture, maybe. After two or three
months of this they start to gallop, a mile or two at a time a few days a
week. Then on to the breeze. This is 4 to 6 furlongs at a full run.

This is not long slow miles. I have taken a horse from the track after 2
years of this pace and 2 month of trail riding 3 days a week 15 to 20 miles
per outing, and done a fifty at 8 miles per hour. With severe caution at the
age of five, she did great. But she did not understand the concept of eating
and drinking at the breaks.

Keep in mind all of this before you think that the race horse training is
LSD. The idea of the 10 or 15 mile loop and getting the horse to relax and
eat and drink are very hard to teach to a race horse. You also have to get
the race out of the horse. He thinks that you are only going a mile at the
most, and on race day he will jack up and want to go that mile at a full
run. 25 or fifty is a long way from 1 mile.

It takes conditioning to teach a horse to eat and drink during the breaks.
This is very important to the horse finishing well. Have patience with the
x-race horse, they have to switch gears,

Laurie