Ridecamp: [RC] Keeping shoes on horses

Well...since nobody has answered the original post from this angle I'm
gonna have to. :-P  She asked, "What do you do when the others are
cantering on pavement?"  Well...most of the time there's at least a
*tiny* strip of grass along the edge.  I have my horse very well "verge
trained".  When we're at home I insist he walk on any tiny strip of grass
that there is.  If he will stay on the grass he gets to trot & canter. If
he swerves onto the road I MAKE him walk.  He's gotten very good at it
and one of my training trails is galloping wide open up the shoulder of
the road climbing a mountain.  He's very good about using any little bit
of grass that there is.  As I come back home there's about 100 yards of
very flat pavement with good traction that I like to let him trot at a
good pace on for the "progressive loading" training on the bone.

Now...in competition, we trot some pavement, but very carefully.  NO
cantering.  I agree that the amount of slide differs from horse to horse.
 We have one horse who travels more "parky" (high RPMs shorter stride)
who has less slide.  Kaboot travels wide and really pushes off for long
low strides. He's more likely to slide.   If we cross a road, I'll make
him walk.  If it's a straight 1/4 mile of pavement I'll let him trot. I'm
very careful to have him going in a straight line before we trot the
pavement. If you come out of the woods at a trot and turn left on
pavement you can get a really good rear end slide out from under'em
thing.
	I have no urge to alter my shoeing for the little bit of pavement
involved in some races when it's appropriate for all other aspects of his
work... for instance, plastic shoes can be slick on grass, and I ride a
lot more grass than pavement.

Angie 


________________________________________________________________
GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO!
Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less!
Join Juno today!  For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
 Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
 Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=