Everyone's
comments on the last couple of days regarding 25's being too short to really
teach a horse how to take care of himself are very interesting, but I feel
like as a newbie, I would be in a catch-22 - I need the LD for my
conditioning, but then my horse will have a little harder time adjusting when
we move to the 50's and 100's. Maybe as a newcomer, I should just stick
to the shorter rides, as they're a good bit safer (i.e. the idea of 25 is
less scary than 50 to me).
If you
do 20 mile training rides (4 hrs at 5 MPH) a few times a month, you
would not need the LDs for conditioning. I did 18-25 mile training
rides regularly before my first 50....still was pretty darn sore when I got off
my horse and could hardly walk the next couple of days. Other than that, it was
great!
