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RE: [RC] Question re Running up hills-easiest way? - heidiBill Bentham, an endurance vet and rider, used to say that a horse has only so many downhill miles in him so don't waste them on conditioning rides. He meant that going downhill at speed was extremely stressful to the front legs. So while it may be easier to run downhill than up from a cardiovascular or muscle point of view, it is definitely more stressful on the tendons, ligaments and joints. Think of a horse going over a jump. Some of the momentum going UP comes from the front end of the horse but ALL of the horse's weight and momentum land on the two front legs coming DOWN. Alas, this has been going around the sport for years. (And nowhere does traveling downhill put the sort of stress on the forelimbs that jumping does--that isn't a very accurate analogy, sorry.) You have the solution to it in your next sentence: If you plan to trot or canter down hills on an endurance ride then you need to TRAIN your horse to move downhill at the trot or canter in a balanced fashion, using his rear instead of just leaning on his forehand. Once he has learned how to trot downhill balanced, then there is no need to practice that anymore. You'd just be wasting those downhill miles. I was blessed early in my riding career with a horse who naturally went downhill balanced, and what a treat it is. There is very little stress on their forelegs--they round in the back and reach under themselves with their hind legs, and most of the stress is on the large muscles in the back of the buttocks. (In fact, some "maintenance conditioning" downhill is needed to keep those muscles in tip-top shape even in a good downhiller, or they will get sore on a ride with a lot of down.) It is indeed possible to teach most horses to do this, even if they don't accomplish it naturally. And if they do it right, then the theory that they only have so many downhill miles is no longer relevant. My original endurance horse broke a sesamoid in an accident when he was in his teens. He healed sound after a year-plus, and went on to do more rides, even top tenning several and winning one, despite severe calcification from the sesamoid up into the flexor tendons and suspensory ligament that limited his range of motion. (It was not detectable to watch him move, but you could feel it slightly from the saddle, and it certainly limited his stride length.) By Bill's theory, this would have limited him on the downhills, since the entire suspensory apparatus works around the sesamoids. In truth, downhill was the only place where he was NOT limited in the least--his weight would shift to the rear, and he could fly. Why? Because going downhill properly does not use the forelegs for much more than a steering mechanism. The trot is a far more balanced gait downhill than the canter, and a horse that will break into an amble has a real advantage. The problem with the canter is that there IS a phase where the weight is on the forehand, whereas at the trot or amble, there is always a supporting hindlimb to take the weight. And since a properly balanced horse has a rounded back, the stress is distributed from the hindlimb all the way along the ligamentous structures to the poll, just like a giant spring. So going downhill is tougher on the hind end, rather than on the forehand, if done properly--the hind end and the back do most of the work and take most of the weight. Another old-timer had it figured out a bit better than Bill did. Cliff Lewis once wrote an article called "The Fat Man's Secret Weapons." He listed rocks, downhill, and darkness. By teaching a horse to be agile through the rocks and to go downhill in a balanced manner, and by being bold in the dark, he could make time in areas where his weight had the least impact on the horse. He did some really interesting pulse trials with a ride-and-tie friend who was a good runner. They had two horses and a big long training hill that also had a road where they could trailer to the top. They did repeated trials with Cliff riding one horse and the friend leading the other horse, in which they would go up the hill together on various days, and down on other days, and switch horses to make sure that it wasn't just a difference between horses. What they found was that ridden downhill, the ridden horse's recoveries were virtually the same as the horse that was led down by a runner. But going uphill, of course, was a whole different story. There was several minutes' difference in recovery times, with the ridden horse taking longer to recover. And Cliff understood that one had to ride the horse down in a balanced manner. For his time, Cliff's old horse Blackjack had an awesome record. And Cliff was a little short pudgy HW about as wide as he was tall--his legs were too short to keep up with his horse if he got off and ran, although I do recall that he did some ride-and-tie. Like Cliff, I use downhill as a place to make time. And I have yet to injure a foreleg going downhill, nor have I seen it to be a problem among good downhill horses that I've vetted. One outstanding downhill horse was RT Muffin--who raced (yes, raced) well over 9000 miles and to the best of my knowledge still holds the AERC record for the number of career wins. His career spanned close to two decades. By Bill's theory, his front legs should have been toast. Not so. Nor have I seen this to be a problem in a whole host of horses with lesser records but with a good ability to go down the trail--including down the hills. Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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 Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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