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Re: [RC] Question re Running up hills-easiest way? - Sky Ranch

Heidi,

I'd be willing to bet that the reason your horses do so well going downhill,
and aren't injured, is due to the fact that you are riding them correctly.
I think it is difficult to ride a downhill (a steep one, especially)
correctly.  A lot of people just sit down in the saddle and lean back, and
that's not the way to do it.  That's the way I used to ride a downhill... I
know now better and I try my best but still don't think I'm 100% correct.

Is there any way you could explain the correct rider position, to help the
horse get and keep his hindquarters under him?

Thanks much -

Carla Richardson
Colorado

----- Original Message -----
From: <heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Diane Trefethen" <tref@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <Ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 8:22 AM
Subject: RE: [RC] Question re Running up hills-easiest way?


Bill 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


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RE: [RC] Question re Running up hills-easiest way?, heidi