Re: [RC] conditioning on old roads - Barbara McCrary
From what I have always heard, conditioning
on hard roads eventually leads to horses that can handle hard roads better than
the rest of us. I am amazed at the way horses in the Mojave Desert and the
hills around Reno and Carson City, NV handle the rocks and hard surfaces.
Ask Dave Rabe (Carson City) whether some desert or other has a lot of rocks and
he'll say, "Nah, not many rocks in this one', and then we coastsiders with soft
footing to train on will do that ride and end up with footsore horses.
What you train on is what kind of terrain your horses seem to become adjusted
to. Having just bought a horse used to rocky high desert, I realize how
resistant he is to the few rocky areas we have here. Unfortunately, after
he goes through one of our winters, his feet will soften and he won't have that
resistance any more.
I think this thread is sort of like ones on
"rocky" trails. What might be rocky to one rider, is hardly rocky at all to
another.
What might be a hard packed dirt/gravel road to
one, is good footing to another. The fire access roads I used to ride on
in So. CA around the local mountains was a very hard packed decomposed
granite. But that was pretty nice footing compared to the current condition of
our gravel/dirt roads here in No. TX right now. We've had little rain, and our
gravel roads are packed hard and smooth. More like riding on asphalt or
concrete. There is no "give" to the surface when the horses foot lands. They
sure don't leave foot prints.
