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> I have about five miles of trail behind my house (not much) , 
> however it is all rugged hills.  You are going up, or you are going 
> down...  Now for the question:
>  
> 5 miles of rugged up and down = ____ miles of training on the flat? ...I'm 
> thinking I'm training different muscle sets on hills than flat?
>  
> Jacke
>  
> Interesting question -
> ...  We train only on hills because of where we live and noticed that
> at one flat  high dessert ride last year the horses sort of punked out 
> toward the end.  We assumed it was because they just don't get much flat
> work.
>
> Nancy Sturm  

If you are riding 5 miles/day, 3x/week on rugged hills, I'd work that up to 
 7 miles/day, 2x/week and then trailer on the weekends to a place where 
you can ride for 4 to 6 hours.  A horse's body needs conditioning but it's 
mind does too.  No horse will learn to take care of itself out on the trail 
if it never goes more than 5 or 10 miles, even tough miles.  To teach that, 
your horse needs to spend TIME, not miles.

Sheila Varian tells a story about Bay Abi.  On his first trip into the 
hills to hunt cattle, they stopped at every stream down in the valley and 
he wouldn't even look at the water.  Once up in the hills there WAS no 
water.  Not only was that one REALLY thirsty puppy at the end of the day 
but he never made the mistake of not drinking again.

As to different sets of muscles, you ARE going to have a big problem with a 
horse conditioned at a strong, working trot who is then asked to lope 
several hours at a ride but probably none with a horse conditioned on hills 
who is then asked to do a flat ride.  The trot and the canter DO use 
different sets of muscles.  My guess as to why Nancy's horses "punked out 
toward the end" is that the pace was too fast for their level of 
conditioning.  Those flat desert rides are deceptive, especially for to a 
rider used to hills.  They seem so easy, and they ARE, but stepping up the 
pace, throwing in more cantering than the horses are used to (after all, 
they are practically floating along those gentle dips and hollows) takes 
its toll.

You know not to change any of your riding gear on Ride Day.  Well, you 
can't change your way of going either.  Condition as you plan to ride and 
then ride your conditioning.


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