RE:Easyboot Shock absorption

["Brent Jackson" <jbco@jps.net>]

Thanks for responding!   I'm new to all this.

Here is more info on the horse who splintered his coffin bone.  He began training

as a 4-year-old with a light weight rider.  We rode quite a bit on the Auburn/Cool

section of the Tevis trail and trails in Oroville, CA.  Oroville has some rocky areas

but not too bad.  His owner rode him 3 days a week and after about a year of train-

ing we were doing 15-20 miles as an average training ride.  She liked to gallop the

horses on flat stretches of trail or if we came to a dirt rode.  I disapproved of this,

even tried to tell her it probably was not good because the footing was pretty hard.

There was little I could say though.  I was "the novice",  I was riding her

backup horse, and she had been competing for years generally finishing in the

top 10.  She retired her old top 10 horse and this new gelding was a 16 h (and

measured accurately) pure Arab and absolutely gorgeous.  He was chestnut with

4 white socks and white feet.  By the time he was 6 he was developing the odd

horizontal cracks across the front of the hooves, though he was sound except for

an occasional few off steps.  He completed several 50's and even finished in the

top 10 on a few 50's as a 7-year-old.  He was never pulled from a ride until she

attempted the Tevis on him when he was 7.  He was dead lame at 30 miles.

It was not until then that she finally took him in for x-rays.  The vet said that the

coffin bones had probably been splintered for 6 months and were healed as well

as they could.  It was recommended that the horse be ridden gently but often, like

a pleasure horse.  He was sold to a lady who enjoys family trail rides.

 

I believe that she pushed these horses into training too fast and pushed them to

work harder than what they were ready for early in the season.  I admit, I tend to

want to go easy on the horses and that is exactly  what I am doing now that I

am training my own.  We did at one time discuss the hardness of the trails and

the wisdom of running these guys on the hard dirt rodes, but then she pointed out

all the other successful riders she knows who train this way.  And the dirt rodes

are no harder than the Auburn trail which we also rode fast on.

 

Now I ride alone, slowly, walking often and trotting carefully on my own horse who

now wears Easyboots.  She is 8 and I only started conditioning her on the trails

last July though I rode frequently restricted to flat rice land before that. 

 Still I worry.   (and still I wonder-just how much are the Easyboots helping?)

 

Patty J.  JBCO@JPS.NET