Conditioning on packed-dirt roads

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@Willesdon

This week’s Horse & Hound ‘vet clinic’ section p12 has a question about road work to ‘harden the tendons’. Liz Barr (equine vet) says “Road work may increase cardivacular fitness and stamina, but it has no direct effect on inherent tendon strength. Tendons and ligaments may have the capacity to adapt to the effects of loading and exercise early in life, increasing in strength or properties in relation to stresses placed across them. After skeletal maturity, however, which occurs around the age of two, they appear to lose the ability to adapt. While bone may have more capacity to adapt to training, this usually takes the form of increased thickness in places where it is under increased stress, such as around the carpal (knee) bones of race horses. Excessive concussion from roadwork will not help a horse’s legs adapt to working on hard ground and may add to wear and tear, which will ultimately reduce the horse’s athletic lifespan.”

Fitness can be defined as capacity for exercise. The aim is to increase fitness without incurring skeletal injury by progressively increasing the workload. So like everything in life, it is all about balance. WTC if your horse is used to the road should be ok but if the surface you work on changes e.g. road to deep arena, be a bit more careful.

Considering Liz Barr is incorrect about the bold, not sure I would take her opinion as factual.

We know skeletal maturity isn’t until 6-8.

Correct limb-loading (which is what road work is) has been proven to condition and strengthen tendons and ligaments, thanks to many studies sponsored the JC. But it is a long, slow process - as in months & months, years & years. Not a few weeks.

[Rainier]

I might be an outlier here, but I did a lot of conditioning with a draft cross on well packed dirt roads. I was conditioning him for a T3D. He ended up with career-ending arthritis in his knee at a young age. He can be maintained for light flatwork only, but not jumping. I will never know for sure, but I attributed it to the concussive work on the roads (mostly walk and trot up and down hills, cantering some on the uphills).