Do you trot on pavement?

[My2Minis]

I meant asphalt, too. We have rough blacktop on our road. It isn't the nice smooth stuff you get on a highway, but also isn't mostly gravel. It seems to be in between, just a standard country road. I haven't trotted yet more than a few steps...am still deciding how paranoid I am!!! If it doesn't rain I'll head out this afternoon for a drive and maybe do some trotting.

 

[dali1111]

Unfortunetely some of us have no choice. Our land is mostly made up of a giant sand hill that is almost too steep to walk down let alone drive down and the rest is thick forest. We do have a small flat cleared area but sewage lines run right under so I can't drive on it. Our driveway and a good chunk of flat area is paved. The horses' pen is quite small and barely large enough for them to have a little trot. The way most of the roads and ditches are made you can't drive in the ditch. So the road is the only place to drive. I also come from an extremely anti mini area so using empty fields or hauling to an arena or trail is out of the question.

 

[Stef]

We have to go along a road to get to the trails around here. I do sometimes trot but we usaully just go at a walk. My horses don't seem to mind driving on the asphalt at all.

 

[Margo_C-T]

My area is rural enough that few secondary roads are paved; most are gravel or downright 'rocky' surface. However, there is a small subdivision about a mile away whose two 'streets' are paved, and I do go there and drive on occasion. As already noted, asphalt pavement *can* be used to help build bone density; it's just a matter of good judgment in slowing building up, never 'overdoing' it, on pavement. I've never had a horse slip, but am always careful in turns, stops, etc. I both walk and trot there; how much/how long depends on the particular horse and its level of maturity and physical readiness and fitness. I wouldn't want to drive on asphalt ALL the time, but it can have its usefullness as a place to SOMETIMES drive.

The road in front of my own house is 'worse', as it had a good deal of fairly large diameter ROCK added a year or two ago, rendering it virtually useless for me to drive on---now I carefully and slowly WALK my horses down to the corner-thankfully, only .2 mile--then I can drive the dirt trails along the highway right-of-way-from where I can access the paved subdivision, along with other less rocky secondary roads and byways.

Margo