How Does Footing Affect Fitness in Horses?

Without access to multiple riding surfaces, many horses plateau in their fitness or get stuck in a state of physical discomfort. In fact, different footings can play such a big role in any horse’s conditioning that there is an industry adage for it: there are no poor surfaces; only poor use of surfaces.

From a fitness and conditioning standpoint, there are benefits to riding on both soft and firm surfaces. If you are limited to training on only one type of footing weekly, chances are good that your horse’s musculoskeletal system has some deficiencies. For both injury prevention and gymnastic conditioning, training purposefully on surfaces allows you to modulate physical effort while attuning proprioception. This leads to physical resilience while optimizing muscular and skeletal strength. 

Put very simply, soft sandy terrain requires more muscular and aerobic effort while firm ground develops better proprioception, limb coordination, and hoof stimulus. While an ideal scenario includes training on both firm and soft footings throughout each week, horses that are grappling with gait dysfunction or mild lameness may benefit from fully changing their primary training area for a period of time. 

Before exploring the benefits of each, it is worth clarifying that excessive repetitive movement on any type of ground brings risk regardless how hard or cushy. In fact, one of the primary benefits of changing surfaces is to minimize repetitive strain and stress.