Biancone, cold with 2 year olds, my theory why

[Pointg5]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I have heard that too. I think it's Michael Dickinson who will actually switches off every other day and gallops his horses on the turf one day and the dirt the next day. I think he believes that one surface strengthens the tendons and ligaments while the other surface strengthens the muscles or something like that.

Even assuming that is true, we know that turf horses don't need to train on the turf to run well on the turf. I don't know if the same would hold true the opposite way. This would never happen but I wonder if a horse who only trained on the grass would still run well his first time on the dirt.

I once heard Dickinson say that instead of breaking down a horse by training it on dirt, he strengthens them, by training on Turf. If horse physiology is anything similar to human physiology, you have to break down muscle to make it stronger. That statement didn't make much sense to me...