horses walking in sand.

[Christmas_Kate]

This is really stupid i know.
Yesterday we went to the beach, and they had some lovely ponies on the beach.
They had 3 or 4 shetlands, which we sat and watched.

.
All the ponies look fit and well, well watered etc. But after a while we noticed that some of the ponies seemed to find walking a struggle. Some were almost staggering, especially the smaller ones. Very stiff and slow.

Would this be normal on wet sand??

 

[TiaPony]

For a shettie - yes trawling through wet sand it hard work! Larger horses get worn out by it as it's such a deep surface, the poor shetlands must find it exhausting!
x

 

[dwi]

It all depends on the surface, impossible to day without us being there. I used to work at RS which had two outdoor sand arenas. needless to say they both got wet in winter and none of the ponies ever struggled even when it flooded in places.

 

[brighteyes]

Not on wet sand as that's usually the firm stuff. Up near the land, that's where it's deep and the loose dry grains roll over each other.

 

[Christmas_Kate]

the sand at the top was quite wet as the sea wasnt too far out at that point.

 

[Donkeymad]

The dry sand is very hard to walk in and would tire the ponies quite quickly. Wet sand wouldn't be so tiring, but still tiring.

Some racehorses are deliberately trained on beaches to strengthen the legs

 

[dieseldog]

I used to work down the beach doing pony rides and they never looked like they were struggling and we had Shetlands. Sure they weren't just being nappy?