--- In [email protected], "Karen Thomas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >>>> maybe you should have attend the clinic, then you would have get > comments on the pictures. > > Yeah, like I said, if I were a cynic (ha!), I'd think that these people just > want to sell clinic space.
maybe you overlooked, that this was not a clinic for conformation only, but for evaluation (including conformation, but also the riding abilities. And why do you complain then the material which was used at the clinic?? I don't think the handouts of this seminar was entiteld "Icelandic horse judging guide from A - Z". It was a handout and went together with explanations of the person who gave the clinic, I strongly guess. > > Frankly, I think that's garbage, Jasmin. I do NOT have to attend a > conformation clinic 3000 miles from my home to understand conformation. > I've been to conformation and judging clinics within 10 miles of my house, > and there are many opportunities for such education within 150 miles of my > home. I've read oodles of books and magazine articles on this subject. Why > can other experts manage to convey information clearly on this subject, but > for some reason, it is NECESSARY to attend "special" clinics for Icelandics? see above, it was not only a confirmation clinic, what you can clearly see from the handouts. > All of the other judging and conformation clinics I've attended applied to > all breeds. But, nooo, not for Icelandics. They are just sooo different because they also judge the gaits. How would the gaits of the Icelandics be a topic at another clinic?? > > That standard excuse, that we "must" attend these events in person is just > ridiculous in this day and age. We've never had better, easier and cheaper > ways to convey information, when people WANT to convey it - via videos, > websites, magazine articles, articles on websites, books...I think people > just pull out that excuse because they can't defend things in any other way. so why bother at all. Just let those people who think it is a good idea to get their information from people who have years of experience in the breed, have seen and judged hundereds of horses. You don't have to attend then. But just because you don't think it is necessary, why assume that those people just want to make money?? BTW I guess all the clinics you attended for conformation, have been for free?? > > I'm a professional control systems engineer and I get paid pretty well for > this specialty, working as a consultant. I have a degree in computer > science with a minor in electrical engineering. But, very little of what I > know and do was I formally trained for while in college or afterwards. I > learned the details of this career on my own, the stuff that keeps my skills > in demand, using the foundation theory I learned in my education, and lots > of personal time researching the ever-emerging technology that keeps this > field changing - reading tech journals, attending an occasional seminar > locally, reading, testing, trying things. I don't know too many tech > careers these days where people have to attend basic training in person to > stay up-to-date in their field. Horse conformation is NOT evolving very > fast, unlike the technology in many of our careers. Horses are pretty much > built the way they were 50 years ago and longer - or at least the > biomechanics remain the same. If I waited to "attend" training for > everything as basic as what we're talking about now, I'd be unemployed. of course, I know that (I'm an electrical engineer as well, working in IT). But we don't talk here about horse professionals, or do we?? How many of those attending such seminars, make their living with horses?? And even more important, we don't talk about scientific rules and measures. We are dealing with animals, we are dealing with proportions and forms. OK we can enter some measures in our evalutation form, as height or cannon bone size etc. But this is not what the horse is made of, there is much more and I'm sure you know that. So this for sure is not an issue which can be trained just in selfstudy, I'm very convinced about that. You need a discussion with experienced person to get inputs and to get your eye trained. > People just don't HAVE to be spoon-fed everything in order to learn, and to > learn well. I was just floored to hear that excuse so often when I got into > Icelandics. It's just pretty backwards this day and age. of course with the internet and other medias, we have a lot of information nowadays, but as you can not learn riding from books and videos, you can not learn everything about horse conformation out of books. Or maybe you can learn, but this is what I call theoretical know-how. just my two cents Jasmin
