On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 09:24:58AM -0600, Janice McDonald wrote: > I think as he trots more and more he will develop muscles and brain > wiring to trot, will probably end up being an expert trotter.
i hope so! > As a person who is relatively new to icelandics and the whole euro > mindset with horses, as a person immersed in the southern gaited horse > aristocracy both geographically and actually, I literally cringe when > I read about people who encourage even a minimal of trot or pace in a > strongly gaited horse. When I read about it being encouraged so > strongly I am just apalled. but thats me, where I come from, in my > world. A beautiful natural easy gait is just such a prescious > thing... and stjarni's definitely got that. he still i think prefers tolt, but encouraging his trot under saddle seems not to have affected that. > To lock in gait in a young horse, people either use cruel > devices/methods etc., or like me, work on building musculature, wiring > etc by reading what gait experts say, going to clinics etc. and > practice with many hours in the saddle. stjarni is now twelve years old. i do believe you can teach an old dog (pony :) new tricks, but i don't think it makes them forget their old ones. > if I wanted a trotting horse I would get a trotting breed horse or an > icelandic strongly wired to have a gorgeous natural floaty trot like > my Tivar. I ride my Tivar with non gaited horses or on rides where > there is a mixture of both, or with people I know who dont like to go > faster than a nice easy trot. i ride stjarni with my buddy paul and his leased qh cheyenne, and they like to go at a gallop sometimes. stjarni's got a heck of a canter on him, too, very very long-strided and smooth. > I would not be in the least surprised to hear you post six months from > now that Starnji has a screwed up tolt. this is, as they say, an empirical question -- we'll find out, won't we? but i first saw stjarni's trot in the field when he would mostly just tolt under saddle, so i believe he's had both tricks up his fuzzy little sleeves all along; it's just a matter of bringing all his talents to bear under saddle (and to learn how to ride them, for me). > And when you ride a horse at one particular gait be it walk trot > canter rack whatever, and discourage other gaits thru the way you > ride, communicate etc., the horse begins to compensate in musculature > and brain wiring to do that gait all the time. very true, and i try to ride stjarni equally at all gaits. this isn't currently possible in our ring with its lousy footing -- we can't safely canter in there, so for right now we only canter on the trail. but we do canter at least a little most every day we ride, and split up time in the ring between walk, tolt, and trot, and transitions among all three. (he's gotten quite good at all that, except for still tending to throw in a tolt stride or two between trot and walk -- we got our first clean trot-walk transition yesterday and he got quite the celebration of that :) > Maybe you should look for a nice trotty icey! (I know I will be > flamed, possibly even by my friends but this is how I feel, and not > necessarily how all should feel :) i'd like a trotty icey just fine. but stjarni is special to me; he makes me happy. i don't know how else to say this, i just feel more joyful and at ease on him than i have on any other horse, of any other breed, in my adulthood. i wouldn't trade him for gold, gaits or not. > I saw a thing on farriers on tv and it said if a gaited horse is i don't think my farrier works on many gaited horses besides stjarni -- new england is the home of eventers and hunting, not quite the south. we always have a couple saddle-seat riders at one particular show i've been to, but they are far in the minority, and many miles from stjarni's barn. stjarni's shoes are just like the shoes on all the other (3-gaited) horses at the barn -- bare in back, borium in front for ice. > people will say "hows your new racker, is his gait locked in?" and > everyone knows exactly what that means. and if someone said "oh yeah > he has a great rack but I am working on him trotting beautifully all > the time when asked" they would look at you in shock mingled with > disbelief and die laughing at you behind your back. *grin* people do that to me all the time for reasons having nothing to do with horses. i don't mind :) i'm a scientist professionally; it's my job to try to prove 200-year-old theories wrong. i'm not half bad at it, either :) --vicka
