On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 02:34:23PM -0500, Karen Thomas wrote: > >>>>> When Stjarni is at liberty, does he naturally lift, or reach, with the > front? > > >>at the trot, yes -- he has a very high-stepping trot. > > Maybe I misunderstood, but I think Judy was asking which one, lift or reach. > Those are mutually exclusive traits. "Lift", also called "knee action" > sometimes, is valued by Icelandic show-type people, but is generally not > valued (even penalized) by hunter people and trail riders, especially if to > any extreme.
stjarni has, as the vet remarked at his purchase exam, an astonishingly large range of motion. his stride is equal to a typical 17hh horse's in length, but at liberty, he also raises his knees high at the trot, at least in certain moods. i can't say for sure that he does both at the same time, of course, since i can't see what he's doing with his knees when i'm riding him, but i can measure the length of the stride by measuring our tracks in the snow. but i've seen the high-knee-lift in him in the pasture, where there weren't tracks to measure :/ sorry if i've failed to answer your question; my best response is "i don't know, but i've seen evidence of both". --vicka
