On Mon, Apr 02, 2007 at 04:12:30PM -0700, Judy Ryder wrote: > Vicka, possibly you have misread something, or misinterpreted > something?
could be. but here is the bit i think is false: > But with that caveat, Elwell and some others still manage to > "keep the culture in" their horses by leaving them loose in well-fenced elwell is an american. from my experience of icelanders, it's no more the "horse culture" there than a view of american culture as anti-muslim. all three icelanders, plus the one american living in iceland that i know personally, play with the adorable, cuddly foals -- on the few occasions a year upon which they are handled. they don't scream at them or call them "turnips". elwell sounds like a nutbar, and by taking her word for how icelanders behave towards foals and passing it on, i believe you to be propagating a sterotype of, at best, limited truth. i don't agree with you that what she has to say is "pretty true", because it conflicts directly with both my own experience of icelanders and what i'd expect if stjarni had, as a foal, been screamed at by humans. > "Sometimes trainers use this "tension" to get the horse to gait. This is > probably why we see the tight nosebands. It makes the horse tense, almost > like drowning or being choked. The rush of adrenalin is used for gait. and i don't understand, endocrinologically, why any rush of adrenaline would lead to any gait but a furious gallop. certainly i can't imagine it leading to tolt, which isn't likely to be the horse's fastest gait. it's like saying that a shot of adrenaline would cause a human to skip instead of run. > It's probably why "don't touch the foals" came into being. If the horses > are too friendly and not "properly afraid" of people, they will be too lazy > to gait, or not *respect* the trainer enough to gait without the icelandic > saddle, or tight noseband, or heavy contact, or whips, etc." which again seems not to match stjarni, who was (being in iceland) unlikely to be handled by people, tolts by preference, and is very calm and friendly. he is not at all lazy, nor does he wear a tight noseband, need heavy contact or a whip, nor gait differently in his saddle or bareback. then again, i suspect that he *was* handled as a foal, a couple of times a year, but gently. if any of these are misinterpretations on my part, please clarify your intent? you'd expect stjarni to (a) be afraid or (b) not gait, yes? and what about my icelandic acquaintances; are they somehow not really icelandic, or less icelandic than your american example? > " We can tie this thread into the cloning thread: Dr. > Money and his "experiment" of raising one of identical > twin boys, as a girl." which wasn't an experiment, but an attempt at clinical treatment for a small child who had experienced a mutilating accident. is that why you used the scare quotes? or did you mean to imply that something less than ethical experimentation was being done? > My statement about Dr. Money was one statement which included no opinion > either way; no "comment". except the scare quotes, which i think are telling. > No comment was made about your pony, just the fact that sometimes trainers > use tension to get gait. and i can't see how that would work. adrenaline doesn't lead to gait. it leads to running as fast as possible. > The practice of keeping the foals "always alert to people, not quite sure > what a person will do" is something that that person learned from Icelanders > and wanted perpetuated here in the states as part of the horses' culture; > part of the book, written about Iceland. no, written about americans: elwell and "some others". no icelanders were mentioned. > Facts, ma'am; just the facts. :-) see above. --vicka
