--- In [email protected], "Judy Ryder" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > "I found her description true... I had taken an hour's riding lesson. I > assumed the familiar two-point and squeezed. The horse bolted. The scenery > tumbled inward... the instructor shouting, "Stop him! Make him stop! > Pull!" > >
I've seen this happen. I saw a girl praticing for a show and I'm not sure which happened first, the bolt or the legs, but she ended up going around and around holding onto the Icelandic with her legs as he went faster and faster, panic! I've ridden a couple horses from Iceland, trained there, who were jumpy. Hair trigger. I'm not totally sure what it has to do with, a little of everything I suspect, training, general handling, and disposition, sometimes it might even be bad saddles, but in the cases I am thinking of the horses really were sensitive acting, always wanting to go fast if they weren't sure what else to do. I've heard someone say that you can teach your horse whatever you want to, even to go faster when you pull the reins, I think it's true, I try to teach mine, more than anything to stop or go back to walk when they aren't sure. It worked on Dari. When I first started him I had discussions with Elizabeth Haug about this. She told me that she would walk and walk a green horse, so that they would see "walk" as a default gait. I think it works. I am sure these kind of horses could be desensitized to the legs and become more responsive to stopping, it just takes focusing on doing that. Kim
