>>>>> And what is a symptom that the horse isn't yet "forward"...? His legs aren't coming up under him, or may even be trailing out behind.
>>I don't get it? Susan, first, I'm sorry you took my post so strongly. I didn't mean it to personal towards you, towards anyone else, or towards any horse. As far as I'm concerned this is an "in general" discussion standing on its own merits at this point, ok? I changed the subject line to reflect that - I hope that makes it clearer. Well, actually, I guess it WAS personal in a way, but I was thinking of my own personal experiences with my horses, not someone else's. >>>You are describing probably the way 95% of all horses, gaited or not, travel. ... You are speaking in terms of upper level dressage, not normal pleasure horses. No, I really don't have any personal experience with upper level dressage horses, nor do I expect that I ever will. (I've studied some dressage over the years, and while I've studied some theory, I never claimed to have anything approaching upper level experience in my horses. My lessons were always on "real-world" kinds of horses, with no delusions about achieving any serious level of collection or roundness.) I DO have some limited experience with some normal pleasure/trail horses who have had some sorts of back/gait problems - and often with gaited horses this shows up as paciness. When a vet does a lameness test on a horse - any breed, any gaitedness - one of the first things they will comment on is how the horse uses his legs and his rear end - that can be a big barometer of what's going on with their back - sometimes it's simply a matter of what their conformation allows them to do, and sometimes it's a matter of them being in pain. And sometimes, their conformation leads them to be in pain. It's not easy to isolate if the way of moving is coming from conformation, or from pain, or if the conformation is causing pain - it's often a chicken-or-the-egg situation. That's why I'm throwing in my two cents - I happen to believe that trailing rear legs is a BIG symptom to watch for, an early sign of hollowness - in our everyday, pleasure horses. As Judy wrote: "The piaffe-type pictures were just the introduction to BIG (obvious) roundness. When we learn something new, it's easier to see black and white, and then focus in on the gray areas." My experiences with my own horses have been much more in the gray areas - I really don't care about the "BIG" roundness very much. It's just not part of my world. Just as there are "BIG roundness" as Judy described it, I think there is "BIG hollowness" too - but I wouldn't ignore the more common, less-obvious signs of hollowness. Based on my limited experience (thinking of Gracie, Mac, Loftur in particular, even Tivar, Sina and Skjoni to lesser degrees) if I had to pick a few physical symptoms to warn me of trouble, or to help me isolate innate, conformational-related ways of moving/gaits from a way of moving that we can help, I would look at the horse's "apparent" gaitedness (lateral vs. diagonal) but MUCH more importantly I'd look at the WAY a horse moves - all the symptoms, things like his rear legs trailing out behind him, any short or choppy strides, as well as with any unevenness in stride, etc. I'd look at the way the horse stands at leisure too. And I would look very carefully at how freely he is able to use his head and neck, because if he's stiff at the base of his neck, there's a good chance his whole back will be stiff... and that will adversely affect his gaits. If his back were obviously dropped or swayed, I'd certainly note that because I DO think it's important - but conversely, I would not assume because his back appears level that all is well. My most lateral horse, Mac, never appeared to have an obviously dropped back until his late teens - I sincerely wish I'd paid more attention to his other, less-obvious symptoms earlier... Karen Thomas, NC
