---- Wanda Lauscher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >. . . We still have people thinking it's fine to 'balance' a gait with >weights (to name one example
Isn't that a nice word though, "balance" -- sounds like you're doing something so good for the horse. I just love the positive lingo that's so often used in talking about manipulating the horse's natural way of going. Reminds me of when "willingness" and "willing" was used in describing what amounted to a horse with little to no brakes and half-trained. > > If you pay $10,000 for a horse and bring it home, and change it's > shoes or pull them, and your horse suddenly loses his 'tolt'...chances > are he's had a mechanical breakdown.... Oh Wanda -- there's one of those one-liner PEARLS of yours. A "mechanical breakdown" as in without machanical manipulation, the horse loses his gait! > I don't know, maybe I'd feel like I'd been had...and just keep going down > that path because I wouldn't want to admit that I was that naive...< I think you are onto something there Wanda. If the "savage guru's" (as you call them -- smile) are telling such folks they have a wonderful horse, they just need to learn to ride him "properly", the naive owner is thrilled to hear it's not a case of getting a poorly gaited horse. Hearing "You just need to make some adjustments in saddle placement, add wieghted shoes or bellboots, apply a tighter noseband so the horse can't fight "contact"", etc. , seems to go over a lot better than hearing, "Well madam, you've basically just spent $10,000 on a horse whose only natural soft gait according to his conformation and wiring between the ears is a stepping pace -- and gee, I think he has the beginnings of eczema too." -- Renee M. in Michigan
