Regarding the Horses in our lives...

[enola]

My mother never understood horse fever. Right now, my family is on the 4th generation of horse fever. My father, me, my daughters and two grandchildren.

 

[perchie.girl]

When I was showing my mare, my closest horsey friend was showing a black Percheron stallion. His manners were impeccable, NOTHING phase him. When it was time to put him in the show barn stall, he had to be backed in. He was too big to turn around in the stall. One of the rented stalls was never used, so the show steward moved a bunch of horses down one stall and the took down the stall divider so he could have two stalls.

awesome... So he could go in one stall and come out the other... Lots of show barns have just ten by ten stalles. surprisingly My girl can turn around in a two horse slant load. she kind of curls her body around.

an online acquaintence had a very very old barn with Tie stalls.... She used those for night time and for breakfast and dinner... If they wanted to lay down they hunkered down on the spot... I believe the tie stalls were six by ten... Of course they had pasture all day.

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

Love this thread! I started riding horses when I was 4. My first horse was a retired albino barrel racing pony named Babe. He was a little brat. He would get fixated on trees and just go in circles until someone stepped in and stopped him. I showed Saddlebreds from age 6 to 15 then again from 25-30 years old. I loved it. It was the greatest childhood experience. I have endless memories of horse shows. There is no greater feeling than being on the back of a Saddlebred on a victory pass. They are flighty at times but if they are sitting in a bridle right, they are gorgeous. Now that I have children, I don't have the time or money to do it. However I will own a horse again in my lifetime. It is something that never leaves your blood once it is there.

five gaited? Awesome... I am always stunned to watch.... and every horse I met in a saddle-bred barn was sweet sweet sweet.

when we were kids we called them spider leg horses...

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

Love this thread! I started riding horses when I was 4. My first horse was a retired albino barrel racing pony named Babe. He was a little brat. He would get fixated on trees and just go in circles until someone stepped in and stopped him. I showed Saddlebreds from age 6 to 15 then again from 25-30 years old. I loved it. It was the greatest childhood experience. I have endless memories of horse shows. There is no greater feeling than being on the back of a Saddlebred on a victory pass. They are flighty at times but if they are sitting in a bridle right, they are gorgeous. Now that I have children, I don't have the time or money to do it. However I will own a horse again in my lifetime. It is something that never leaves your blood once it is there.

Oh and Welcome to the thread.... VBG

 

[perchie.girl]

I have suffered from ' horse fever ' my entire life.

I resemble that.... from shows on TV to books till the time I got my first horse.... even after... My initial riding instructor was an older woman who had had boarding barns all over the world because her husband was in the military. She even had one in Africa. Her grandaddy was a Canadian Mountie so she imparted that training to us kids. Therefore we posted the trot even in a wastern saddle and if we fell off or was thorwn off it was our fault..

She ruled the barn with an iron fist... but was consistent with all of us from five year olds up to Highschoolers. Her daugher was a Steeple Chase Rider in her younger years and could not be unstuck no matter the horse....

degb

 

[perchie.girl]

Yeah, they just do something to you, and those who don't suffer from it will never, ever understand . . . .

The thought of Katee freaking the other horses out with her antics struck me as terribly funny, but then, I have one of those "wig first, ask questions later" sorts, so I know how they can be. I have seen Syd stand so close to a burning brush pile that I feared she's catch her mane on fire, and I've seen her standing in a cloud of sawdust and smoke from a chainsaw my husband was using. On the other hand, I have also seen her brain fall out over a banner the size of a placemat that was flapping in the breeze, 100 feet away.

A week or so ago, BB2K and I clipped long lines on Syd and Blondie, and "drove" them through the neighborhood. My husband saw us coming back, and he said, "I don't understand why you don't just hitch them up to the cart and ride instead of walking." I looked at BB2K and asked her, "how many times would you have "died" if you had been hitched?" (she's a gamer; gamers "die" a thousand times a day) "I'm not exactly sure, but several," she said. I said, "with me, it would have been at least 3; the first time Syd spooked we weren't even out of the driveway, and she went sideways." Yes, we still have a lot of work to do with them; maybe now that BB2K is out of school for the summer, we can get to it.

Blinders are a great calming tool thats why they put them on driving bridles... LOL Brain fell out... My Arab gelding would do that occasionally.... with Rocks... he finally got to the point where I could convince him to tip toe by...

I would NOT hitch the first time without being in an enclosed space like an arena.... And Two people on lead lines at the head of the horse. then do NOT drive a hitched horse ever without being in the seat of the vehicle.... EVER. I have seen some trainers do it but I have seen some horses ruined by that practice.

What you can do is get some PVC pipe and cut it the right length... then make a cross piece out of wood at the bottom to keep the base of the pipes the same width.... I start out by dragging the pipes on a rope behind while I long line.... to get them used to the sound and sight... because I train my horse in an open bridle. If they look the least bit nervous have someone drag the travois in front first. so they can see it and hear the noises it makes and sniff it....


this was Julie my trainer she was actually a hunter Jumper trainer but she also had a commercial carriage license and drove for Cinderella carriages in San Diego for a couple of years. This was her design... I would have included a footmans loop (a ring or knob to affix the holdback straps to for breeching. I was in the hospital at the time with a torn ACL. But the reason to attach the breeching at this point is you dont want a young horse to back up.... when they back up in the travois the poles dig into the dirt and stop the horse.

Once in the vehicle you want them always to go forward at first... If backing up becomes an evasion you get into serious trouble at first when attached to a vehicle.... Later on once they are ho hum about the whole thing then you teach about backing and trust.

Unfortunately when we took Katee to the Del mar Fair... Neither of us remembered that we had forgotten to teach her to back up....

I think we got a few giggles out of the Draft horse people on that one... But everyone was soo polite not a hint or word to our faces... Like I said shed been in harness only 30 days.

Julie has gone on to train many driving horses.... along with everything else she does.

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

My mother never understood horse fever. Right now, my family is on the 4th generation of horse fever. My father, me, my daughters and two grandchildren.

Mom was the horse addict she rode to school as a kid every once and a while. Dad was the son of a sharecropper... Horses were part of life on the farm. When they were in Texas Back in the Thirties... he would hire a couple fellows from the local tribe to go run down horses for him when he needed one.

For five bucks they would pack light gear and find a mustang herd.... within a couple of days they would come back riding horses... the trick was to follow the herd day and night not letting them eat or drink... Then it was easy to put a rope on one and break it to ride... At least thats what dad told me...

But I am the first horse owner in the family... Grandma does NOT understand why I didn't dropped the whole thing when I grew up.

deb

 

[srutan23]

five gaited? Awesome... I am always stunned to watch.... and every horse I met in a saddle-bred barn was sweet sweet sweet.

when we were kids we called them spider leg horses...

deb

No, I showed Equitation when I was younger and then Show Pleasure in my twenties.

 

[seminolewind]

At 7 last night I just up and left and went to the barn to get away from the world, LOL. She a Tennessee walker and I have recently gotten tired of just going round and round. So now she does a really nice shoulder in , and now a nice bend. Also we've learned something like a walk pirouette without just swiveling on one leg. She has always been one that can walk in place when I ask and I never taught that. So now I'm going with it and working on collection, walk, halts, backing, etc, and hopefully one day she will give a nice piaffe. She's done it a few times but not consistently.

I've always loved dressage, but over the past years it's gotten to the point that they all ride these horses with their noses practically on their chests. It's sickening. For the last thousand years , a proper posture for a horse has been face vertical or nose slightly ahead of vertical. It's written in the rules. So why do judges do nothing about it? If a person needs to hold the horse's nose toward their chest, I call that cheating and not doing a true collection. So now I'm practicing classical dressage, where the horse must always have a relaxed jaw, and this automatically leads to the horse keeping a proper posture on his own on fairly loose reins, and collect himself without being manually compressed. Seems that this method is much more concerned about having a happy horse. To compete at an olympic level with modern dressage, there's a whole lot of nasty things going on. Nosebands called "crank nosebands", a nasty exercise called Rollkur . I need to get off my soap box, LOL

 

[perchie.girl]

At 7 last night I just up and left and went to the barn to get away from the world, LOL. She a Tennessee walker and I have recently gotten tired of just going round and round. So now she does a really nice shoulder in , and now a nice bend. Also we've learned something like a walk pirouette without just swiveling on one leg. She has always been one that can walk in place when I ask and I never taught that. So now I'm going with it and working on collection, walk, halts, backing, etc, and hopefully one day she will give a nice piaffe. She's done it a few times but not consistently.

I've always loved dressage, but over the past years it's gotten to the point that they all ride these horses with their noses practically on their chests. It's sickening. For the last thousand years , a proper posture for a horse has been face vertical or nose slightly ahead of vertical. It's written in the rules. So why do judges do nothing about it? If a person needs to hold the horse's nose toward their chest, I call that cheating and not doing a true collection. So now I'm practicing classical dressage, where the horse must always have a relaxed jaw, and this automatically leads to the horse keeping a proper posture on his own on fairly loose reins, and collect himself without being manually compressed. Seems that this method is much more concerned about having a happy horse. To compete at an olympic level with modern dressage, there's a whole lot of nasty things going on. Nosebands called "crank nosebands", a nasty exercise called Rollkur . I need to get off my soap box, LOL

the deal is to have a flexible poll but collection comes from behind not from the front... There has been an aweful practice in europe called Rollkur... I dont understand how it started but ... were talking horses that are trained to extreme to look at the ground with thier heads and necks still in the up right position.



It is Banned in the Dressage federation but doesnt keep people from doing it ...


engagement of the hind quarters and impulsion from behind frees the shoulders for extension and collection.... the boimechanics takes at least a couple of years to achieve collection where the horse looks like this...



the above picture shows different levels of collection probably one of the best I have seen.... and Yes even arabs can do ths ... do do this all on their own,... we humans just have to get out of their way to encourage it. Its called self carriage... No devices no techniques except a fit horse and a balanced encouraging rider are required.



Andalusians are famous for naturally having self carriage.

another self carriage example



They all can do it even the conformation-ally unfortunate... to some degree.

Classical Dressage is way different than what many of the competitors of today do... because People want instant results and competitive edge... Never mind the fact that the last growth plate in a horses body to mature .... is at the Poll. At Age 5 or 6... Thats why the Lippizans are trained as two year olds for manners and general riding... maybe ten to fifteen minutes a day.... for a few months. Then they are turned out to pasture to "grow up" till they are around four or five... Then they are brought in and memories refreshed... and then their study in Dressage is really begun.

Of course many of us know the Term Dressage is used for all the familiar things... Leg yealds side pass extension and collection and even aires above the ground.... But Dressage only means training... in French so it makes it fancy...

All good riders use Dressage techniques in some fashion.. from Trail to Saddleseat.

deb