Horse Gossip Thread

[michickenwrangler]

Hunters Pleasure on the flat! But still, the USEF rule book says that knee action should be minimal ... yet riders are trainers are torquing the horses down and trying to get animation out of them. This is why I went to distance riding.

The Arab Show Hack classes just disgust me now. They started off with most SH winners looking like the Gifted Breyer horse with true extension. Now they're all just Park horses in dressage saddles and brass bridles. In the old days, SH entered at a working walk. Now they enter at a trot since these park CAN'T walk into the ring. The last show I went to in 2006, the horses in show hack could barely walk, let alone collect and extend. They just jigged the whole time. In the judge's defense, the one horse who actually did walk placed 1st, but it's sad what it's become.

 

[welsummerchicks]

"even posting on the wrong diagonal can lame a horse"

I think of the outside diagonal as a rest for the horse and the inside diagonal as 'good exercise' for the inside hind leg.

For dressage training, we use either diagonal, it's usually the outside, and on occasion the inside, when wanting to 'work' the inside hind leg on when circling. We even do exercises of switching back and forth every few strides on a circle.

In endurance, I understand people usually switch to stay on the outside diagonal on curves, but I also had a guy tell me some time ago, that on long straight stretches, he would also switch back and forth to 'rest each hind leg' in turn.

I've also seen very er...uh...'clever' riders hide a lameness by judiciously switching their diagonal....yech...now there's a real, real old trick...

 

[Celtic Hill]

Quote:
Are you referring to the Arab Circuit or open shows? We bearly see hunters that are up in the bridle and with action unless its a breed class or breed show. (Morgan/Arabs) I really don't think it's a bad thing because you cant ask a morgan or arab to be all long and low because they arn't built to go like that.


I have a BIG problem with the Quarter Horse shows. One of the biggest things that Irks me is they ride english with leverage bits when they have no contact at all and the rein is loose, what's the point? I was talking with my freind last night and she was thinking about stopping riding, and she's done really good and has a really nice horse and shows up and down the coast at app shows. And i told her she should try something new like Dressage, then she told me she did dressage and i was like...ummm with who? And she was like You dont need a trainer to ride dressage you just learn the pattern and go in the ring....

I was like... 'Hun, none of this Qh Dressage Sh!t, I mean real dressage" lol...i was speechless.

 

[RabbitMage]

I feel bad for the Quarter Horse, because it ends up having to be all things to all people. You can put a reining QH next to a WP QH next to a HUS QH next to a racing QH and half the time you won't even be able to tell those animals are the same breed.

 

[EweSheep]

Oh those QH!!!! I call them peanut rollers! I don't like to see QH heads so low as if they are so lazy about lifting their heads to get an level topline. And some soooooooooooo slow that it digusted me and it takes the horse more time and energy to get one end of the arena to the next.

 

[welsummerchicks]

something new like Dressage, then she told me she did dressage and i was like...ummm with who?

And she was like You dont need a trainer to ride dressage you just learn the pattern and go in the ring.... I was like... 'Hun, none of this Qh Dressage <BEEP>, I mean real dressage" lol...i was speechless.

There's sort of a cheerful cotton candy like fog, not unlike amnesia, in not knowing how bad you suck...But the true purpose of dressage is to be fully aware of how bad you suck at every moment.

I'm told after a little old riding lesson, the students at the Spanish Riding School used to go in the locker and have contests to see who had the most blood on their legs. They're probably doing more than 'learning a pattern'.

 

[michickenwrangler]

Quote:
You misquoted me. 100 miles of not switching diagonals *can* make a horse lame with the same leg always absorbing slightly more impact.

Celtic Hill, while you would not make an Arab get as long as low as a QH or hunter type TB, they are being shown now BEHIND the bit with their necks pulled in very tight.


WC
My friend with the Paint that does dressage told me that she recently read an article where the European trainer was quoted as saying "I hate watching people try to do dressage on Quarter Horses."

 

[welsummerchicks]

No....... I just totally and completely missed what you said, that's all.

I didn't even see the part where you said about the same diagonal. Until....just now.

But that's why every day is such a great new adventure for me. I can read the same thing twice and get something totally new out of it the second time around....

"I hate watching people try to do dressage on Quarter Horses"

There IS this frighteningly strange thing going on with Quarter Horse Dressage in America. I hate watching it too, but I'm too lazy to get up and change the channel. There was a show about 'Dressage' on RFDTV, and I sat there and watched the WHOLE THING, screaming, 'my eyes! my eyes!'

In a way, it was kind of like watching a car accident in slow motion....VERY slow motion. I don't think I've ever seen any horse trot so slow, or with its rump so far up in the air...OR with the rider's rear end stuck out so far. All I could think of was it bore an uncanny resemblance to Western Pleasure, except of course, for the clothes and tack....but at that point, it was just WAY too mysterious for me to figure out, and I switched over to 'I Didn't Know I was Pregnant'.

I have to admit, it's an inventive new idea of how to use your dressage tack and clothes, for doing something other than dressage...

 

[Celtic Hill]

Quote:
You hit it on the nose right here! QHs no nothing but slow trot, slow lope, head down, and then the riders say they are doing all kinds off different riding on them when really just slap on the appropriate tack and ride them.

 

[welsummerchicks]

It's kind of fascinating in a horrid way, kind of like a car accident, you can't look away....

At the same time, you find yourself sort of morbidly fascinated...HOW DO they get the horses to go that slow? I'm thinking there is some very heavy duty old fashioned human psychiatric medication involved....

I was watching a western trainer once and he said he had to get the horse to STRIDE OUT MORE and I said, 'SON, you are gonna LOSE'.