The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread 11

[HairOfTheDog]

The FreeRepublic Saddle Club - (very out of date) Who's Who *pics*

This is a horse chat thread where we share ideas, ask for input from other horsemen, and talk about our riding and horse-keeping. We have a lot of different kinds of riders and horses, and a lot to share. In the previous threads we have had a great time talking through lessons, training, horse lamenesses, illnesses and pregnancies... and always sharing pictures and stories.

I always have a link to this thread on my profile page, so if you have something to say and can't find the thread in latest posts… look for it there and wake the thread up!

I also have a ping list for horse threads that are of interest, and MissTargets will now be pinging everyone most mornings. Let MissTargets and/or me know if you would like to be on the ping list. As FreeRepublic is a political site, our politics and other issues will probably blend in…. There are many issues for horsemen that touch politics… land use, animal rights/abuse cases that make the news…. Legislation that might affect horse owners.

So... like the previous threads, this is intended as fun place to come and share stories, pictures, questions and chit-chat, unguided and unmoderated and that we come together here as friends. There are lots of ways of doing things and we all have our quirks, tricks and specialties that are neat to learn about.

Previous threads:

The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - thread ONE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread TWO!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread THREE!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FOUR
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FIVE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SIX
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SEVEN
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread EIGHT
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread NINE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread TEN

New folk and occasional posters, jump right in and introduce yourselves, tell us about your horses, and post pictures if you've got them!

[BladeRider]

Even he has said that he can’t believe that you drive all the way up here when you have somebody right next door who can do just as good a job.

IF we could get the guy next door to even return our calls that would be a move in the right direction. And it is not just us the people down the road have given up on him too and use these other guys. It was worth it to drive all the way up there to get Jakes feet corrected as much as they could be. Pistol said last time that they are probably as good as they will ever get now.

[FrogInABlender]

Well, I don’t know if they’re as good as they’re gonna get or not, but the important thing is that they stay good.

On a different subject here, you gotta check out this site that I stumbled up while perusing the horse.com classifieds. It’s for a campground in Lamar County that has organized rides and an annual speed racking competition. We’ve really got to try to go to it next year. I think we could go and ride anytime, so I’ll try to find out exactly how to get there...

http://www.circles.homestead.com/page05.html

It takes a while for the video to buffer up, but it’s pretty cool to watch. There’s some darned fast horses out there!

[CindyDawg]

Get an estimate, his check and fix it yourself and save some of the money:’)

[HairOfTheDog]

Patty over on the horse forum came on and said Bay’s new NB shoes look good :~)

Pleased about that!

We’re headed out to run the trailer down to the trailer shop and get an estimate for fixing it. Better to leave it someplace now while it’s raining, than later when it’s not.

[BladeRider]

I sent it home to look at. I am outta here for the day.

[FrogInABlender]

Good! I thought they looked good, but it’s nice to hear it from a certified professional. Patty’s a sweetheart for being so helpful to so many people!

[FrogInABlender]

Good luck at the Show!

[CindyDawg]

Yeah. Work is a real bummer. May not be a problem much longer though. I keep calling, looking for my boss, whoever that might be. Maybe she’s just a computer:’) I’m thinking about just packing up their lap top and sending it back to them.

[Beaker]

What are you doing for work?

Leanne

[CindyDawg]

I’m reviewing charts 3 days a week. After I posted I got a call. The girl told me that a learning curve is expected while I build my speed and the schedulers may not be considering that I’m new , when assigning. They don’t want the computer back. So that’s good... I guess.
I’m not a superstitious person but it’s been a bad day. I didn’t pass inspection for my new place, I locked my keys in the car. Oh and my battery was low so I was out talking on my cell in the car. We are having car rocking wind gusts. It caught and slammed my door against my foot I had hanging out. Ouch:’)
How are you doing? How’s your new job? I was just thinking. You ought to just buy Oliver. You know you like him:’)
jc

[MissTargets]

Wow! That looks like a really cool place. Mounted Cowboy Action Shooting too! You guys better check that out. :)

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

OMG....that is just incredible, gave me goose bumps...I’ve never seen anything like that before...I’ve watched it 4 times now, drug Jenny over here to see it, and Celia came in for a minute I made her stay and watch it.

I’ve never seen dressage before. Wow. Thanks for posting the link.

Becky

[HairOfTheDog]

That is a Grand Prix (the highest) level horse doing Musical Freestyle, which is fun type of competition to watch. In normal dressage competition, there is a pattern set and everyone rides the same pattern. In Musical Freestyle, the horse and rider get to choreograph their own... and this guy chose the movements and music that would show his horse off perfectly.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Well, I’ve never really seen high level dressage period...but that was great..

Becky

[HairOfTheDog]

Well, that was a pretty good one to start on! :~)

That horse has a better Passage (the elevated but still moving forward trot) and Piaffe (the trot in place) than I remember seeing outside perhaps the Lippizans at the Spanish riding school.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Celia thought this horse might have been a Lipazzaner. I don’t know?

I loved watching when she would move diagonally across the arena at the canter...the trotting in place was pretty cool too.

My son was wondering how they train them to do all that? I won’t repeat what he figured:\, but it makes me wonder. It’s beautiful to watch, but how do you get a horse to do all that?

Becky

[HairOfTheDog]

I don't know what breed the horse is... some kind of warmblood probably.

The performance is extraordinary in part because it's a mare, and a relatively young one. Stallions well into their teens dominate the upper levels of dressage because they usually have more of the natural presence and carriage to do it.

Passage is just an elevated and hyper collected version of the trot. In dressage, all the phases of the trot should be about the same cadence... in other words, the collected trot just goes up more than forward, but is the same tempo as the extended. They use tempo and the horse's natural cadence and ~encourage~ and ~exaggerate~ it. When you collect and restrict the forward movement, the energy should go ~up~, and becomes the passage and eventually piaffe. It takes a lot of years... there are a few tools used... they will sometimes work the piaffe from the ground with the horse in hand...

Here's the only picture I could find of the tool I've seen the Spanish Riding school use... they set up two poles, with cross ties that don't allow the horse to go forward, and teach them to trot in place. In the picture, the ties are just hanging there, it looks like the rider is just schooling in that same place to try to get the same result without the ties.

This guy is trying the same thing... cueing for the trot but not allowing any forward movement. Obviously there's a lot of training that has to happen before you can try to get that result that way. If you took a green horse in and cross tied them and then used cues and a whip they'd get frustrated, rear and pull away, not piaffe.

The flying changes are just that.... they start out doing the flying change, then they do it every three strides, then two (the two tempi) and then finally a flying change at every stride (the one tempi)

Obviously, I've never trained anything near that level or been on one that level. Closest I've gotten to Piaffe is when Bay is really on the muscle and hyped up on the way out on trail, I can coil him up and get him to trot nearly in place. ;~)

[Beaker]

Honestly? I would love to have Oliver, but my trainer would never part with him. I've toyed with the idea of leasing him off of my trainer, but I don't think that she would like that considering she uses him for lessons, and it would be difficult for ME to work around her lesson schedule anyway. But we do click.
Ugh. Sorry to hear that you had such a bad day. Is it easy to fix the things that need to be fixed to pass inspection? Hope you didn't break anything in your foot. I'm doing pretty well. I'll be getting to the barn three times this week, which for me is a record. The new job is great, but I'm a bit panicked because the two other research assistants are leaving in the fall to go to school, and that leaves just me until they hire others, and then I'd be the senior person. It scares me.

[HairOfTheDog]

All Texas folk - batter down your hatches! Looks like bad storms down there.

[Beaker]

It’s beautiful to watch, but how do you get a horse to do all that?

It ain't easy. :-) The way of riding is so different, and I remember when I had my first lesson with my trainer, I honestly thought that the way that I learned how to ride was so completely wrong that's how different it is. It mostly has to do with developing an indpendent seat, so that you can be so balanced as to ride mostly with your seat, instead of controlling mostly with the reins and your leg, though that certainly does come into play. For instance, once you are balanced and relaxed, you can get your horse to be balanced and relaxed and you can get a collected trot from a working trot just by sitting up straighter. You can also do downward transitioning just by breathing out. (Amazing, huh?) If you want to turn accross the diagonal, you put your weight on your inside seatbone and put your inside heel farther down.

It's very hard, at least for me, but steering involves very little pulling on the reins at all, it's all about moving his shoulders, and butt around. My trainer is always yelling at me to not pull his nose around, and it's so hard because it's instinct to do so.

For instance, Oliver, the horse that I ride, LOVES to pop his shoulder out and move to the outside so that we end up half way across the ring. Instinct, since he's going to the outside, is to pull the inside rein, right? Well, what you do to instead to correct this, is you put pressure on the outside rein, drawing it to your hip, and relax on the inside rein, while applying pressure with your outside leg, and that gets him back on track.

And excuse the opus, it just gets me excited to talk about dressage. :-)