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Thread III: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1311311/posts |
Posted on 09/18/2004 6:56:23 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Free Republic has a lot of horse people that have found each other on other threads…. And since we all like to talk horses, how about a thread where it is not off-topic, but is THE topic?
A few of us thought it would be interesting and informative to have a chat thread where we can 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 last thread we had a great time and were a great help to each other working through lessons and training, horse lamenesses and illnesses, questions and challenges and always just our stories we like to tell.
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 Becky pings everyone most mornings. Let Becky (Paynoattentionmanbehindthecurtain) 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 last thread, 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.
LOL, I trip over lunge whips too but most people have them on hand, very few have buggy whips. I like to use a buggy whip when I have to arm myself in the pasture.
I'm not sure what the purpose is of that weirdo low frame but I think it's supposed to show an easy, ground covering gait, quiet and consistant. I just think, like everything in the horse world, people seem to have the need to take things to the extreme. Just the nature of competition, I reckon.
Cutting and reining horses travel the way a horse should travel, they don't look like that. They may get down low, but only when they are staring a calf in the eye. ;~D
I come from Arab shows, and rarely western, mind you, but I'll answer what I think it is. I think it is just exaggerated sillines from years of the show cricuit taking a good thing and exaggerating it until it doesn't resemble where it started. It was supposed to be a nice easy jog-trot in a relaxed frame, which, in my day meant neck right around the horizontal and face vertical, in a position that was very natural to the horse's build. And then get them to hold that on a loose rein.
Well, if low and slow is good, lower and slower is better! Right? The jog trot, they want absolutely no knee action at all... "peanut rolling", like they could roll a peanut along with their toes.... And the lope slowed down too, an odd sort of 4 beat gait that is not much faster than the trot and shows no sign that the horse is even awake. Cowboys would have never got a thing done at such a gait ;~D
The show folks losing a sense of the style they actually came from, is what it is.
That's certainly true! I used to show Siamese cats, and the show people over a period of about 100 years made some pretty extreme alterations in the breed!
before
after.
You still have the french cat picture I sent you?:')
The things animals put up with:')
Would that be the one in the previous post? LOL
Wow!! What a difference! I don't keep up with show quality dogs and cats, I had no idea there has been such an evolution of the siamese cat breed.
There is another side effect of the long and low QH gaits, something that I'm intimately familiar with. The no knee action, peanut-rolling toe movement causes problems when you aren't riding in a plowed up arena. The smallest change in the level of the ground causes them to stumble, since they don't pick their feet up. When I bought Tuffy, he was a western pleasure show horse. I've pretty much got him out of that low, front end frame and he's traveling more in an uphill frame (head up, looking where he is going, I hate a low headed horse) but he's still having problems at the lope. If I don't work him over ground poles each time I ride and get him to pick his feet up or fall on his face, he still stumbles over uneven ground. He never stumbles in an arena.
I always figure when the horse I'm riding puts his head down that low his back end will be coming up any second.
LOL no kidding. We've all had that happen a time or two, haven't we?
In all showing, horses, dogs and cats - the judges start a trend that ends up nearly destroying some breeds. The various associations give these judges cards, and then change their standards to fit the judges' idea of what is best.
It's happened with a lot of the horse breeds, it happened with cats (the Maine Coon of today is nothing like the one of twenty years ago) I'm watching it happen now with queensland healers.
By the time that people wake up and start screaming, it's usually too late to get back what you lost.
That extreme Chocolate Point Siamese will ALWAYS look like a demented bat.
My Siamese were (and are - currently have 3) what I call "classic" or "intermediate" type - they meet the CFA standard - long svelte body and wedge shaped head - but not extremely so.
I don't like dogs ears pinned or tails bobbed anymore either. God must have given them to the animals for a reason.
There was a funny story with this. I don't know if it was a spoof or not but supposedly someone from the south asked the groomer for a line cut, intending to have the hair trimmed on the abdomen that was getting matted. The groomer heard "lion" cut:')
Don't we do the same with horses though to get variations?
That cat looks totally disgusted and embarassed.
I think they really do care about their personal appearance. One of my Siamese females (long since in Kitty Heaven) jumped up on the old gas stove in our apartment just as I turned it on - the pilot light always took a little while to light, so when it did there was a big "whump!" and a pretty good size fireball - which caught poor Avi Cat on the right side of her head and burned all her whiskers off. Just left little melted balls about 1/4" from her face that I had to trim off with nail scissors because they bothered her.
She was so embarassed by her lopsided appearance that she hid under the sofa for quite awhile. And for YEARS afterwards we could point at her and laugh, and she would dive under the couch. (We didn't do it too often, it was just too mean.)
Would you buy a horse that looked like that? < g >
Cindy has a collar she wears that is about 7 years old. She whines and sulks when I have tried to replace it. She carried it around in her mouth until I put it back on. I can see a cat missing it's hair. Probably cold and itchy too.
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