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Showing posts from March, 2010

The “Trollop”

--> When is a canter not a canter?  When it’s a trollop . That’s the name I’ve jokingly given to the sad, four-beat excuse for a canter so many people seem to think is the same as collection.  Most people think of canter as the gait that comes between trot and gallop.  When you add a fourth beat to the normally three beat gait, it’s something of a trot-gallop; in other words, a trollop .  Slow like a trot, four beat like a gallop, but definitely doesn’t qualify as a proper canter. You see, by definition, canter has three beats and three beats only .  When what you are seeing no longer has three beats, it can no longer be a canter.  So what else is it, besides very, very wrong? And yet you see many riders, especially in hunter/jumpers and disturbing disciplines like western pleasure, where people seem to strive for this monstrous hybrid on purpose.  I know!  Why would anyone do such a thing?  I have to think (and this may be giving them too much credit) that they honest

Horse Friends

People always look at me a bit strangely when I tell them my best friends are horses.  Here's an interesting article about horse-human bonds and why it's maybe not such a bad idea to have a few equine friends in your life.   For those of us who live and work closely with horses, this comes as no surprise, but it's always nice to hear science confirm what we already know and see every day.  And, it's another confirmation that good treatment of our horses goes a long way.  Enjoy! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35911274/ns/technology_and_science-science/from/ET