On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 05:39:44PM -0800, Judy Ryder wrote: > > > >>> They were all riding bareback in the races and mostly with hackamores. > > I also noticed in the videos of the pacers that their heads are pretty > steady and not tipping and torqueing like the Icelandic Horses when they > pace. > > Why the difference?
smaller proportionate heads maybe? stjarni's a 14hh creature with shortish legs, but a full-horse-length head and and oversize throatlatch. pacers tend to be longer-legged with smaller heads, so maybe the motion doesn't propagate to unbalance them that way so much. it'd be interesting to see if the best of the icelandic pacers tend to have smaller heads. (stjarni is five-gaited, but not trained to pace.) --vicka
