On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 11:09:16AM -0600, Robyn Schulze wrote: > stjarni > > is the only horse i've seen in this area doing anything like soft > > lateral gaits (at any of the barns i've ridden at, at shows, at the > > beach, on the trails -- several hundred horses). > > I must say, I find this completely bizarre. What's with you New > Englanders? Who wants to be pounded in the butt everytime they want > an intermediate gait? I'm glad you got smart Vicka.
*laughs* as a total convert, i gotta say i'm finding it a bit bizarre myself. i ride stjarni almost exclusively, but i recently got on a few different three-gaited horses that my students were considering leasing (both qh-type paints) and found myself going, "but where's the tolt? and why isn't there any mane? and why am i so far off the ground?" :) and i haven't even had stjarni a year yet! (though my previous usual mounts were a 12.3 pinto and a 14.2 appaloosa, so i was already unused to being very far up :) (i confess i did like the quarab one of my students had already chosen for himself, with one of those long-suspended trots....but i wouldn't swap stjarni with him for longer than a few miles on a trail ;) incidentally i owe roo grubis for this conversion -- she gave me one lesson three years ago on the arabian i was leasing at the time (i had just returned to riding), and at the end she said "you know, a lot of peope come into icelandics from arabians; all the brains without the teleport gene." a few weeks later she and her icey moved to vermont, and i didn't lay eyes on her again or meet her horse at all until the recent clinic. strange world. oh -- and speaking of vermont, i should mention the vermont icelandic horse farm, where i did ride a mare named litfrida twice in a weekend, and which is (obviously) also in new england. i've just been there once (it's not close as new englanders count close :) but i'm sure they have introduced many people to the breed; as far as i can tell it just has not become very widespread. --vicka
