>>>> He is a super horse. He is also one of those horses that tends to have a natural 'hold' in his neck and one of the things we worked on when he was here was for him to stretch his neck down and forward. If you ride him on tight contact he just gets tense.
Yes, to all of the above. I think he's built to rack - I don't think it would take much at all to move him over to a true rack, but his saddle rack is sooo nice, why bother? Cary loves his saddle rack, and he doesn't care to trot...but, in fairness to Cary, I have to admit that they probably walk for about 80-85% of the riding they do, on a very loose rein. And Cary will get off and walk beside him sometimes. I wish he'd trot him more, but I think the way they have worked it out is ok too. A couple of years ago, we took Skjoni and Sina to a little local fun show. We didn't enter any classes - well, Sina did take my nephew around in the kid's leadline class, but that was it. We mostly took them just to see how they would react in a crowd, and of course, they were great. We just rode them around the grounds and let them see what was going on. It was funny - most of the folks there had never seen an Icelandic, but a lot of people there know gaited horses. We kept hearing people say things like, "Look at that spotted pony racking!" And, "That man's riding a racking pony!" The breed was new to the area, but the gaits weren't! Karen Thomas [EMAIL PROTECTED]
