>>>> I finally got a chance to look up this term in Lee Ziegler's book. >>>> For anyone else who may be wanting more information, there is one >>>> reference and explanation of the term on page 135. I found Lee's >>>> passage about it quite helpful in understanding what the "foxrack" was >>>> exactly and how to think of it in the context of a foxtrot
That's only part of the definition though. If you remember what I said that Liz and I talked about, she said that technically, what Skjoni does (and likely what Susan's Whisper does...?) should actually be called a fox SADDLE rack, since it's a 2-foot, 3-foot support gait. I think what Lee is describing would be the diagonally timed version of a true rack, with one-foot, two-foot support. Skjoni most certainly does not have a one-foot-two-foot support pattern when he does it - it's simply a slightly diagonal version of his saddle rack. Lee also wrote a very few posts about foxrack on the gaitedhorse list, but she's no longer around for us to pick her brain. I may still have an old private e-mail from her where I asked her about foxrack. If I can find it, I'll forward it to the list. If you really want to read what Lee had to say about all the flavors and subtle variations of foxtrot, she wrote a lovely article for The Gaited Horse magazine about a year before she died. It was much more comprehensive (to me, anyway) that what she wrote in the book. I don't know if that article is posted on any internet site though. Honestly and truly, I don't think Lee and Liz spent a lot of time hashing out the definition of this particular gait as they did with some of the other gaits. I think Lee left us with quite a legacy of work on gaits, plenty for most of us, but I don't believe she considered her work to be fully complete. I will always consider that the world is extremely lucky that she was able to compile the bulk of her lifelong research into a book before she died. Karen Thomas, NC
