On Mar 26, 2008, at 11:12 AM, Judy Ryder wrote: > >>> There is no collection in tolt. The frame of the >>> horse in tolt is >>> diametrically opposed to collection. >>> >>> It just doesn't happen. >> >> That is good to know. With my MFT it helped the >> foxtrot to collect him. > > I think we're using the wrong word in this case. I think "contain" is > a > better word. > > Gaited horse trainers incorrectly use the word "collect", but they mean > "gather up" the horse for the frame that is necessary for the gait. > > They are speaking from a position of *riding the horse's face*, > pulling the > head and neck to make a change in that area, not collection which > starts > from the hindquarters. > > Collection is not present in the easy gaits. Collection has an upward > vector, and the easy gaits have an earth-bound vector... opposite, and > that's what makes them "easy" gaits :-). If we collect them, they'll > be > trotting!
I disagree. I have had the experience of taking a riding clinic with a classically trained Peruvian trainer, German Baca (http://www.chperuvians.com/CHP-GBaca.html). My mare wasn't gaiting well -- "strung out" and doing what I gather is called a piggy pace -- and German gave me a few simple instructions: pull my elbows in (I looked like I was in City Slickers <g>), sit up straighter, rotate my pelvis forward. And I could feel Rosa's back lift slightly under me as she rotated *her* pelvis and brought her back legs underneath to do a perfect paso llano (rack). All of this was on a loose rein with her neck in a relaxed arch. My gelding Sinchi was harder to collect -- it took a lot of thigh squeezing in his case -- but only when he was collected would he do a paso llano -- otherwise he did an entrepaso (an unsuspended broken pace). He also worked on a loose rein (one should never ride the face!). Neither horse (nor any of my horses) offered the trot under saddle -- and in the show ring the surest way to get a poorly gaited horse to pasitrote (and get the gate <g>) is to let it get strung out and ventroflexed. Lynn Kinsky, Santa Ynez, CA http://www.silcom.com/~lkinsky/
