what about the lippizanner "airs above ground". I bet i could try and teach jaspar to do that for the next twenty years and he would just stand there and gaze at me sardonically like "yeah right" yet I have seen him do it at least three times when putting the whomp on a new horse to show him he is herd leader out there. He executed it beautifully!
I agree the spanish walk is a contrived thing. But so are a lot of tricks, but its fun to teach tricks, I enjoy it. I think some people really enjoy riding trail, some enjoy competing in the show ring, and I just love and enjoy the heck outa teaching new horses too young to ride things. and if you try and teach them something over and over they get bored and you get bored. I like to throw in a trick here and there. The jeffers photographers went gaga when stonewall stood on a pedestal with a red straw cowboy hat in his mouth like a big goofy dog. Thats not a natural thing for a horse to do but he sure loves it. gets a big twinkle in his eye. Now Jaspar, he does tricks like plod plod, groannnnn ooookayyyy i will doooo ittt t if you leave me alone.... but some horses? They love it. Janice -- even good horses have bad days sometimes.
