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Careful work over ground poles or cavaletti and trail riding on hilly
ground might also be helpful to encourage balance, coordination, and
agility.
Mary wrote:
...So far as I know, No one uses devices to encourage
Fjords to better knee action. ... Hopefully
it never will
I heartily agree with Mary's point of view. Fjords are using horses.
They need to be agile and well balanced when they move -- stumbling is
not a good thing. But I'd be horrified if people trained and/or bred
them for high knee action. There's no need for that in anything but a
flashy carriage horse or a show horse -- and even that's an arguable
point.
On a related subject, I red an article in the 2000-2001 issue of the
Draft Horse Journal that discussed the incredibly high head carriage
most draft show horses have. These horses are selected and trained to
have a naturally high head carriage, then their heads are forced even
higher with a bridoon bit (a thinner version of a regular bit) that is
attached to a tight check rein.
When they're checked up like that, the horses can't breathe correctly,
nor can they really pull efficiently. But they sure do look nice to
the judges and the crowd. The judges reward that kind of artificial head
set with the blue ribbons. Horses performing with naturally-high head
sets don't even place.
In visiting recently with a driver of a show hitch of percherons, he
said the horses don't mind carrying their heads that high, but I could
hear them wheezing when he checked them up. He also had to jerk the
bridoon deep into the corners of the horse's mouth to get the horse's
head up high enough to suit him -- it looked so terribly uncomfortable!
...One CAN encourage a particularly
clumsy Fjord to pick up its front feet better by using
a heavier shoe on the front feet
While I agree that this can help, I do believe it should be done Mary
describes it -- in moderation. This technique can be taken wy too
far, since I have seen what show hitch people do with shoeing and
trimming a horse's feet.
Some show people will shape the hoof so the toe is much longer than it
should be, then let the entire hoof grow overly long -- this also forces
the animal to pick his foot up higher. The effect is as if a person
would wear shoes were too long for his foot. Unfortunately, this kind of
abnormal hoof shape also puts a lot of stress on the tendons in the
foot.
Another technique used by gaited and saddlebred horse owners to get more
action is to put weighted bracelets on the horse's front pasterns when
the horse is in training. These show people also sit saddle seat (as
if you're sitting in a chair, not balanced over your legs and seat) and
somehow pump their bodies up and down as they ride to get the action
they want. It looks incredibly awkward to watch -- but boy do those
horses lift and stride! I just don't want to think about what the horses
must feel as they trot around the ring like that.
I won't even get into what I think about soring the horse for more
fire and action.
DeeAnna
