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    [RC] Canter vs Extended Trot - Linda B. Merims


    Heidi Smith said:
     
    >Extension, especially to the extreme, takes
    >a lot of extra effort.  (I think many endurance
    >riders mistake a fairly long working trot
    >for extension--I'm talking about the actual
    >alteration of gait as one would define it in
    >dressage here, not just a big, long trot.)
     
    The Morgan people make this distinction all the time.
    In the show ring, Morgans are not asked for an
    "extended trot," they are asked for a "road trot."
     
    A "Road Trot" is exactly that:  the kind of trot
    you would have used on a horse in the 19th century,
    under saddle or most particularly in harness, when
    you were actually on the road on a horse trying to
    *get* somewhere.  A fast, big, ground-covering trot
    that the horse can maintain for long distances.
     
    Sure a "road trot" requires more extension, but
    extension is not the be-all, end-all (in dressage,
    the ideal extended trot has no increase in tempo!)
    of the exercise; just a by-product.
     
    I've been watching my friends ride, and it is
    interesting that neither seems to know, as a
    matter of course, how to get a horse into a
    "road trot."  I believe both have simple hunt
    seat backgrounds (learned as adults) where
    road trots just don't figure.  Saddleseat folks
    are taught this as a matter of course.  Both
    of their horses have depths of ability at
    a road trot that I don't think that they know
    how to tap (although one is catching on).
     
    Linda B. Merims
    Massachusetts, USA