Re: [RC] moving violations was bc accidents - Heidi Smith
>A very knowledgeable horseman said at one of his
clinics, "You would be crazy to try and jump into a moving car, so why in the
world would anyone attempt to mount a moving horse?" A horse should stay in
"park" until you are ready to put him in "drive".
Lisa, I tend
to agree. But being a heavyweight that has NO spring whatsoever in my
legs, my horse HAS to move in order to adjust to my weight, unless I'm getting
on from a pretty significant elevation relative to the stirrup. If he
didn't, he'd be off-balanced. This is not the same thing as dashing
forward the minute the rider sticks a foot in the stirrup, and I do not
consider it good horsemanship on MY part to chastize my horse for making an
adjustment that helps HIM to adjust to my getting on. That's all
that happened when my horse stepped in the grate--and had I seen the darn thing
down there in the tall grass, I wouldn't have gotten on there, quite
frankly. I do expect my horses to stay in "park" until my foot is safely
in the other stirrup, and I give an "ok" to go forward, but shifting a front leg
or a hind leg to adjust to having nearly 200 lbs suddenly suspended from
one side of one's body is not the same thing as "shifting
into drive." Likewise, the horse in the accident described above did
not bolt forward--no, he shouldn't have gone forward at all, but all he did (in
the pre-ride excitement, no less) was ease forward about two walking steps--a
minor transgression in and of itself, in a group where one sadly sees horses
that are far worse than that--grinding gears, as you so aptly put it. Even
the small transgression was a problem in this case, although had the rider not
had the breast collar on, there would have been no accident
whatsoever.
