 |
Re: [RC] Define 'Collection' - k s swigartFrom: <heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> I'm with kat here, but for other reasons. Although I want my horse to be able to round and engage well at the walk, I NEVER want him to be encouraged to shorten his stride at the walk, and since I don't do dressage in the ring, I have no practical use for that. Indeed, other than in the dressage ring in order to prove that you have trained your horse to do it, there is little practical use for the collected walk. It is, sort of, used for walking down really steep hills, but even for that, it isn't absolutely necessary to "preserve the purity of the gait" since it is more than acceptable to allow the horse to shuffle/slide down such hills. Although, it is also handy in when walking down hill in the mud--which I just spent a bit of time doing today, since we are, yet again, getting innundated with rain--but we didn't spend very much time on the walk part of the exercise and after the first pass, proceeded to doing the exercise at the trot (doing it at the walk was really just intended to ensure that there weren't any invisible sink holes on the trail that I was using). So I guess that is another place where the collected walk can come in handy, situations of unsure footing. kat Orange County, Calif. On the trail, though, there is CONSIDERABLE use to being able to shorten his stride at the trot or canter in an instant, so we work a lot on those two gaits at home. Around here, I'm the "queen of walk" because I am constantly working on my horses to lengthen that walking stride--it is a part of each and every conditioning ride, for the warmup period going out and the coolout period coming home... Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|