Home Current News News Archive Shop/Advertise Ridecamp Classified Events Learn/AERC
Endurance.Net Home Ridecamp Archives
ridecamp@endurance.net
[Archives Index]   [Date Index]   [Thread Index]   [Author Index]   [Subject Index]

Re: [RC] Safest at the Trot??? - Truman Prevatt

Some horses I am extremely comfortable in a trot. On some I much prefer the canter. Some such a piddly walk, I rather get off and walk myself. I think a lot of it has to do with the horse's "resonance" matching the rider's "resonance." I think this is especially true at the trot.

My old walking horse mare actually had a nice trot. It was long and low with very little upward force. I found it extremely comfortable and easy to ride. A friend of mind who had been riding for 30 years could not get into sync with the mare's trot at all (probably because she was used to more upward force in the trot). She struggled to ride the her trot. She had no problems with the canter but the trot was a different story.

Truman

k s swigart wrote:


I find this statement to extremely odd.  As a riding instructor, I can
unequivocably tell you that few if any riders feel safer riding at the
trot than any of the other gaits.  They feel safest at the walk (a four
beat gait), and the only thing they find unsafe about the canter (a
three beat gait) is the speed, not the rhythm.

Consequently, I have found that riders feel safest on horses that don't
trot at all (i.e. gaited horses).  While trotting horses (or pacers,
which most riders find even more disquieting) have a two-beat gait that
is neurologically the same as our own, it is, in fact, the two beat
gaits that riders have the most trouble maintaining a rhythm that
matches the horse's.

It is the bounciness of the trot that makes riders feel insecure.  It
might be a two beat bounce with a bunch of vertical forces.  In the walk
there is no bounce and in the canter the forces are more front to back
rather than up and down.

Is there ANYBODY out there who, when learning to ride, thought "yep, the
trot is the easiest for me to get in rhythm with?"  I have taught a lot
of people to ride, and not a one of them has ever said that.

kat
Orange County, Calif.
:)


--

“It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong” Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


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!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


Replies
[RC] Safest at the Trot???, k s swigart