Falling off of cliffs

["Linda S. Flemmer" <bluwolf@earthlink.net>]

Victoria A Thompson wrote:
> Re wide hind end - I'm in trouble.  Taffy is so wide in the hind end she
> steps off into oblivion when we go on skinny trails.  I'm hoping she'll
> wise up.  She used to step off with the front feet too, but she's learned
> that walking off cliffs head first gets Mama very upset.  Now we're
> working on "Mama gets upset when either end goes off the cliff".

On the "falling off of the cliff" vein, my husband & I noticed that
horses seem to have an affinity for the very edge of the ledge.  It
didn't make any sense to us, so we started watching how folks rode these
sections.

We noticed that most folks leaned <away> from the edge.  Think of the
following scenario:
Cliff to the right
Solid mountain to the left.

Rider leans to mountain/to the left.  His/her left seat bone is now more
weighted and pushes the horse to the right, TOWARDS the edge.  Poor
horse is being told to side pass off the side of the mountain and he
probably thinks the rider is crazy.

Since we've been aware of this tendency, we have horses that calmly walk
down the CENTER of the trail  :)   Doesn't address the issue of a horse
who moves wide behind placing feet over the edge, but our wide mover
learned over time where his feet belong.

Linda Flemmer
Blue Wolf Ranch
Bruceton Mills, WV