Going up a bounce bank----Stay in the driver`s seat.
(Oscar at Radnor)

I`d rather take some Wyoming cowgirl that could "ride the hair off a skunk" and teach her how to jump, than some eq queen, and teach her how to gallop. Speed won`t intimidate a rider who is "part of the living, breathing horse."

land loss

If there is ONE culprit in the deterioration of American riding, it`s land loss. ANY tried and true young foxhunter deals with this type of situation every time they have a run, if they live where there are hills. They only have to smash th...eir face on their pony`s crest a few times before they figure out that there`s a better way! But if a rider never gallops, never deals with terrain, never has to tough it out, can they really think of themselves as a real rider? Frank Chapot and Kathy Kusner rode in the Maryland Hunt Cup, just to put "then versus now" in some perspective.

 

 

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The great Mark Todd, coming down this four step complex with Aberjack, putting himself where he needs to be to help Aberjack keep HIS equilibrium.

Here`s one of the great riders, back in the day, right where he/she needs to be, dropping at some speed into this water jump. Years ago, I heard this interesting insight; "Good event riders have more in common with bronc riders than they do with equitation riders." This refers to their ability to "put their body where the horse ain`t" Think that one carefully through, if you are a brainwashed "style" rider.

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Tamarack Hill Farm

6 hours ago

Here with For Pete`s Sake, years ago at Millbrook----Put that leg in a place that helps "anchor" the upper body in balance. Foxhunt, or work cows in Wyoming, or ride the rough, back country on endurance rides, and your body will start to go where it needs to be. Get OUT of the damn little ring if you want to become a good rider.

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Tamarack Hill Farm

6 hours ago

Riders in rough terrain, riders of buckers, riders who have developed a sense of "thrust/counter thrust" learn to use their whole bodies as balancing tools. This includes sticking their legs out "on the dashboard", if the situation calls for it, which can seem quite at odds with the "fixed" and overly stylized equitation poses that sometimes get ribbons in shows. "Outdoor" riders don`t sweat that posing stuff. Like Western artists Russell`s and Remington`s cowboys and Indians, they ride to function first, form second. When appropriate, the good riders can be as stylish as anyone, but never in a posed way.

Galloping speeds as they may relate to horse falls

Tamarack Hill Farm

Like This PageLiked · 19 hours ago

Galloping speeds as they may relate to horse falls:
When I rode in my first event in 1962, fifty years ago, the optimum speed at the advanced level was 570 meters per minute. The cross country courses, by and large, were big but basically straightforward and you could get into a flowing rhythm.

Today, cross country courses tend to be much more complex and technical, with more combinations, mor...

e places to set up, speed up, slow down, much less flowing. And the advanced cross country speed is 570 meter per minute, exactly the same as 50 years ago.

What this does is get riders to chase when they have an opening, to make up for all the "set up places" where they have to throttle down. It`s very tiring for the horse, speed up, slow down, and, with no proof, just gut feeling, I think leads to hooking and flipping, those rotational falls that are the deadly little "secret" of upper level eventing. It needs to be addressed by smart, savvy horsemen.

 

 

More Denny thoughts

1979, York at Chesterland, a "touch and go" bank. These require quick reflexes and a keep going forward attitude. These "questions" test a horse better, in my opinion, than the extreme angles and narrow skinnies that don`t exist "in nature....

" Somehow, cross country course design has gotten "weird."
If a horse can`t tell what a jump IS, it`s hard to navigate. Yes, the Michael Jungs and William Fox-Pitts of the eventing world can make it happen anyway, but is "weird" to a horse`s eye what we want to ask?

 

Dilemma: We all know that when horses gallop faster, almost all of them "flatten" more, like greyhounds, to have more reach. This is an effective way to cover ground, but a potentially lethal way to approach a jump that isn`t sloping and fo...

rgiving, like a steeplechase fence. A faster, flatter approach leads to a faster, flatter trajectory. Simple physics.

Now that courses have become more technical, there are more places that riders have to set up, to be precisely accurate. They have to break the gallop rhythm, and this slows the speed. To make up for all the slowdowns, they have to race where they can. And if they race at some big table, and miss the distance, that`s the recipe for a rotational fall. There have been many of these falls by eventing`s very best riders, not just the lesser riders. Something is "broken."

 

Tamarack hill farm Denny Emerson

 

 

Obviously, an endless series of straightforward fences like big logs would miss the point, just as "yank and crank" endless combinations of angles and skinnies, miss the point. If XC designers WANT to create "Outdoor Hickstead Jumping Derbi...

es" out of jumps that, when hit, don`t fall down----the horse falls instead----then don`t ask them to race at old fashioned cross country speeds at them. Those speeds were created for more galloping courses. Where is the common sense, and awareness of basic physics?

 

Conditioning the Dressage Horse, part 1