Kentucky to Alabama.
Teaser 2 of 3
Ontario to Kentucky.
Teaser 1 of 3
Text Art: Barn Colors
The base color, because black & white is what I do (journalism) and how I think.
In addition, each horse has a color for personal items: feed buckets, grooming slips, brush boxes, etc.
Previous Horse’s competition color.
Previous Horse’s retirement color. It’s good to be the king emperor.
Process note: These are no longer done in haste. Instead, they reflect a refreshing element of spontaneity.
Tweet Storage as of August 15, 2014
Archiving the non-show tweets
April 11 – August 15, 2014
32 tweets
retweeted by the Canadian Intergalactic Towel Day Ambassador 2014
Show Tweets: Mid-South Spring Premiere, Rainsville, AL
re: Posting Trot in Saddle Seat
(I had this as a response to a comment yesterday. Then I thought, Aha A Post and moved it.)
Q: How on earth do you rise in the trot without the stirrup leg to balance you? Core strength? … The basic assumption I am making is that you are pivoting from your knee in Saddle seat, versus using the leg against the horse, as in hunter/dressage style.
A: My instructor tells me that back in her day, the lower leg position was far more extreme than required today. Also, saddle seat equitation guru Helen Crabtree writes that she does not believe in non-stirrup work. She feels the brace between the stirrup and the knee is the basis of the seat. Sounds weird to me, but you can’t argue with her record.
My feeling is that the routes are different but the destination is the same, at least in the current seat. Digging one’s knee into the saddle is against everything I was taught. OTOH, if done correctly in a saddle seat saddle, the result is a tight upper leg/upper calf against the horse. Move yourself to the center of the saddle & you have dressage. Hike the stirrups & you have hunt seat. At least as far as my understanding goes at the moment.
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Gratuitous Cat Picture
Back To Basics
The posting trot is the centerpiece of saddle seat, at least as long as one is three-gaiting. In equitation, you wow the judge at the trot and then try not to lose the class at the canter.
However, it has been a red-headed stepchild in everything else I’ve done. In hunters & jumpers you trot to warm up. Then you canter. In dressage, the posting trot is a beginner’s gait. As soon as you require anything from the horse, you sit. Even in hunter equitation, posting comes behind canter position & sitting trot in terms of impressing the judge. The posting trot is a gait to be half-assed before you go onto something more interesting.
Therefore, my recent lessons have focused on posting trot mechanics: posting at a walk, posting without stirrups, lunge line work. At one point, I looked over to the other ring. One of the wee up-downers was doing the same exercises I was.
I’m having a blast. My technically-minded, detail-oriented self is all over this kind of work.
After three intensive trot lessons, we have the engine in pieces all over the shop floor. We will now attempt to reassemble it and get it running in the modified configuration.
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Gratuitous cat picture
Virtual Brush Box 