High stepping...

["Karen J. Zelinsky" <kjz2@juno.com>]

Speaking of... my horse (arab mare - Polish, Russian, Crabbet) was a top
winning park horse in the mid-Atlantic zone (in her days).  She's 22 now.
 The legs that moves high has laid back shoulders, high-set neck and
SHORT (so I hear and she's got 'em) SHORT cannon bones.  A trainer I met
last winter saw her in those days and said she almost hit her chin with
her front legs!   You don't see many with a nice sloped shoulder and
short cannon bones, do you?  Mine has a very powerful butt, also, and I
am told has the racing angles ("A" frame) -- if the hip angle  and the
shoulder angle slant equally towards each other, voila! A powerful racing
bod.  If only this archaic computer could send a pic of her.  I was told
that she, along with ALL Park horses then and now are trained with those
terrible devices - like ropes tied from hind feet to girth for resistence
training, like super heavy foot weights, etc. (and those are the GOOD
devices!)  When removed, legs reach higher.  Results years later?  My
mare has hip problem.  Oh well, back to the drawing board of what to do
with the great bods WITHOUT warping them for future use.  

What gets me,  at those blasted show rings, you see all kinds of
imperfect horse bodies (not to mention non-equine bods) that have classes
seemingly formed to fit their ability/inability... i.e., limited movement
= western, next step up = hunter, next = english pleasure, then the
"mutants" get to do Park class.  I hear that is a rare arab that is built
for Park, and does not last long in it.   Interesting -- sorry, I'm lost
in thought somewhere back in the good old/bad old days!!!!

Karen in PA

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