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Heidi Smith said:
>Extension, especially to the extreme,
takes
>a lot of extra effort. (I think many
endurance
>riders mistake a fairly long working
trot
>for extension--I'm talking about the
actual
>alteration of gait as one would define it
in
>dressage here, not just a big, long trot.)
The Morgan people make this distinction all
the time.
In the show ring, Morgans are not asked for
an
"extended trot," they are asked for a "road
trot."
A "Road Trot" is
exactly that: the kind of trot
you would have used on a horse in the 19th
century,
under saddle or most particularly in
harness, when
you were actually on the road on a horse
trying to
*get* somewhere. A fast, big, ground-covering
trot
that the horse can maintain for long
distances.
Sure a "road trot" requires more extension,
but
extension is not the be-all, end-all (in
dressage,
the ideal extended trot has no increase in
tempo!)
of the exercise; just a by-product.
I've been watching my friends ride, and it
is
interesting that neither seems to know, as
a
matter of course, how to get a horse into
a
"road trot." I believe both have simple
hunt
seat backgrounds (learned as adults)
where
road trots just don't figure. Saddleseat folks
are taught this as a matter of course.
Both
of their horses have depths of ability
at
a road trot that I don't think that they
know
how to tap
(although one is catching on).
Linda B. Merims
Massachusetts, USA
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