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[RC] Dictating Transitions - k s swigartKathy R said: What percentage (if any, that is my assuming part) do you all let your horses set the pace? ... Am I asking for trouble? This is her first season and I was wondering if I should dictate transitions 100% of the time? You are asking two different questions here. Dictating pace and dictating transitions are not the same thing. Pace is the speed the horse is using, transition is the gait the horse is using. To answer your questions. Mostly, I choose the speed and the horse chooses the gait. Which would tend to mean that I "set the pace" and the horse "dictates transitions." However, this is not ENTIERELY accurate. I choose the speed based on a bunch of different variables, not the least of which is my evaluation of the current feedback from the horse, but also on my foreknowledge of the trail and what more I am going to be asking of the horse (that the horse doesn't yet know about). So, my horse may tell me "I feel great, I can go faster here." to which I might respond, "Yeah, you might feel great right now, but you don't know what's coming up next, and if I let you go faster here you won't feel so great later." :) And sometimes, I will dictate the transition (e.g. I can see a section of rocky trail coming up and will tell the horse to transition into the walk BEFORE the horse trots into it and decides that the walk is a better gait because it is stumbling :)). I also "dictate" lead changes and the canter, I don't wait for the horse to decide that it would be more comfortable on the other lead. kat Orange County, Calif. ============================================================ REAL endurance is sleeping in the tack compartment of your trailer w/the door open, and your horse snorts/snots on your forehead every 30 min! ~ Heidi Sowards ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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