I know I will get major flames from this, but I
just have to say something here -- people who ride gaited horses say that it's
such a smooth ride, but observing them going down the trail, I can see a
lot of movement in the riders - no, it's not like riding a trot or a
canter, but when I watch your bodies, you are moving quite a bit. I rode a
gaited horse one time, a TWH, and quite honestly, for me -- I did not
like the movement. I felt like I was sitting on a washing machine
that had an unbalanced load... it didn't feel 'right' to me.
Probably I was doing something wrong(!), I'll certainly admit that! But, I
prefer the "feel" of the gaits of a QH or Arabian or TB. A good horse
is going to have smooth gaits, no matter the breed, I believe.
OK -- now, I am NOT slamming gaited horses here,
believe it or not! The more I see of them, the more I truly do like
them. But, saying they're a smoother ride is a stretch for me. Ok,
I'm now putting on my fireproof suit...
I, too, have experienced the "stagnant back" when gaiting
for a long time. It's nice to have a horse that can mix up the gaits a bit. I
think it's good for the horse and the rider both. The foxtrotter is a trotting
horse as well as a gaiting horse, and as such, many of them can switch between
gaits, allowing the horse and the rider to use other muscle groups.
To bore you folks further, there is an important neurologic relationship
between our joints and the muscles that drive them. All of the joints in our
body are richly supplied with nerve endings which supply information back to
the spinal cord and brain, as well as the muscles themselves. When you ride a
gaited horse (or sit at a desk too long, for that matter) these nerve endings
"quiet down" and don't provide as much information as they could to the
muscles nearby. This contributes to the "stiff" feeling we have sometimes when
getting up from bed in the morning, rising from a chair after a few hours of
sitting, or gaiting for a long time on a horse. So, when we change gaits, or
get up from a chair and move around, we engage different joint systems,
which is just as influential as moving the different muscles themselves. This
is one of the reasons that athletic trainers will teach you to use a full
range of motion when lifting weights. Yes, it stimulates more muscle, but also
wakens more nerve endings in the joint, which then talk to the muscle and help
in the strength building process. Anyone who has experienced restricted
mobility in a joint (from injury, surgery, joint replacement, arthritis) will
often notice that the muscles that move that joint lose size and strength even
after aggressive therapy. One of the reasons for this is that if the joint
nerve endings can't be fully stimulated, the associated muscles can't
either. That's it for today. There will be a quiz on this
material on Wednesday. Class dismissed. Bruce
Weary
