Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I have to weigh in and support Angie on the shorter stirrup issue.  Mind 
you, we are not talking jockey length here, just short enough to be able to 
rise and fall with the motion of your horse.  If you have shortish legs, 
when riding a horse with a big, scopy trot, it is impossible to avoid 
getting your pelvis whacked on every stride if you have stirrups that are 
"as long as possible" while "still being able to keep heels down".  Why? 
Because the horse's motion is so high and long that you cannot get out of 
his way.  As he rises, you are not pushed up out of the saddle - you are 
carried in the saddle.  Then as his back starts to fall, the momentum from 
being pushed upward drives you higher.  You peak and start down and smack 
into the now rising on the next stride saddle, once again to be carried 
upwards.  With shorter stirrups, some of that upthrust can be absorbed by 
the uncoiling of the knees so that at the peak of the stride, all the 
kinetic energy has been dissipated, your upward momentum relative to the 
saddle is zero, and you can descend as the saddle falls.

If you have longer legs, the only way you could possibly begin to 
appreciate the problem would be to imagine that you are on a 25 hand tall 
horse whose trot was commensurate with it's height.  In that situation, you 
too would not be able to stop rising after the horse's stride peaked... 
unless you shortened your stirrups.


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