Re: McKinley: lessons

The author of "Misty of Chincoteague" , "Justin Morgan Had a Horse" ,
"King of the Wind" , and "White Stallion of Lippiza" plus many other
wonderful horse books is Marguerite Henry.

Jennifer

From: Danielle <zildjian18@yahoo.com>
To: mckinley@its.caltech.edu <mckinley@its.caltech.edu>
Date: Friday, February 12, 1999 10:08 PM
Subject: Re: McKinley: lessons

>I can't remember her name, but the lady who wrote the books about the
>Chincoteague ponies, "Misty," etc., also wrote a book called something
>like "The White Stallion of Lipizza." It contained some detail on the
>dressage cues they used, and for some reason I remember something
>about backing - I think it was a non-rein cue, that's probably why I
>still remember it. It's been a very long time since I read the book,
>but it was one of my favorites when I was little... I was going to
>write a reply to the previous "lessons" message, but Beca covered it
>very well - certainly better than I would have, because it's been a
>year since I've ridden and I never spent a lot of time with dressage.
>The history was great to remember; I did a research project on just
>Xenophon and another on the development of cavalry, in high school,
>but I haven't read much on it since. The Hill style itself, I agree,
>is entirely (theoretically entirely, I should say) possible - it's
>just kind of limited by the personality and intelligence of the horse,
>and the talent of the rider. I've never actually tried it; I didn't
>find McKinley's Damar books until after I had to stop riding. I
>figure you could train a cue to back, like, say, a voice command or a
>heel tap in a specific place - it would just take a lot of time and
>effort, which would probably not be worth it. A Damarian trainer,
>though, working with a horse from the beginning of its training, would
>have no problem adding that in among all those complex battle moves.
>Anyway - what I was going to say was, on the other hand, I've always
>been kind of dubious about going from flat-out run to a stop just by
>digging in one's butt; whenever I rode bareback (with a pad) at
>anything over an easy canter, I was sitting deep already to stay with
>the horse, and I'm not sure how well the horse would feel a difference
>in the "digging in" as described in "Hero" - it's not a full saddle,
>but there's still something there to muffle whatever pressure did get
>through. Maybe a fairly sensitive horse would just respond to the
>weight shift? But what happens when you're running away over the
>desert and you have to get a drink - so you lean back a little as you
>grab your waterskin - and the horse slams to a stop, pitching you over
>its ears because you weren't expecting it?
>I don't know. Any ideas? I really wish I could try it out, but I'm
>kind of limited these days. Beca, I might be just having the literary
>equivalent of an LSD flashback (ie I'm hallucinating), but you might
>want to try looking up that book. It contained a lot of detail about
>the Lipizzaners, their riders, and the training of each that you might
>find interesting.
>Danielle :)
>
>
>
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Received on Fri Feb 12 21:06:51 1999