Things I want to know....

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I've never understood it to mean that that the horse has a problem in any way - it's a criticism or observation of the ability (or otherwise!) of the rider.

I have used it both ways - they can't ride one side of it - the rider is crap.

I can't ride one side of it - the horse is crap!

But then I have also been known to say that people couldn't ride one side of a deaf, dumb, blind dead donkey - they are really really crap riders lol!
 

Mucking out - still

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Don't think it's any problem with your IQ, SLH.......just go to sleep at 3am for goodness sake :p

Palindrome.....more explanation, please as whilst it's a great answer, I still don't understand it. Risking demonstrating low IQ too :rolleyes:
 

JanetGeorge

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Here's one - why do young horses who go to Exmoor grow at LEAST a hand bigger than they should have? (And the younger they are when they go there, the bigger they grow.) I'm guessing it's something in the soil - but I have sold youngsters between 32 and 4 who have ended up at least 6" bigger than the biggest of their full siblings! And a weanling filly who went to Exmoor - whose biggest full brother got to 17.2 WITHOUT going to Exmoor - may break the record judging by how much she's grow in just three months! Has anyone else experienced this? I KNOW breeding horses is a bit like rolling dice - but odd it's always Exmoor!
 

cobgoblin

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Here's one - why do young horses who go to Exmoor grow at LEAST a hand bigger than they should have? (And the younger they are when they go there, the bigger they grow.) I'm guessing it's something in the soil - but I have sold youngsters between 32 and 4 who have ended up at least 6" bigger than the biggest of their full siblings! And a weanling filly who went to Exmoor - whose biggest full brother got to 17.2 WITHOUT going to Exmoor - may break the record judging by how much she's grow in just three months! Has anyone else experienced this? I KNOW breeding horses is a bit like rolling dice - but odd it's always Exmoor!


If that's true.... How small would exmoor ponies be if they were bred elsewhere?
.
 
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If that's true.... How small would exmoor ponies be if they were bred elsewhere?
.
Maybe one of the Exmoor folk on here will know why that happens.
I'm now wondering if there's a difference between stud bred and moor bred stock in terms of height? I know free living NFs used to be smaller. (Not so much now though.)
 

Keith_Beef

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All these acronyms aren't actually answering why the arena letters are what they are :p

https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/dressage/ask-hh-dressage-letter-markers-273717

I have another theory. The letters were arranged arbitrarily just to make life a bit more complicated and to require more work and concentration on the part of the rider.

I think that to ever find out, we need access to the minutes of the committee that decided on this, for the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
 

MotherOfChickens

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Maybe one of the Exmoor folk on here will know why that happens.
I'm now wondering if there's a difference between stud bred and moor bred stock in terms of height? I know free living NFs used to be smaller. (Not so much now though.)

if you breed them off the moor (any moor, doesn't have to be Exmoor-mine were all Cumbrian bred and there are those on Scorraig too) they tend to lose certain characteristics (same as the other natives) but I don't know if there's any link between height and being on Exmoor, generally anything bred off moor tends to get bigger. Icelandics (for comparison) make bigger heights here than those born and brought up in Iceland.
 

JanetGeorge

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if you breed them off the moor (any moor, doesn't have to be Exmoor-mine were all Cumbrian bred and there are those on Scorraig too) they tend to lose certain characteristics (same as the other natives) but I don't know if there's any link between height and being on Exmoor, generally anything bred off moor tends to get bigger. Icelandics (for comparison) make bigger heights here than those born and brought up in Iceland.

lol, all I know is that all the horses I have sold to Exmoor row FAR bigger than they should be. It's now quite embarrassing - if a buyer wants a 2-3 yo to go to Exmoor, I can only say 'that one shouldn't be more than XXX" - but they all have proved me wrong.
 

Bernster

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You've never met one with 'both legs out of the same hole', then? Meaning extremely narrow chested.[/QUOTE]

Haha I’ve never heard that expression before! Mine does have a leg in each corner, but the front corners are a bit close together !
 

Mucking out - still

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Palindrome.....more explanation, please as whilst it's a great answer, I still don't understand it. Risking demonstrating low IQ too

Spacefaer put it better than me:
spacefaer said:
So "sur" meaning over and "sangle" girth - it's an over girth, pronounced ser-single


Didn't mean that one o_O It was the bone .......
1) "flat bone" is about the tendons/ligament behind the cannon bone
 

honetpot

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You've never met one with 'both legs out of the same hole', then? Meaning extremely narrow chested.

Haha I’ve never heard that expression before! Mine does have a leg in each corner, but the front corners are a bit close together ![/QUOTE]
Everyone moans about the poor confirmation of the horses of today but 40 odd years ago it was really bad and I saw things as a child you would never see today.
I used to ride for a small time dealer, he would buy ponies no one wanted and we young girls would try and do something with them.
Some of the confirmation faults were so extreme, literally two legs out of one hole, roach backs like razors, a lots of leg faults.Even as a twelve year old girl who knew very little I wondered why they had not been shot as foals. These quickly got disposed of but then they had a dead weight value.
The rest we salvaged and remarkably most had good temperaments and after a few months of hacking out the were sold as children’s ponies and buyers only came back to buy the next pony from him.
The dealer was in his way remarkable because the ones that were not really suitable to sell as first ponies but not actually dangerous , they went for meat, were kept and as you got a ‘better rider’, you graduated on to riding them, for fun. You either fell off a lot, or learned to stay on.
 
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