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Happy New Year

Culnacréann wishes you a Happy New Year!

Hallo! I wish you a Happy New Year, all the best for 2008!. - Culnacréann (talk) 22:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Dutch Breeds

I've been looking at some of the Dutch breeds, and I'm wondering what your opinion on merging some of the articles would be. From looking at the KY Horse Park/IMH site here, it looks like the Dutch Warmblood, Dutch harness horse and Gelderland (horse) are all considered to be the same breed according to the Dutch KWPN studbook. Also, according to the IMH site on the Groningen horse here it has been for the most part merged into the DWB breed. It looks like the Wiki page (check out the talk page) for the Groningen was made by the person who runs an association calling for the continued separation of the breed form the DWB. (I made some formatting changes to this site, but nothing content wise.) If they're all the same breed, would it be wise to merge them all and make the other pages into redirects? Let me know what you think.

Also (on a slightly off-topic note), what would you think of merging the article on Smetanka with the main Orlov Trotter page (especially since most of the info is already there)? It doesn't seem like there's a lot more to say on the foundation stud, does he really need his own page? Dana boomer (talk) 23:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I'm here to butt in! The KWPN is one registry which has several "breeding directions" which it details on it's own website. The Dutch Warmblood, Gelderlander, and Dutch Harness Horse are different "breeds", much more distinct than the Rhinelander is from the Westphalian, for example. Is IMH considered some kind of authority? Countercanter (talk) 23:47, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem butting in, this page winds up being a sandbox for article discussions sometimes, I don't mind. Here's my take: I'd say not to merge. First off, Countercanter has tremendous credibility with me on the warmblood topics because of the excellent research and sourcing I have seen in the edits. I also know that Countercanter tends to have a more restrictive view of what constitutes a "breed" than some, thus if s/he says these are distinct enough "breeds" to have separate articles, then I support that view. As for details, I know that the Dutch Harness Horse is being treated as a different breed from the Dutch Warmblood in the USA because a few people are crossbreeding them on Arabians trying to create a real powerfully-trotting saddle seat horse. If the Gelderlander is fully merged into the DW and there are no purebreds left, then I'd rather consider it being classed as an extinct breed, given that it was once distinct. (Note articles on extinct breeds like the Norfolk Trotter and Narragansett Pacer, for example)

No, I don't really want to merge Smetanka, but I admit that this is because I'm biased--I created it! (grin). Objectively, one reason for this is that Smetanka is of minor significance within the Arabian breed as well as being a foundation sire for the Orlov Trotter. I won't scream and hold my breath until I turn blue over it, but I think the standalone article passes WP:Notability. It's also fun to say "Smetanka" several times fast...Smetanka Smetanka Smetanka Smetanka Smppbbbth ... (wiping spittle from mouth now, 'scuse me...) :-D

As for sources, IMH (Kentucky Horse Park International Museum of the Horse) and the Oklahoma State web sites are the two "best" (not necessarily the same as high quality) general sources easily accessed on the net for answering the question of "is this a 'real' breed?" and getting basic info. They are more reliable than most other big lists that tend to contain a lot of "breeds" that aren't breeds. These two sites are not the final and definitive authority, and I have found factual errors within some of the individual articles, particularly those at Ok State, but I use them frequently as about the only online sources available for obscure breeds, and if some breed is not mentioned at all there, I have used those sources on the relatively few occasions I argue for complete removal of a "breed" article.

Overall, I guess I tend to be hesitant to merge breed articles generally unless they really are the same breed for a couple reasons. First, based on the edit history of list of horse breeds, if we over-merge, then the same articles just get recreated again, sometimes with even poorer quality (I can name at least two different "offenders" on this, but I won't). I have also seen multiple articles on the same obscure breed on more than one occasion, none of which were written with any knowledge that the others were out there.

Second, I tend to disfavor merges to counter my own biases. I am first and foremost an Arabian aficionado (never guess that, huh?), and thus my own personal attitude is that almost EVERYTHING else is some sort of crossbreed (grin). Thus, I tend to figure that I'd be better off to err on the side of being pretty generous, and if enough people care about some type of horse to create a breed registry or have some sort of mainstream legitimate recognition (like the 8 breeds of horse native to Indonesia that, as far as I can tell, are virtually identical, but the FAO thinks they are different) and if it isn't just a few people trying to promote their own farm, or some other blatent marketing ploy then what the hay.

The most marginal breed articles I see out there but which I have not proposed for merge or deletion are the Virginia highlander, and the even more obscure Camarillo White Horse, but heck, the people of the City of Camarillo made it their official horse, so who am I to argue? On the other hand, I have found only one farm anywhere that raises the "American Spotted Paso", they've only been at it a few years, and I have succeeded in having it speedily deleted twice on the grounds that it's just advertising. Montanabw^(talk) 03:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

FYI, Anyone want to help with a really annoying job, compare Category:Horse breeds to the article List of horse breeds with a cross-check in Category:Horses to see if new breed articles snuck in without notice, our watchlists don't flag new articles that are added automatically to a category -- sigh. Bleecch! Montanabw^(talk) 03:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I shall bow to your expertise then :) I was just checking to see if those merges were something that needed to be done. If the consensus is that they not be merged, then is it OK to remove the merge tags from Gelderland/DWB that you put there, Montana? I'll take a look at the category/list comparison. Also, the Marbach article looks great. Nice work!Dana boomer (talk) 14:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Spanish horse

Dear Sir: I´ve quoted this from the very begining: The Asociación Nacional de Criadores de Caballos de Pura Raza Española, The National Association of Purebred Spanish Horse Breeders of Spain is the international parent association founded for Purebred Spanish Horses. "Constituted in 1972, ANCCE currently accounts for more than 700 breeders world-wide and 22 associations such as those of the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Italy, Mexico, Holland, Czech Republic and Sweden.

ANCCE is the representative of the Purebred Spanish Horse in the COPA-COGEGA( Committee of professional Agricultural organization) and the WBFSH (World Breeders Federation of Sports Horses) and it designs annual promotional plans with the Spanish Institute of Foreign commerce (ICEX) and EXTENDA (Andalusian Promotional Agency). (http://www.ancce.es/index.php#1). There is a single pre stud book for the entire world. There is only a single Registration Book which is authorized, internationally, to produce the official documentation for Purebred Spanish Horses. "Other names such as Andalusian or Iberian horse do not represent this horse. These should generally be regarded along with the cross-breds that lack the quality controls and purity, as well as of the official documentation of the Spanish Stud Book." Apart from this, there is not any official "andalusian Horse Breeder" asociation. There is not any "andalusian horse" stud book. The Spanish horse has a very rigorous standart, and the breeding of spanish horse has being developed since inmemorial time. Wen I moved the page, I clearly explained the reason, quoting the ANCCE statement. I don´t understand at all your "also is unsourced". I´m affraid you haven´t had the chance to read my comment. Yes in deed, my statement is perfectly sourced. On the opposite, THERE IS NOT ANY SOURCE standing the "andalusian horse" name. I find astonishing that you consider my statements "unsourced". Specially when there isn´t any oficial source supporting the "andalusian" name. "The various Andalusian horse breeder associations would take issue with your statements." Well, that will be the case if any "andalusian horse breeder" would exist, breeding the hypothetical "andalusian horse" that legally and officially doesn´t exist, so far. You appeal to the NPOV, and once again, I fill amazed; "articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and, as much as possible, without bias all significant views (that have been published by reliable sources). This is non-negotiable and expected on all articles, and of all article editors." I´ve read it several times, and the more I read, the most I desagree with your point of view. I´ve argumented my statesments with "reliable sources" from the very begining. On the other side, I can´t find any source -"reliable" or not- standing the "andalusian horse" name. So, I don´t know who you are, and I find your comment intimidating and threatning, and opposite to Wikipedia policies. Under this circumstances, I do have the right to move this article, and I don´t think you have the right to threat me with an hypothetycall NPOV or NOR warning. Please, read again the article, and if you think that theres another source better than the one I quoted, it will worth a good discussion page. Until then, I will move the page again, because I honestly think is the right think to do, its justifyed, and necessaire for the good of Wikipedia. And Please, do not try to intimadete me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pinaster (talk • contribs) 02:06, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Answering further on your talk page. Or we can take it to the Andalusian page. But see http://www.ialha.org/ and note it is International Andalusian and Lusitano Horse Association and designated the "official breed registry" in the United States. You certainly can start a new article if you wish. Montanabw^(talk) 02:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Always happy to try and assist. Dreadstar † 23:20, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Galician/Asturcon Ponies

It seems the sources are giving us mixed information. I've looked at the OSU site, and although they have seperate listings for both ponies, their description of location and ancestor breeds is almost the same. My breed book (Simon & Schuster, so it is outdated, although usually correct on background) says that they're the same breed. The Equine Kingdom site [1], which claims to be quoting from The Encyclopedia of Horses and Ponies, by Tamsin Pickeral, and The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Horses, by Susan McBane, says they're the same breed. I don't have those books, so I can't check. If you think we should leave them seperate, though, then I'll just work on expanding both pages.Dana boomer (talk) 13:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, for now. Maybe we could put (if there aren't already) a cross-ref to the other article saying they are "Closely related." I read the OSU pages to list one breed as an ancestor of the other, but with common ancestors to both, but no big deal. Most of those generic "horse breeds of the world" books tend to have pretty poor information (at least when I read the articles on the mainstream breeds I know well, I just cringe at the inaccuracies). The best thing is to hunt for breed registries, but that's tough to do with these unusual and rare breeds. Montanabw^(talk) 06:35, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Missionary work?

All of these Hungarian breeds are the result of the rather unfortunate habit that the Austro-Hungarians had of not giving horses individual names, just what was in essence a surname with Roman and Arabic numbers. I'm sure you've noticed that there's several zillion 3-Shagya IV-79's. The genius of Austro-Hungarian horse breeding was the use of linebreeding. So you got strains of riding horse called Nonius, Furioso, Gidran, Shagya, North Star, etc. In a modern interpretation, they have become discrete breeds.

The Kisber Felver is what I call "Anglo-Arab" without the -ian. On the continent, when you say "Arabian" you just mean "more or less Arabian". If you mean purebred, you say "Purebred Arabian". So the Kisber Felver, Shagya, Gidran, Malapolski and French Anglo-Arab are mostly Thoroughbred and Arabian blood, but not entirely. To me, Anglo-Arabian means F1. These horses were the tops of riding horses; all the cool kids had them. The notion of an Anglo-Arab is still very popular, so much so that the Dutch have formed the NRPS which breeds only ponies with Arabian influence and horses with Anglo-Arab or Arabian influence. I assume the Pleven is just the Bulgarian take on that theme; rather like the Oberlander is the German take on the Noriker. Or rather, that the system was already in place and when the empire got sliced up into little pieces they just kept on about their business.

The Kinsky is also Austro-Hungarian, though it was bred by just one courtly stud farm. They're not quite Anglo-Arab like the others; more just TB. However, they're known for the prevalence of the creme gene in the population. Today, the region they are bred in is called Czechoslovakia. It's worth noting that in eastern Europe and France, the popular steeplechasing horses are not Thoroughbred, but mostly TB with some Arabian, Trakehner etc. Kinsky horses have won the Pardubice, according to the website. I know of a Brandenburger stallion, Blonder Hans, who was by a Kinsky sire. BH is in the US now.

About German Draft Horses... Effectively, you have the Rhenish German Cold Blood in the west, so more like the Dutch, Belgian and French draft breeds; the South German Cold Blood which is a German Noriker; Schleswiger from the north more like the Jutland; and the Black Forest Horse from the south west.

Oberlander Oberbayern is just a part of Bavaria. The American website is beautifully detailed, but the horse is usually just called the "South German Cold Blood." It is the Noriker born on the German side of the mountains. There are a number of regional associations that register this horse. According to TGR (see below) there are just over 100 approved stallions and 2100 broodmares; just like the Noriker they are bay, chestnut, black, grey, roan, leopard, silver, etc. I think that the American breeders were looking for something less cumbersome than "Suddeutches Kaltblut".

Rhenish-German Cold-Blood According to the Central Documentation website (http://www.genres.de/CF/tgrdeu/ - thank you, German beauraucracy; they record EVERYTHING) there are about 300 of them. These guys I've definitely seen in the horse encyclopedias. Here's the description: http://www.genres.de/CF/tgrdeu/Rasseb_pdf/pdf_pferd/39_rheinisch-deutsches-kaltblut.pdf It says bred in Belgium and the Rhine; 158-165cm tall; bay, chestnut, black and roan variants of those; expressive heavy head, strong neck, powerful shoulders and croup; sound, correct, hard hooves; efficient gait (walk and trot mostly, drafts aren't known for quality canters). For farm work, carriage work, pleasure, etc. In temperament, super calm, gentle, and willing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Countercanter (talk • contribs) 15:23, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm American too, I've just picked up a lot of Dutch, Danish and German. I think that it'd be smart to redo the Anglo-Arabian article including all the definitions:

1) Arabian-Thoroughbred cross

2) Horse breed that is *mostly* Arabian and Thoroughbred.

That would include information on the Senner (German AA), NRPS horse (Dutch AA), French AA, Shagya (with link), Gidran, Pleven, Malapolski, Kisber Felver, and so on. Rather like I've done with the Heavy Warmblood article?

I'm considering doing something similar for the German Warmbloods. All this globalization of data and freezing of semen and falling of walls...The South German associations have all banded together, Hessens have been gobbled up by Hannover (poor Samico lost his license because of his color in that merger! Hoping somebody sues the Hanoverian verband sooner rather than later), and the "New Laender" (that's all of them that were on the other side of the curtain) have joined up too. What I can't figure out is to what degree Mecklenburg has joined in the New Laender group. I should probably ask.

Oh you should have heard this breeder in England talk about the French Anglos! She said she couldn't WAIT for them all to be DNA tested, mark her words there was TRAKEHNER in their pedigrees. It was a Crabbet stud, really really lovely people and wonderful horses. Countercanter (talk) 01:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

F1 means first generation.

I propose that the Anglo-Arabian article be rephrased to something like:

"The Anglo-Arabian is a horse of English Thoroughbred - hence the "Anglo-" prefix - and Arabian parentage. Definitions of what qualifies as an Anglo-Arabian vary between languages and cultures. The most strict definitions hold that an Anglo-Arabian is traceable to only purebred Arabian and purebred Thoroughbred ancestors, neither breed constituting more than 75% of the pedigree. Other standards hold that the blood of other horses may be present in the pedigree, but that the horse be of primarily Arabian and Thoroughbred blood. Anglo-Arabians of all definitions have been popular for centuries as riding horses, race horses, and for improvement of other breeds."

From there on, section on French Anglos, section on English-speaking-regions Anglos, section Anglo-Arabian breeds with brief explanations for Shagya, Gidran, Malapolski, Senner, Pleven, etc.

Nothing that I've read has given me the impression that bloodlines were contaminated, even allegedly. I think that is the wrong mind-set. I think you have to put yourself in the mindset of the people who bred these horses, who were not interested in conforming to some arbitrary registry rule, but just wanted a riding horse that was nice to look at. These registries didn't even exist! They didn't get these breeds because they used cast-offs from "pure" programs, you know? I'm not expressing myself very clearly but I hope you take my meaning.

Standard for French Anglos: http://www.haras-nationaux.fr/portail/uploads/tx_vm19docsbase/sang_anglo_arabe_04.pdf

Info on Senners: http://www.g-e-h.de/geh-pfer/sebr.htm

http://www.zsaa.de/rassen/anglo/anglo-araber.htm ZSAA description of Anglo-Arabians. The ZSAA registers Arabian-blood horses. Countercanter (talk) 18:38, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to condense my response to the comment on Shagya being partbred because he was "cream" colored (whatever that means!) and the frame Thoroughbreds to the following: color, especially white markings, is a totally unreliable means of discriminating between bloodlines. I can certainly explain why, but suffice to say that the process of domestication promotes - in all animals - frequent mutations in color. Long story short, if you select for any kind of temperament trait, everything to do with color changes very very quickly. See the Russian silver fox experiments for support. Also, it may interest you to know that many of the pattern genes (roan, tobiano, SB1, "W"-sabino, etc.) are on the KIT gene. There are different sections of the gene, and in mice there are MANY mutations along the gene. Each mutation produces a slightly different white pattern, from white toe-tips to 99% white animals and everything in between. I realize that frame may be a bit different, being on another gene, but I also digress...

English Thoroughbred is useful when you're writing for an audience that may include people used to saying "Arabian Thoroughbred." I don't think it's necessary for the article but it can be helpful when you're dealing with tone and shades of meaning and such.

Thank you for the compliments, by the way. I'm headed back to school on Tuesday and will be cutting myself off as much as possible. If you see me around too much, you should scold me and tell me to get back to work. Countercanter (talk) 14:44, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

But for now, if there are one or two core warmblood articles you want to rank "high" (as are Arabian and TB, but very little else, not even QH or Andalusian) then figure out which of the rest should be "mid" or "low" (based, I suppose, on the significance of each type, I 'd guess Hanoverians and Oldenbergers would be mid, I put Swiss Warmbloods low for now...) Montanabw^(talk) 00:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Can you check this over

Somehow, I got drafted into helping with Washington Park Race Track. Can you look it over and see if it makes any sense? And if you have any information that can be added, it'd be great. I'm really struggling to find stuff. Ealdgyth | Talk 02:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, every bit of help helps. So, now that I've braved WP:GA and came out alive (even did some reviews, yay me!) ... what's up in horsie land? I've got someone looking at Easy Jet (I hope) to see if it's worth trying for GA on. We might think about another breed or three going through too. I'm home, and not going anywhere for a few months, besides a few weekend trips, so it's time to pound on WP! Besides, it's freaking COLD out, and I can't get motivated to ride. Ealdgyth | Talk 04:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

So the reply on Easy Jet was not totally negative, so I spent my morning working it over again. Think you can give it a look-see from a non-QH perspective and let me know what you think? Ealdgyth | Talk 20:22, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

No worries, I've gotten dragged off into another issue entirely, the whole fun dispute at Franco-Mongol alliance. I've been trying to keep an eye on the horse articles as best I can. I've been following the Old Black Horse thing too, it's very interesting, wish I had more to offer than what I already did. Ealdgyth | Talk 03:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I took a look. Indeed, you are having WAY too much fun over there! I have deliberately tried to avoid anything but the horse articles, lest wikipedia take over my entire life instead of just a few hours each evening. Even going as far afield as cowboys or cavalry has been a bit dangerous. Montanabw^(talk) 04:14, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to pull out a few things I might have lurking that might help out over at Cowboy. I know I have the history of the XIT Ranch somewhere on the shelves, and the Cattle Kings book might have some tidbits too. For that matter, I have something on Western costume somewhere around here too... now to find it! Ealdgyth | Talk 04:19, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

ARGH.. i just looked at the XIT article, gods, that's bad. Guess I add THAT to my list of things to do...Ealdgyth | Talk 04:20, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

You should know better than to venture into strange articles you haven't been in before...who knows what disasters await? (grin). Just wait, soon you will have over 700 articles on YOUR watchlist, just like me (managed to toss about a hundred, actually, but still...) Montanabw^(talk) 04:38, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

(smirks) "You have 1,559 pages on your watchlist (excluding talk pages)" It's the bishops, they breed like rabbits, I swear. Ealdgyth | Talk 04:42, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

(slapping head) OK, you got me beat, but I DO edit my watchlist when it gets over 800! (grin) Hmm. check my user boxes on my user page, I have two or three that specifically address wikipedia addiction, you may not yet have all of them! Oh and a couple of editcountitis links too. (You can probably tell the degree to which my now-former job increasingly sucked by my monthly edit count stats!) Montanabw^(talk) 05:31, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Found a "This user refuses to discuss politics before Labor Day becausand e she's sick of perpetual elections" userbox yet? Ealdgyth | Talk 06:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, tweaked Easy Jet a bit. Noticed a couple articles, not just that one, play pretty fast and loose with the term "inbred," note that just because a horse has a common ancestor on both sides of the pedigree does not make the animal inbred...or even linebred (Though that said, I am among those who have the mocking "if it works, it's linebreeding, if it doesn't work, it's inbreeding" opinion). Montanabw^(talk) 05:31, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, the sources I was using say "inbred" so I say "inbred" ... of course you know who originated that statement, right? Hank Wiescamp, king of inbreeding in QHs. QH people tend to have much more loose interpretations of inbred than us Arabian people, they freak out if you can see the same name on the papers. And us Arabian people, look at Raffles and go "wow, he worked out okay..." But I won't worry about it, no skin off my nose. I clarified a few of your tweaks, mainly because I hadn't been clear at first so you got the starting gate incident in the wrong year. (grins) I love that story, knock your teeth out, get left in the gate and still manage to finish in the money (he earned over $5000 for that fifth place finish). Nice thing about my 1500 articles, many are so freaking obscure, they rarely see edits except when I come by. I mean really, how many people are going to go searching for Oelfstan or Ethelnothus? Thanks for the looksee at Easy Jet, it's much appreciated. I think he's about ready to go to GA. That'll make the fifth Wikipedia:WikiProject Equine GA! Yay!Ealdgyth | Talk 05:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I think neither the Arab or the Quarter horse people really get the science at all. Arab people inbreed way too much and way too close (don't get me started on that topic, it's a pet peeve of mine) QH people apparently just don't get it at all; there is a lot of "linebreeding" that is a lot closer than the "inbred" pedigrees of Easy Jet and his dam, all depends on who you read, I guess. (Just because a source says it doesn't mean we HAVE TO perpetuate the wrong information (grin)) Inbreeding is kind of a loose term for breeding of related individuals, really the more effective way would be to discuss percentage of inbreeding or inbreeding coefficient. These articles sort of explain what I mean: [2] and [3] Basically, the inbreeding coefficient on Easy Jet is pretty low, he has a common ancestor on both sides, but pretty far back on one side,

Spanish Jennet

The Spanish Jennet is NOT the same as the Jennet, I did not mess up it is a separate breed being reestablished with a registry that is 8 years old at this time.

I DID do a search, and saw that the BREED Spanish Jennet was not covered. Please UN-Do the merge as you are doing the Registry and Breeders of the Spanish Jennet a diservice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GaitedHorses (talk • contribs) 03:20, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Answered on your talk page. "Eight years" eh. Really, that does say it all. Montanabw^(talk) 03:31, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes 8 years, the REGISTRY is 8 years old, the BREED is one of the oldest gaited breeds - the Registry is re-establishing an ancient breed.
EVERY Breed has to begin by certification through registration - it is a timely process but one all the Registries have to go through. Again, you are doing this Registry and the Breed and Breeders a disservice due to your lack of Knowledge, so please UN-Merge the topics so the information can be presented. I had not even completed the entry as I am new to this format and was still editing when you preempted my efforts. Gaited Horses: GaitedHorses (talk) 03:44, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Replied on your talk page. Montanabw^(talk) 03:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

One of the Magazines that was a major force in the gaited breeds has an article that may help you to understand. Spanish Jennet Article - The Gaited Horse

QUOTE : The Spanish Jennet project is targeting the production of gaited horses that are spotted (paint or appaloosa types). The target here is an Iberian phenotype, which is a useful goal. by D. Phillip Sponenberg, DVM, PhD

This is the Spanish Jennet Horse Society he is referring to. I do know that last time I checked, over 2 years ago, there were 1000 + horses registered in the SJHS. - Not bad for about 8 years. Gaited Horses: GaitedHorses (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 04:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

That is an excellent source for the Jennet article. But it actually does not support your position,. " Spanish Jennets — more of a type than a “breed” Hmm. Yes, that does clarify matters, doesn't it? And this: "In recent years a few new breed formation programs have returned to the Colonial Spanish horse for contributions. This is an interesting development, but can lead to further diminution of the pure resource unless breeders are careful to maintain this resource, as well as whatever derivatives are desired. Mining this resource yet once again only further contributes to its demise." Hmm, "further diminution of the pure resource," eh? Nowhere in this article is your "breed" mentioned. Well, find me a SOURCE for "last time I checked, there were 1000 horses." Most registries have such data online. Montanabw^(talk) 04:36, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

The time fame the article is referring to seldom HAD breeds, that far back in history, MOST horses were types. AND that far back MANY of the BREEDS you now have listed did not even exist, most of the warm bloods, the QTR Horse, etc.

In any event, WHAT in your opinion, is the time frame to establish a breed? Acording to Merriam-Webster, Quote Breed - Noun a group of usually domesticated animals or plants presumably related by descent from common ancestors and visibly similar in most characters.

For a SOURCE on the # of Registered Spanish Jennets, contact the Registry and ask them, then you are not taking it second hand.

GaitedHorses (talk) 05:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

More than 8 years. 20 or 30 perhaps, certainly long enough for more than one generation of horses to establish a breeding population, but its not my responsibility to establish notability, it's yours. Wikipedia guidelines are quite clear on that point. See WP:VERIFIABILITY. Montanabw^(talk) 05:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Spur Stop Controversy

Just wanted to offer a solution to the problem. Seeing as this is a single sub-section of the Western Pleasure entry, I felt it had grown excessively long. Not to be offensive, but especially on an entry whose primary aim is to present the generalities of Western Pleasure, I don't feel it is your job to protect readers from certain training methods associated with the sport. That was never the original intent of the entry. I don't know when the last time you judged an AQHA show was, but nearly every successful show horse has a spur stop. In fact, you seem to have forgotten that training methods are so widely varied that what you beleive to be right and wrong is nothing more than a personal opinion based solely on bias and preference.

I will apologise for the deletion of certain external references, my only defense is that I removed them in order to shorten the section to a more reasonable length.

Thanks.

Anky won Olympic medals and practices Rollkur. TWH Champions are sored. It's just like our mothers said; "If all your friends jumped off a cliff would you jump off a cliff too?" Let's take this back to the Western Pleasure talk page. Montanabw^(talk) 03:30, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Assements

It's easy if you have broadband, just is kinda mind numbing. I'm utterly at sea on the Warmblood articles, so I've not assessed their importance at all. I tend to lowball importance, and probably have too many "Starts" that might be "Stubs" but I figure if it has a picture and infobox and is at least a few paragraphs, it's a start. Citations will get you a start too! Ealdgyth | Talk 04:35, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we're okay with Top for Arabians. Quarters are just mid. If we have an article on the jennet and the medieval warhorse, those could go high too, they contributed so much to other breeds. Likewise the Przw-whatevertheyspell it from Poland, the one wild horse. With the breeds, I dont' think we should assign Top to anything, unless it's the semi-mythical 'cold blood ancestor' and the 'hot blood ancestor' that keeps getting proposed as the basis for modern horses. Certainly no modern breed should get it, given the politics of "my breed is better than your breed" that goes on. I did not asses any warmblood types, I am totally lost on how important they are. Better to leave that to the warmblood experts. Heard from the trainer today.. the filly has finally started jogging! Yay! And it's supposed to be real nice. Cross your fingers for us in the WP futurity at Nationals! Ealdgyth | Talk 04:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I agree that "top" is to be used very sparingly, as for the rest, feel free to upgrade assessments, I am careful not to over-rate something I was heavily involved in creating or editing. Um, that's Przewalski's horse (grin). I don't have separate articles for the "Four foundations theory." They are discussed both in the Evolution article and the Domestication article (I pretty much took Deb Bennett's material for sources on that. I've seen everywhere from one to 6-8 wild prototypes, her four subtypes seem the most well-researched and defensible) Someone wrote an article on one of them, the [{Forest horse]], not a great article. We have Horses in Warfare, not a breed article, a WPEQ one, not sure it has been assessed, but it is one of our GAs. As far as the foundation types, I would be pretty careful, as many were "types" more than breeds, but to that end, check out Destrier, Jennet, I think you already found Palfrey, Rouncey, and oh heck just check the list at Horses in the Middle Ages. User:Gwinva is the medieval expert on these, she's not a horse person but she would be really good at assessing the relative importance of the medieval horse articles. Sorry, I'm just rambling, have fun with whatever you find. I'm off to revert vandalism for a bit (sigh) Montanabw^(talk) 04:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Merges, Deletions, and prod tags

Allright...I officially should not be let near a computer during a slow day at work... :) Here are several articles that I have questions/comments/hitting my head against the wall moments about.

• Tennuvian - I googled it and there doesn't seem to be much out there, although there IS a registry (although not one that has a website). Honestly, my first thought when I saw this article was of one of those cartoon horses with their legs going in every direction...
• Trotting horse and Pacing horse - Just definitions...can they be combined with each other or redirected into harness racing, which actually already has a pretty decent explanation of the difference between the two?
• Diamond`s Exchange - Just a technicality on your prod tag... When I asked Accounting4Taste about this article, I was pointed to this page, where it says that an athlete is notable if they have competed at the highest level of amateur sports, and therefore Diamond's Exchange qualifies because of his participation in the Olympics and WEG. I'm not going to remove the tag, because I personally don't really think the horse is notable either...
• Kasztanka - I merged this article with the one on her owner and had my edit reverted. I know you looked at it before, and didn't think it had notability, so what would you suggest as a next move to take? Both of the sources are in Polish, which Google and Babelfish (sp?) refuse to translate, and when I run them through other translators to do "speak" Polish I wind up with nothing or junk. Also, the Wikipedia notability definition says that "That a person has a relationship with a well-known person is not a reason for a standalone article; see Relationships do not transfer notability. However, the person may be included in the related article." I don't want to get into a revert war over an article this insignificant, but feel that this article is fairly pointless.
• Haflinger - I'll be doing some more work on the article to merge the information on the two types...I just didn't get to it last night. Sorry for making you have to clean up after me :(

I know it's a bit of a list...and I didn't even ask you to look at Valley Ridge Farm before I dropped a prod tag on it...I promise this weekend when I'm home and have access to my resource materials to just work on expanding articles and not go looking for trouble! Dana boomer (talk) 13:52, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't do that... Montana loves trouble. And boy am I finding some doozies out there trolling through the horse categories... you'll notice the notes left where I'm scratching my head over why some articles are in what categories. Normally I'd just change them, but you never know, there might be a reason Mare (horse) is in Category:Famous mares.Ealdgyth | Talk 20:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Along the same sort of subject: Firestone Peruvian Ranch, Hanover Shoe Farms, The Crown Empire Stud. You love me, you know you do. Found them trolling through the horse categories. Don't even begin to get me started on what was in Category:Horse behavior. It's scary! Ealdgyth | Talk 16:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes, trouble is my middle name. That or "snarky" (I read fugly horse of the day too much, her attitude is rubbing off on me!). Here's my take: Ealdgyth, the reason Mare is in Famous Mares is mostly just as a main article link, the category doesn't have the greatest name, but it is sort of a home for the mare articles (I suppose there would be a different way to do that), partly because there used to be a 'laundry list" of famous mares in the article that I tossed in favor of creating the category. (I am the grim reaper of "famous horses" laundry lists in various articles) As for the rest, you are on your own with obscure horse farms. I think they deserve you! But now that you mention horse behavior, I'm going to go look! (on the note of "scary," I happen to know there are THREE different Monty Roberts articles hiding out there and they all suck). Dana, Yes, 1) merge trotting and pacing into harness racing, but don't blank and redirect until the relevant material unique to those articles is worked into the main one. Maybe leave the merge tag on for a week, while you merge, and if no one whines, then toss it. 2) I will look over Kasztanka and be the bad cop on that one, but if I get flamed for it, you are on call for backup! 3) Haflinger has so many peacock problems (I think somewhere in there they claim that they are both bulletproof and able to leap tall buildings with a single bound), you are on your own there, have at it! Maybe also check the "what links here" on the old Avelignese article to see if there are any more double redirects to pick up (I am not 100% sure we should have merged those two, but for now if no one complains, what the heck) 4) Tennuvian can stay for now, I'll give it a double check. I tend to be generous as to keeping breed articles, though I did request that they toss Moyle's Horse (even Okie State's article was only about a sentence long) Thanks for touching bases. OK, off to raise heck now... Montanabw^(talk) 05:02, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we're going to have to have a major housecleaning/reorganization/fumigating on the horse categories after we get done with the tagging. I'm beginning to think a "Definitions" category would be a good plan, so we can stuff things like Colt, Foal, etc. into them. Ealdgyth | Talk 05:08, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Other than needing a name a little different than "definitions" (as then the wikigods will yell at us for doing wikitionary articles or something, I agree. "Fumigation" is a good term. We also need to delete, merge and maybe redirect some categories (Oh lord, we have to learn how to get categories deleted now, that takes approval of others, yuck) But a better name than "definitions" as, for example Gelding really is about set for GA and it is a far more extensive article than a "definitions" category would fit. Little anatomy articles like frog and pastern can fit into an anatomy category, but we have stallion, mare, gelding, foal, yearling, etc...and some articles (like weanling) cover other animals also. Don't know the best umbrella word, but I guess we have a few weeks to think about it

Appaloosa

Allright, responding to your Appy article comment here, instead of the horse breeds talk page... I looked over the article tonight, and tried to do some research on the spots that had been marked as needing citations, but I didn't find much. Maybe you'll have better luck, but if whoever wrote those sections pulled the info from off the web, I wasn't able to find it. A question, though: what's up with all the in-text links to photos? I don't think I've seen that in other articles...especially not GA ones. This article already has a bunch of photos, does it need links to a bunch more outside ones? I just think it makes it look a little odd (crowded?), and some of the photos aren't the best quality. It would be great if we could get this article up to GA...if Ealdgyth wouldn't mind taking an informal GA look at it, that would be fantastic. Dana boomer (talk) 02:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll look at it tonight, after I finish updating the Archbishops of York references. (I got a new edition of one of the must-have reference works, so must update all the information to reflect new knowledge and new sources.. fun!) Doing a GA review will be so much more fun than that... it'll be a treat! And I have a few Appy reference books, so I'll cull through those too. Ealdgyth | Talk 02:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, my talk page is again the sandbox! (grin) The in-text links to photos is a battle that I lost a while back (I don't ALWAYS get my way!). I think that there is room to remove them, maybe use the existing photos elsewhere to expand captions to note "...and this is a blanket appy" or whatever. (there are some butt-ugly photos that are out there and were deleted that DO show some classic features, even if the horse is standing in a manure pile and is ewe-necked!). Wikimedia Commons has more Appy photos, and if you have thoughts for images that could be added but you can't find any, try searching for cc-licensed images on Flickr. Maybe we should take this to the talk page of the appy article. Montanabw^(talk) 03:41, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Okies, threw some stuff up over there. Let's keep the push to Gelding and Appaloosa. With everything else I"m doing, that's more than enough for now.Ealdgyth | Talk 04:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Horse-drawn tractor

[4] This is a photo of a horse-drawn tractor. Perhaps it is a matter of semantics? I had seen the alt-warmbloods referred to as "tractor-horses" but it may have been a translational thing confusing the self-powered "tractor" with "binder" or "thresher" etc. Or, perhaps the term simply linked the horses with the role of tractor. Anyhow, fix it as you see fit. Countercanter (talk) 17:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Possibly a European thing. I have honestly never seen a gadget like that before, (and a minor side entertainment of mine is observing my dad identify antique farm equipment that is in museums or rusting in junkyards, or displayed as a lawn ornament in people's yards, etc...) but then, maybe they were common elsewhere. Hmm. Weird thing, maybe one of those deals whereMontanabw^(talk) 20:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a mole-plough to me – indeed used in Europe, but elsewhere too I think. The various adjustment wheels will winch the ploughs down so they run deep underground. The thickened part at the tip of each narrow blade then leaves buried drainage channels in clay or other heavy soil. Nowadays a plastic perforated drainage pipe would be run down the rear of the blade, to be left in the ground to keeping the channel open. I'm not convinced this is a horse-drawn one though – I'd have guessed at least two big horses to pull just one of those ploughs, and I make that seven ploughs on this machine. A big team! Also, is that a pole for the wheelers, or a drawbar for hitching to a tractor or steam tractor? I recently found one very similar to this lying in a field in Essex – the one I found was certainly for a tractor, but I think even that had fewer ploughs (didn't take a photo, and it was gone last time I went there).

An agricultural contractor friend of ours was asked by a newbie horse-keeper about the many moles in her grass field. She wondered if it might need mole-ploughing... --Richard New Forest (talk) 21:28, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

When in doubt, check with the expert! Richard, as the UK farm expert around here, can you take a look at Westphalian (horse) that's where we had the question. I think it's a translation problem where people who are not familiar with a topic (agricultural machinery) are translating stuff from German to English. (just like the Warmblood people appear to refer to Shagya Arabians as "Anglo-Arabs" even though they most certainly are not. We have a "no original research" problem, but we also don't want to perpetuate inaccuracies, either.

Ran across an interesting example of being "lost in translation: In Tibetan Buddist texts, there is a concept for impossibility that is referred to as "the child of a barren woman." Well, the literal meaning in Tibet is a female MULE! It's a colloquialism -- a female mule is, of course, sterile, hence called by a word that translates "barren woman." However, whoever first translated these texts into English didn't know anything about mules or colloquialisms, and hence feminist Buddhist scholars have been ranting about the phrase for decades until an actual Tibetan explains what it really means (grin). Never mind why I have this bit of obscure trivia in my brain, long story, I just do. <grin> Montanabw^(talk) 22:20, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

No expert, just a trivia nerd too... I think the form in the picture is more correctly called a subsoiler, though there does not seem to be a clear distinction between this and a mole-plough – see for example [5]. The difference seems to be mainly in the shape of the tip, and the way in which it's used. A quick Google image search found numerous examples of modern ones of both types for sale – and even many of those designed for large tractors are only single-furrow. I'm therefore sure the pictured one must be for a steam tractor or plough engine, not for horses.

I had a look at Westphalian (horse), but could find no mention of tractors, horse or otherwise, and only general reference to ploughs. Was it another article you meant? --Richard New Forest (talk) 21:55, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

The reference to Plows/ploughs was originally the reference to "tractors." CounterCanter's German sources use the phrase "tractor horses" apparently. I changed it from "tractor" to "plow" because it sounded weird, but what I don't know is if there was some kind of mistranslation issue or what. Wouldn't be the first time. As far as farm machinery goes, what fascinates me is the difference in equipment between dryland farming and farming in moist climates with heavy clay soils. The stuff used in Australia and in the Western US is pretty much the same, though may have different names, but some of the gadgets you mention using are new to me...never heard of a mole plough. But then, we have only a few moles, many gophers and prairie dogs. Interesting. Montanabw^(talk) 01:03, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't "tractor" really just mean "thing that pulls", as in "traction"? If so, a "tractor horse" could be any horse used for traction (rather than transport for example) – and "tractor" as now used might just be short for "tractor machine" or some such. Not sure what the thing is called in America that pulls an articulated trailer (semi-trailer), but in Britain it's called a tractor unit. So I wonder too about translation being the source of the difficulty. --Richard New Forest (talk) 10:55, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Great minds, the same thought occurred to me, add to it that the original was probably written in German and "tractor horse" probably means basically "pulling horse." -- Or something. And yes, in the USA, the people who actually work with semis/freighters/lorries, whatever-ya-call-em do also call the pulling unit a "tractor." Montanabw^(talk) 04:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Apologise for eavesdropping and all that, but yes, "tractor" just means (to quote OED) "One who or that which draws or pulls something". (yes, lovely turn of phrase) and the term was certainly used long before engines etc. Perhaps "draught horse" would cover it (although that technically refers to the load rather than the pulling). Gwinva (talk) 05:00, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Lungeing

Per the OED a word is considered eligible for entry into that dictionary on the following terms:

"A rule of thumb is that any word can be included which appears five times, in five different printed sources, over a period of five years."

http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/newwords/newwordsdict/?view=uk

Here are multiple instances of the spelling of this word in an accepted, common use in the UK and beyond, since 1990:

Lungeing, Vol. 6, by G. N. E. F. Staff Publisher: Kenilworth Press, Limited Pub. Date: June 1990

German National Equestrian: Lungeing Translator: G.Holstein The Kenilworth Press Ltd (United Kingdom), 2006

The Art Of Lungeing, Sylvia Stanier isher: J.A.Allen & Co Ltd; 3Rev Ed edition (1 Oct 1999)

Lungeing and Long Reining Book By Jennie Loriston-Clark. Publisher: Half Halt Press, Pub. Date: October 2004

Lungeing: The Horse and Rider by Sheila Inderwick avid & Charles PLC; New Ed edition (27 Mar 2003)

Please stop rewriting the Lungeing wiki to say that this use is erroneous. The spelling "lungeing" is correct, common useage in the UK, New Zelaand, Australia and yes, even the USA! While the etymology of the word you are at pains to describe may stand, modern usage is indeed either "lungeing" or "longeing."

Your mean comments every time you rewrite this article are uncalled for, as well.

- J. L. Griffith

Not intended to be mean, just impatient. Sorry about the tone. BUT: Just because a misspelling has become so commonplace as to be an alternative does not mean it is classic or correct. It is like "Doughnut" and "Donut" -- I can modify the material to suggest that the incorrect has become commonplace (it is common in the USA too, and equally incorrect), but "lungeing" is a misspelling of a concept that was spelled "Longeing" for several hundred years and I see no reason to reward poor spelling. Montanabw^(talk) 20:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

And, hmmm:

• Longeing the Rider for a Perfect Seat: A How-to Guide for Riders, Instructors, and Longeurs by Linda Benedik (Paperback - Nov 1, 2007)
• Longeing and Long Lining, The English and Western Horse: A Total Program (Howell Reference Books) by Cherry Hill (Hardcover - Dec 2, 1998)
• The USPC Guide to Longeing and Ground Training (Howell Equestrian Library) by Susan E. Harris (Paperback - Sep 17, 1997)
• The Adult Longeing Guide: Exercises to Build an Independent Seat by Emily Esterson (Hardcover - April 1, 2008
• The Longeing Book (Arco Equestrian Book) by Judy Richter (Hardcover - Aug 1986

Book titles translated from another language reflect the translator, not the original author.

So by your reasoning we should all be speaking Middle English? Sticking strictly to the original spelling and pronunciation of words?

"Now herkneth hou I baar me proprely,

Ye wise wyves, that kan understonde.

Thus shul ye speke and bere hem wrong on honde;"

(Chaucer)

That is not how language evolves. It's common usage to spell the word "lunge" in print and spoken word, over decades. Etymology is a different topic, and while English is spoken in many nations under their own rules, Wikipedia is international and cannot have a purely American-centric definition for the word. I dislike "donut" too, but I accept it's come to mean something through common usage! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.164.117.33 (talk) 03:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Just because people publish written works doesn't mean they use terms of art correctly, particularly when book editors may not be horse people. Language sometimes evolves, and other times, it simply degenerates, which is the case here. There are other examples, when I see the term "reign in" instead of "rein in" in a newspaper I just want to scream. There is also a difference between formal and informal writing. I would, for example, never write "Donut" in an encyclopedia, though I might do so in a casual email or letter. In my part of the world, many people say "stud" when they mean "stallion." I try to explain that, at least in writing, a "stud" is either a horse farm that stands stallions, or it's a piece of wood that holds up the walls of a house - and I get similar complaints to what I am hearing from you. Here in the USA, some people even call Longeing "Lounging" because they don't understand the word. Most of all, semantics do influence action; you don't want a horse to "lunge" as in thrusting violently forward and just trotting around madly at the end of a rope, you want the horse to reach out or to extend...hence, allonge. Montanabw^(talk) 04:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

In your note you said "Maybe in 50 years the word will be gone, but for now, it IS the most correct version." You miss (one of) my point(s). Maybe in the USA "longe" is what some (not all) consider "most correct" but in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world "lunge" is the correct and usually only spelling of the word. I had never heard it spelled "longe" until moving to the USA over a decade ago. You are coming at this from an entirely US-centric viewpoint, disregarding other countries' use of Wikipedia, and in fact the English language!

Now "lounge" I am with you on - nowhere and never is that correct! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.164.117.33 (talk) 17:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Griffith here.

Coming from the Midwest, I grew up never seeing anything but lunging. And lounging referred to lazy people who hung around in bars or nightclubs! T-bonham (talk) 11:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Sidesaddle

Hi. I was just reading a book about 19th C English society and came across this curious sentence: "On horseback, ladies rode side saddle, alternating sides each day so as not to develop an overly enhanced buttock on one side." That cannot be right, surely? Practically speaking, it would require two saddles. Unless the early ones (ie before leaping horn etc) were symmetrical (and thus not very supportive)... But also physically, would it matter? All representations I can think of have them all seated with the right leg uppermost (ie legs on left side of horse). This makes sense (bearing in mind most people are right handed) as it places the dominant leg in the higher position and the crop/whip in the right hand. So, is this just poor research on behalf of the author? Or am I missing something? (certainly, Sidesaddle says nothing of this). Gwinva (talk) 22:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I suspect poor research. You'd indeed have to have two saddles! The horn is attached to the tree and can't be switched. The leaping horn can rotate some, but it can't be removed. Sidesaddle equitation also demands that a woman sits with their spine lined up directly over the spine of the horse, and there is no way that a person could develop an "overly enhanced" buttock" from sitting properly! You rest on your legs far more than your butt! (I could go into a long rant about how people don't so much "sit" a horse like they "sit" in a chair, and elaborate endlessly on the use of one's seat bones in riding, but that's another topic.)(LOL) Maybe the old pillion saddles, that were just a sitting place with a footrest, might have been "switchable," but not a 19th century model.

I think that "right side" sidesaddles are manufactured, but I've never personally seen one. I have been in a sidesaddle for up to about 2 hours at a stretch, and you get sore muscles, but not really one-sided ones. And if you DID get one-sided muscular development, it would be from the stretching of one side, not an "enhanced buttock." FYI, in that sidesaddle article, the photo of the woman riding in breeches without the apron really does a good job of showing correct leg position, even though she is bending over and adjusting something. And the one of the modern person jumping shows how straight you have to sit (she shouldn't be looking down, but lots of people do). Here are some more sidesaddle images: Google images and a list of cool books and more on equitation and saddle styles in the UK.

Even before the invention of the leaping horn, the upper horn that holds the higher (usually right leg if sitting left, as is typical) leg is curved and placed off to one side; if you look at the photos, you note the back (cantle) of the saddle is also curved in a unique fashion! Another place you run into bad research are people who claim that women rode sidesaddle in ordinary western saddles, you can't, the horn isn't shaped properly. (NO support or stability and you can sit that way for about five minutes before the horn and pommel dig into your leg... OUCH!)

I have seen photos of images with women riding sidesaddle with their legs on the right, but I have no way of knowing if the originals were realistic or stylized versions done by people with no real clue about riding sidesaddle (not uncommon even in the "horse and buggy days" if you were poor and lived in a city) or if they were lithographs where the artist got things backwards for the printer, or if they are derived from transparencies that were flipped. Montanabw^(talk) 23:00, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. That all makes sense, and kinda what I'd imagined. I hate it when you find errors n books; it makes you wonder how seriously you can take the rest... Gwinva (talk) 00:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I feel your pain, amazing how fast total bullshit can become mainstream - note discusions above on "horse tractor" and "longeing" versus "lungeing." ("Lungeing" is what you DON'T want them to be doing! LOL!) Montanabw^(talk) 00:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I've just checked my online OED (ie the biggie) for you regarding lungeing. Lunge and longe are indicated as interchangeable, and there's a quote for "lunge" (noun) used in 1886, and the verb form in 1806, and "lunging" in 1862. Sorry. Gwinva (talk) 00:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, but usage does not always denote correctness! That's an issue. And, just as with sidesaddles and buttocks, useage of the wh9olly ignorant does count as "use." (grin) Likewise, "Thoroughbred" is sometimes used interchangeably for purebred even though that is also horribly incorrect, even in some dictionaries, and don't get me started on the fight I had over the pronunciation of chaps in reference to the leather leggings worn by cowboys (though the 16 sources I cited might give you a hint). Even most dictionaries get it wrong, as many a dude out here has learned to their embarassment and chagrin. (grin). Montanabw^(talk) 00:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

As far as language goes, useage generally does equal correctness (in the sense that dictionaries determine definitions by useage). However, I salute your commitment to holding back the tide! (pedants unite and all that). Gwinva (talk) 02:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

LOL! Dual usage is a problem, when two alternative spelling/pronunciations are out there, when are we talking linguistic shift, there is also always the question of accents and such. (Potahto versus Potayto) Of course, some things have simply been wrong for decades! And then, is the majority always right? How many people of certain educational and social classes have you run into who call Alzheimer's disease, "Old-Timer's disease" =:-O Interestingly, I think the tide CAN sometimes shift: "Thoroughbred" and "purebred" are kept separated to a greater degree now than when I was a kid; seems like the terms were more interchangeable in the 1960s and 1970s than now. But, of course, vaquero did devolve to "buckaroo" here in the states, but after 150 years, I am willing to let that one go...(grin). Oh well, this all pales in comparison to a single over-developed buttock! But I digress! Montanabw^(talk) 03:37, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Bitless bridle

I'll try, but it'll be a bit. (ha, ha) I'm out the door in a moment to close, then I get to go walk the property to make sure that it is still in good shape. Ealdgyth | Talk 18:32, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

There, threw citations at the article, and generally added more data, as well as getting rid of the commercial external link and the link to general natural horsemanship stuff. Do natural horsemanship people multiply like weeds? They keep springing up everywhere....Ealdgyth | Talk 00:31, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

No more fires today. Done with stuff, and spent an hour poking over the land, seeing what needed immediate fixing (nothing!) and where to put the round pen, etc. Yay for owning land! Ealdgyth | Talk 00:39, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

You owe me. This one is fun, I just had information removed because information on the uses of bitless bridles isn't relevant. Ealdgyth | Talk 01:23, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Is there a site for a wiki beer? I'll get you one, somehow. Do not get me started on the NH thing. The horse that came the closest to actually hurting me within the last five years was a supposedly "PP"-method-trained little gelding gone horribly awry. If you mix the NH movement with the barefoot movement (Have you seen the "horseshoe nails are poison" argument? =:-O ) and add in the bitless folks, oh lordy. They never actually wind up RIDING! And I thought I was done with twitches and spasms (ala Inspector Clouseau's boss) back in the 80's when some idiot started calling Arabians "living art." Silly me, I thought it couldn't get any worse... Montanabw^(talk) 00:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Luckily, the whole bitless bridle article is duplicated at hackamore. I have a call in to an admin, but no reply yet. Might be time for you to find another one to deal with Bitless Bridle. (I'm SUPPOSED to be working over the TB article tonight... hint, hint.) Ealdgyth | Talk 00:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Can I hide behind you? I commented on the Roman Catholic Church FAC and now the primary editor of it wants me to help her over there! ARGH! All I wanna do is work on the TB article! Ealdgyth | Talk 01:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

LOL! FYI, I wrote most of hackamore, it was started, but a mess. I did the cleanup and added most of the content and the photos. Montanabw^(talk) 02:53, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

LOL... I worked at a summer camp where we used (mild) mechanical hackamores. The ones with short shanks and either flat curb chains or leather ones. Have you SEEN what a hyper 9 year old girl who has never been on a horse before but thinks she knows everything can DO to a horses mouth with western bit in it???? Yee, gods, it's horrid. Bits were for older kids who knew what they were doing.(NONE of our horses were snaffle trained, unfortunately, they were from a dude ranch) Like anything, used wrongly, a mechanical hackamore can damage. So can bits, even snaffles. good luck with the bitless bridle thing! You'll need it. (grins). Your edits look good, which is no problem with me, but we'll see what the "Author" thinks sooner or later (laughs). Ealdgyth | Talk 05:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, kids and curb bits can also be a bad thing. Mild mechs are the lesser of two evils. Ditto for dudes on hunting trips. I am a fan of letting kids who won't listen ride with a sidepull that has a halter nose fuzzy over it. Can't do much damage with that. But then, if the horse bolts, they have little control, so some risk. But I won't let a beginner out of the ring -- Summer camps are a whole different planet, you kind of have to do "meatball surgery" there, no question. The horses are saints. But OMG, some of the crap you see 'em put on roping horses. Scary...well, you've been to tack shops, you know some of the stuff that's in there (the stuff with bicycle chain just gives me the chills...) Montanabw^(talk) 05:20, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Happy weekend!

I've been getting your messages, but have been slow to respond, I know. I agree that the Thoroughbred article is missing something...maybe it's the lack of information about them in terms of temperament? The information on the uses of TBs isn't very extensive, either. There's no mention of the cultural impact of Thoroughbred racing, which we all know from reading/watching Seabiscuit is notable. I agree that the whole article needs fleshing out and more "character" or something.

I'm trying to keep working on the warmblood articles I've touched. I also did a lot of research and am planning to overhaul at LEAST Silver dapple gene. There's so much good, modern research out there!

And I haven't forgotten the Shagya Arabian and Anglo-Arabian, either! If you aren't familiar with Ramzes (he founded the Holstein jumping R-line that produced Ramiro, Ratina, etc. and the Westphalian dressage R-line that produced Rubinstein), he is an example of an Anglo-Arabian that is Shagya Arabian/Thoroughbred blood. Burnus (influential in Trakehners, Windfall is his direct male descendant) illustrates the differences in cultural attitudes towards Arabian blood. He was by the Shagya Lapis, out of a Kisber Felver mare. The German Trakehner verband had to bend the rules for him, as his female family was bedded in common warmbloods. But he was still a Kisber Felver, and still an Anglo-Arabian.

I will work towards the GA status goal. Not sure what I'll choose, but we'll see! Countercanter (talk) 14:55, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Just now that we know, whatever you do, do NOT list Shagyas as "Anglo-Arabians" because the Shagya people are quite adamant that they most certainly are not, even though a couple of nations apparently lump them in the generic "not purebred Arab" group. And based on breeding, they are about 95% Arabian, with a touch of more than just TBs, so really, that makes sense. Montanabw^(talk) 05:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Halter

I would, but Im not at home. Will be gone all weekend, not back until Tuesday. And honestly, I'm not sure that having references would mean much, the stuff I tried to add to the article at the beginning was referenced, and it was deleted as not relevant to the article. You know me, I avoid stress when possible! Ealdgyth | Talk 18:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Um, yeah, that's 'cause *I* take it on for everyone else! See above. LOL! Montanabw^(talk) 20:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I made an edit a little earlier, and just noticed your edit and its summary. I needed to go and see what this was about, because the summary seemed to be a message - not a description of your edit. I realise that it was nothing to do with me, now, but I will pass on some advice. Use the summary to describe your edit - not as part of an ongoing discussion. And in those discussions with other users, please try to discuss only the edit - not the user. This goes a long way to avoiding disruption, particuarly to those who are uninvolved in any dispute. Thanks, cygnis insignis

Thanks for the polite response. The articles could probably do with some merging, there seems to be some overlap. If the distinction between some halters or bridles is a knot or strap, that could probably be best explained in one article. I would see an exception to this if there was a number of references to it in secondary sources, but descriptions of each brand would be confusing and possibly COI. I hope this helps. Regards, cygnis insignis 21:57, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

A bit here, a bit there ... :-) The article bit (horse) is a good 'overview', and perhaps the necessary solution. The trap (another pun-groan!) here is split articles that may be POV (content forking). One path is to expand an article, then reduce a section to a summary when it becomes a new article. Until this happens, new stubs or starts can be merged back to the 'parent'. This avoids duplication and confusion of terms, while retaining any new information that emerges. I should have prefaced these comments by pointing out I am unaquainted with the current articles; the suggestions are from a new reader, but I hope that a fresh (naive) perspective will bring some solutions. Best regards, cygnis insignis 22:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

LOL! Naivete is sometimes a GOOD thing. Knowing what the non-aficionado reader thinks often outlines the horns of the dilemma better than anything. Montanabw^(talk) 22:53, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Hackamores

Unfortunately, it's not an area that I have a lot of expertise in. I've used hackamores and the variations on the theme before, including the brand name Bitless Bridle, but have no real opinion or knowledge one way or another. Basically what I know is that they're good on older horses with teeth problems that prevent them from being comfortable in a bit. Also, they work well on my Appy the SECOND day of an endurance ride... *grin*. I'm definitely not a member of the "bits are evil" crowd, but I would also prefer to ride with the least powerful bit/bridle that will still let me have control over whatever horse I'm riding at the moment. It's really all in the hands of the rider anyway...someone with heavy hands can ruin a horse's mouth in the lightest snaffle you can find, and someone with light hands can ride a horse in the longest-shanked curb and still have a great horse. Anyway, I'm wandering, and what this boils down to is that I really don't have anything to add to the discussion... Dana boomer (talk) 21:25, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Except that your position is practically identical to my own! LOL! If it comes down to something akin to a raw "vote," would you weigh in? Montanabw^(talk) 21:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure. Just let me know, as thing whole thing seems to be developing fairly rapidly. I've been keeping a general eye on this whole fight, but only check up on it every couple days. Dana boomer (talk) 21:45, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Proselytising Editors

Thanks for the note on my talk page. People with strong views on anything be it Road Safety or Area 51 often antagonise more than proselytise on Wikipedia. I understand that in antiquity the bitless bridle was used so that animals could graze more easily rather than they being more humane.

This is a very difficult situation and the only option I can advise now, which may make things even worse is Requests for comment. Its a long drawn out process that can last upto 4 weeks, but if it is to save experienced editors leaving the project and assist "one horse" editors move on and build up a stable of Wikipedia articles (forgive the analogy) then it can be only good.

Sadly, as you know there are no quick fix remedies on Wikipedia other than on the most disruptive editors. To her credit User:AeronM hasn't shown any of the ownership issues that some new editors have, but continual re-writes in mainspace are a perpetual cycle of back and two and take the patience of Job.

If you don't want to go down the route of WP:RFC you could always ask for full page protection and then write an article that you are all happy with or at least the best of a bad job. WP:RPP is the place to request Page Protection and is a fast solution to content disputes without incurring the wrath of thor.

Any other assistance, please let me know. -- BpEps - t@lk 07:23, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

(reply to post at my page) I can only recommend that ignoring or reporting hostile comments directed at someone, or anyone who takes the bit, is the only way to defuse the situation. In any similar situation, I would display the dispute with a table of diffs. However, knowingly or not, there was a severe breach of protocol which contrains this response. It has been made clear they do not regret doing this, and as it seems more important than basic politeness, I bloody-well give up! I hope the situation is resolved soon. Best regards, 07:43, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

:P

Boo for taking heat! :P · jersyko talk 13:11, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to weigh in here if you like. · jersyko talk 01:58, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Showing off my work

I'm waiting on a GA review for my Early thermal weapons. I keep plugging things in, but it's pretty near complete. If you've time on your hands, feel free to drop in and give it a quick read; any pointers, tips, or simple corrections (typos, grammar, links, etc) appreciated! Thanks. Gwinva (talk) 03:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Love to if I can get out from under other things. Sigh... Montanabw^(talk) 05:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey, thanks. I'll work on those points. I suspected that lead was a bit lacking, but I have a strange dislike of lead paragraphs (not them being there, but me writing them). Perhaps the "artsy quotes" would work. I'll have a play later. The article keeps growing, but the lead is pretty much as I first wrote it. And yes, send in whatever troops you want: the more the merrier. Thanks again! Gwinva (talk) 19:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll add it to my list in the morning, after I run to Wally World. Fun stuff! Ealdgyth | Talk 05:37, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Cross-country Fences

What would your opinion be on making a page somewhat like Countercanter's Heavy warmblood page, except with all of the cross-country obstacles? There is a list of them here. As you can see, many of them are stubs, and honestly, I'm not sure how much you can say about some of them, so it seems like they'll just remain stubs. What I was thinking was a page listing each type of fence with a brief description (redirecting the pages already created to that individual section). Some of the obstacles would have a "see also: main page" heading (I'm thinking mainly for the water obstacle page, as this can be more easily expanded) and the already existing article would NOT be redirected. Whatcha think? It would prevent us from having 20 different stub articles hanging around, and would be easier to find, I think. Dana boomer (talk) 16:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I kind of like the idea, maybe list of "jumping obstacles by discipline" (because there is also a list of obstacles in show jumping too, some are kind of duplicates) but I'd put on the merge tags and wait a good two weeks before merging. This is for a very important reason: What the deal is here is that somewhere around two years ago, User:Eventer created dozens and dozens of articles on everything imaginable, some of which are excellent, some of which are stubs and all of which are largely unsourced. (She's pretty sharp, just doesn't footnote). These were, I think, all hers. She doesn't log into wikipedia much any more, but I see her pop in about once a month or so and I'd like to give her a chance to weigh in.

The other trick is organizing the "English" discipline articles in general, and I haven't paid a lot of attention to the article Eventing, but sometimes I wonder if the cross-country article couldn't be merged there. Another related problem is that I have tried several times to merge jumping position and two-point into a single article titled forward seat, the non-USA people apparently consider hunt seat a strictly American distinction (I suppose they are right) but lacking the energy to drag out the George Morris book myself and actually write a good overall article on the forward seat concept from Caprilli to the present, I have been shot down every time (yes I occasionally DO lose one! (grin)). A third aside is that some people have wondered if we should have a sport horse task force. A fourth aside is that "horseback riding" was long ago merged into equestrianism, which now also encompasses harness stuff just a touch, which is OK, but there is no overall history of horsemanship article, either (I have one in my sandbox I am sort of working on, kind of). Eventer commented a while back that we could use articles on the ancient la brida and la jineta styles, etc...Oh lordy, and we have a whole ton of riding master articles that aren't very good either.

But yes, if you want to slap merge tags on all the obstacle articles, I see no harm in it, and maybe create the "list" article, even if it winds up being just a list that links to the existing articles. Give me a shout as to what you decide. Montanabw^(talk) 19:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Allright, check it out at Cross country obstacles. I started out by having all of the show-jumping ones in it too, and naming it as you suggested, but it got a bit long and unwieldy. It's a bit choppy right now, because of the merge tags (which I'm still in the process of adding tonight, so if you read this before I'm done, please be patient). I think once everything's merged and smoothed out, with more content added, it'll look pretty cool. Thoughts? Dana boomer (talk) 02:56, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Allright, everything should be tweaked and tagged. If you see something off, please fix or let me know and I will. I'm about to go cross-eyed and brain dead, so it's quite possible that I missed something :P Also, I dropped a note on Eventer's talk page as an FYI to about what we're doing, asking for any comments. Dana boomer (talk) 03:28, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Appaloosa Photos

I have lots of good appaloosa photos on my website http://www.appaloosa.org and http://www.barnbuddy.net/gallery2/v/S_B/. Please let me know which ones you would like to use or what you need images of and I will upload them for you. They are all taken by me of my horses so we will have no copyright issues.

Thanks for all you do.

GA for Appaloosa

Yay! Ealdgyth | Talk 03:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I hid from Wikipedia for a couple of days, glad that one made it through! Montanabw^(talk) 20:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Interesting link/article

• Widespread Origins of Domestic Horse Lineages Might be worth trying to integrate into a few articles. Ealdgyth | Talk 20:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
• Kathiawari horses Ealdgyth | Talk 20:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
• Genetics of Conformation Ealdgyth | Talk 20:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
• Racing Performances of Arabian horses Ealdgyth | Talk 20:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
• Sport Horse breeding this one looks more like Countercanter's alley. Ealdgyth | Talk 20:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
• Iberian Origins of New World Horse Breeds THAT looks interesting (and useful) Ealdgyth | Talk 20:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
• Irish Draught Ealdgyth | Talk 20:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
• Iberian Horse origins Ealdgyth | Talk 20:41, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

For Moi? Or is my talk page officially the WikiProject Equine sandbox and link repository? You see my list of "stuff to work in some day" list of links over on my man user page? LOL! Montanabw^(talk) 17:23, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it's that everyone connected to the WPEQ talk page's are free for use as sandboxes (grins). We close today! Yay! Or not yay, since that means I have to actually... start work on building a house and moving fences and all that junk. Ugh! Ealdgyth | Talk 17:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Hooray for you. Of course, this now means you will be forced to have a real life... Montanabw^(talk) 17:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Smile

Couldn't find a hug (looks like they deleted it), but will a smile work?

Dana boomer (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Cheers, and Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Good, now breathe, step away from the computer, and go pet your horse for a while :)

Shaps

Well, Wikipedia isn't a dictionary, so the etymology should go in Wiktionary. If you want to mention something about how cowboys pronounce it, then that can go in the article... Dreadstar † 05:56, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Mainly I did that because it seemed to be contentious. Some articles do have some historical etymology, like this. Dreadstar † 06:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course, how cowboys (and other horse people in the west) pronounce the word is what started this whole mess! Will study spoons most faithfully. Montanabw^(talk) 06:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Something could be said under the "history" section, and more detail can be added to the Wiktionary entry. Editing there is just like editing here, I have an account there too. Give it a shot. The Chaps etymology section in the Wikipedia article was waaay too convoluted... Dreadstar † 06:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and for your other question: Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Dreadstar † 06:16, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the thanks and the whole slew of beers! I never turn down a good beer...! Um, I've never received one of these before, so if I ever meet that threshold...feel free... (man, I feel like such a barnstarhore...se...;) Dreadstar † 19:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

When people actually engage in wiki-hugs, you'll be the first to know! (grin) Montanabw^(talk) 19:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Shaps II

We actually pronounced them as "shemps", but I think we misunderstood something somewhere. Dreadstar † 18:11, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

LOL! As I like to say, "ch" chaps is what happens to you if you don't wear "sh" chaps! But if I may mix my golden age comics, may I ask Who's on first? Montanabw^(talk) 22:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Request for mediation

Re Chaps I have filed a formal request for mediation here. Montanabw, Getwood, Dreadstar, and AeronM, to agree to mediation please go there and sign the Parties' agreement to mediate. If any of you do not agree to mediation, the request will be denied; of course, I hope all of you will agree. See Wikipedia:Requests for mediation for details about the mediation process. --Una Smith (talk) 04:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Request for mediation accepted

A Request for Mediation to which you were are a party has been accepted. You can find more information on the case subpage, Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Chaps. For the Mediation Committee, WjBscribe 03:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

This message delivered by MediationBot, an automated bot account operated by the Mediation Committee to perform case management.
If you have questions about this bot, please contact the Mediation Committee directly.

MedCom Case

Hi, I'm Keilana. I've just accepted the aforementioned MedCom case. I've commented on the Mediation talk page, where mediation will take place. I hope that this mediation will be productive and satisfactory to all. I have asked all participants to make a statement, more details are on the talk page. Regards, Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 03:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Mediation

Yes, I was just getting to that; I only just got online. :) I can't comment on the content, as one of the principal tenets of mediation is that the mediator is unequivocally neutral, and cannot mediate if he or she has a bias. I have no opinion either way; please see my comments there. Best, Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 22:39, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Replied there, hopefully this can be worked out soon. I'm really pleased with you guys. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 22:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Mediation

Congratulations! I know it was a long haul, but worthwhile in the end. Looks to be a very nice compromise. Dreadstar † 20:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

ZfDP

As I'm sure you remember from high school history, Germany has traditionally had a lot of...well, regionalism? Like nationalism, only based on the regions. Hence the Hanoverian, Holsteiner, Oldenburger, Ostfriesen, Wurttemberger, Mecklenburger, Bavarian, Westphalian, Rhinelander, Thuringian, etc etc etc. being regional variations on the same flavor of ice cream, haha. The ZfDP was created I believe soon after the wall came down as an effort to unify. ZfDP just stands for German Horse Breeding Society. They register lots of types of horses, and do have a website. Their keyword/slogans are Progressiveness, Liberality, and...something else. Probably unity or something. Anyhow a ZfDP German Warmblood is a German Warmblood registered by the ZfDP. Perfectly legit but I think the size makes it a bit cumbersome so they may not offer the same caliber of monetary premiums. That's what premiums are, you know...St.Pr.St. means "We will pay you to register her babies with us, not them." :) Hope that clarifies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Countercanter (talk • contribs) 17:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Reply on your talk page. Montanabw^(talk) 16:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

QH

Oops. I must have missed that one while I was away. While I'm here.. what say you to trying to get Arabian horse to FA? Dare we dream? (grins) Anything to get away from the thought of all the mud my horses are rolling in... and the increase in the costs of feed....Ealdgyth - Talk 23:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I saw the whole chaps thing. You'll note I'm ignoring it completely. (btw, I pronounce it CHaps, and I lived in Texas for years...) I get enough grief with the FA/GA stuff. Now that the stupid Franco-Mongol thing has closed, I'm avoiding controversy like the plague. Arabian horse or Horses in warfare or Appaloosa or Equine nutrition or Horses in the Middle Ages? I've already decided to take Easy Jet to FA, so that's a given.

You are a wise person! I would be most comfortable with Working on Horses in Warfare for GA, though the military history gang didn't like the lack of sourcing in one section (the bit on sizes of horses), and there is no tougher assessor than Wandalstouring, who I nearly strangled before the article got to GA, but now, compared to what I've been through since, Wandal is a pussycat filled with sweetness and light. He is worth consulting on it. Gwinva would be the one to discuss the middle ages article with, as she was lead author there. If she's up for it, I would wholeheartedly support that one as well. Montanabw^(talk) 23:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

We NEED to get Horse up too. It sucks. Okay, not quite suck, but it could be lots better. But we can wait for things to calm down some also. I can't get excited about Equine nutrition quite honestly. Maybe I'll drop a note on Gwinva's page about the Warfare and Middle Ages ones. Appaloosa is probably a bit of a stretch for FA, there just aren't the depth of sources that the TB's have. I think we mined most of what's available for the GA status. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:31, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I think Horse probably needs to be the #1 priority for fumigation, cleanup, and (sometime this century) maybe GA status. The main problem with Horse is that it was one of those articles that showcases the flaws of wikipedia, in that it started short, grew out of control, got sections (properly) split off, but no reorganization of what's left, which is, at best, a mishmash. (Though, by popular request, I learned that the question of whether horses REALLY sleep standing up is of great importance to non-horse poeple) (grin). Anyway, follow your heart, but if you need me to do a LOT of work, we shall have to wait until I don't log onto wiki wondering which 10 articles are going to be screwed up this time. Montanabw^(talk) 23:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi, thanks for the compliments on the hackney article. Thanks also for editing it further; you made the wording better where it needed to be improved (and the placement of the pictures and their captions). I took all the pictures on the page myself.

I have saddlebreds, and my parents used to have hackney show ponies, so I do know a bit about driving. I do hope to make more contributions in the future to horse articles, especially with photographs (since I'm a horse photographer). I am new here, though I've been using Wikipedia for years now, so I'll probably need some help on articles some time in the future.

Equinologist (talk) 00:21, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

re impulsion at walk

Trust me, I promise the walk does not have impulsion. I'm a dressage judge, we're sort of expected to know these things ;). Gaits and movements without suspension, can't have impulsion. This includes the walk, and piaffe. I wouldn't have made the edit if it weren't accurate. Salito (talk) 11:50, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Answered on your talk page in more detail. Impulsion can exist without suspension, as can collection, maybe not in some dressage specs for judging, but it exists. Montanabw^(talk) 02:56, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Impulsion

Thank you for your note. I tend to forget there is a world outside of dressage (wink).

I was able to find a reference to Impulsion in the USDF Glossary of Judging Terms. I don't know if you'd be interested in incorporating it into the article or not, I saw you made a lot of changes and adding references etc. I don't want to mess up what you did, but here is another reference if you're interested:

"IMPULSION Thrust. Releasing of the energy stored by engagement. The energy is transmitted through a back that is free from negative tension and is manifested in the horse's elastic, whole-boy movement. Note 1: Impulsion is associated with a phase of suspension such as exists in trot and canter, but which doesn't exist in walk or piaffe. Therefore, impulsion is not applicable to the walk or the piaffe."

Source: USDF Glossary of Judging Terms, as printed in the 2007 USDF Directory.

Note 1 seemed to be the most relevent. Learner dressage judges also are taught there is no impulsion in the walk, and not to make comments when judging which refer to impulsion in the walk. Instead, words like activity, energy, or even the more vague "forward" are to be used.

Salito (talk) 12:13, 26 May 2008 (UTC) (Salito (talk) 12:13, 26 May 2008 (UTC))

Yes, I can add that. Thanks. More on your talk page. Montanabw^(talk) 01:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Footnoting

Hey Montana- for the Olympic Equestrian article, I've been getting all my information from one source, although there are a few other sources online that I could use. However, I don't know if it would be appropriate to footnote, since almost all of the article would be from the same book. I did put it down in the reference section. Would you still suggest footnoting? Should I footnote by the paragraph? Eventer (talk) 17:34, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Butting in here...you should probably at least footnote by paragraph, even if it's all the same book. The easiest thing to do is put the whole book cite in the "references" section, and then use the inline ref cites as "author, title, page(s)" to place the shortened cite in the "notes" section. If you want to see an example, look at Thoroughbred or Arabian horse. Since the article existed before you started working on it, I'm assuming that there's some stuff in there that you didn't add. Any of this that you can't find cites for, place fact tags (which are "cn" with double brackets on either end) at the end of the sentence or section, and cite everything else. This will make it easier for someone looking through the article at some point in the future to see what comes from your book and what information still needs to be cited. Also, the more different reliable, verifiable sources that you can use in the article, the better. When you start going for GA/FA, they tend to want lots of different sources. I tend to do a lot of the work on citation formatting, but Ealdgyth is the one to ask about reliability and verifiability.

The work that you're doing on the article looks really nice. If at any point you decide that you want to take it to GA/FA, please let Montana, myself and Ealdgyth know, and we would be more than happy to help you. I have another book on Olympic Equestrianism, so after you throw in some cites and any fact tags, I might go through and do some more work that (hopefully) complements yours. Also, even if you don't want to do all the work for GA/FA, the work that you're doing now will make it easy for the rest of us to do some quick cleanup and expansion for an easy project in the future :).

Hope this rather lengthy example of my sticking my nose into various places helps answer your question. *grin* Dana boomer (talk) 00:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Eventer, like Dana said...she and Ealdgyth are even making me look like I'm laid back and sloppy! (LOL!) What we are finding as we try to tune up articles is that some unreferenced material is REALLY hard to find and reference later, particularly when the original editors are long gone. And the wikigods are getting a lot more fussy about tagging stuff. (sigh). Thanks for answering, Dana! Montanabw^(talk) 05:50, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Irish Sport Horse, breed or type ?

Could you tell me your definition of the Irish Sport Horse, i.e. do you think it is a "breed" or "type" ? and I will tell you what I think (know) it is. I would like the thoughts of your friends on Wiki (Dana b., Ealdgyth & Eventer) too. I'll reply here, but please keep it "short and sweet." - Culnacréann_{The'FortySix'}

Actually, User:Countercanter may be your best ally here if you are thinking the way I think you are thinking (grin). IMHO, I think telling someone that their "FriesianWalkaLoosaVanner" isn't a "real" breed starts edit wars! LOL! I mean, I'm into Arabians-- so EVERYTHING else is a "crossbreed" as far as I'm concerned (grinning and ducking) But, therefore, I personally err on the side of caution and tend to be kinder than perhaps is necessary. If the "registry" exists, seems to have existed for at least a few horse generations, has more members than the customers of one stud farm, and seems to have some standards beyond "send us $20 and a picture of your horse and we'll send you a purty certificate," I'll at least hesitate to put on a prod tag. (grin) These newer crossbreds are really tricky for me. I guess these sport horses are sort of like labradoodles or something, they're sort of a breed and sort of not. Note Friesian Sporthorse and that it matters DEEPLY that we do not confuse them with the Friesian Sport Horse. On the other hand, no one has yet convinced me that the "Warlander" is anything more than a bunch of first generation crossbreds! My own personal irritant is the American Warmblood, but it will take a braver person than I to try and "that's not a breed" that one. I have enough trouble on my hands keeping the Puerto Rican and Columbian Paso Fino people off each other's throats. They really don't like being together in one article and appear to hate each other's horses too.

I guess at the end of the day, the Irish Sport Horse is a least as much a breed as, say the Camarillo White Horse. OTOH, warmbloods or sport horses, or gaited horses or stock horses are clearly a type, sort of a grouping of several similar body type "breeds" or whatever-you-call-them, while the dozens of open stud book registries with studbook selection are, by the most techncal standards, perhaps not quite a breed by the fussiest definition, it's simpler to call them a breed, because they ARE more specific than a type. I can't personally really tell a Holsteiner (horse) from an Westphalian (horse), but if they want separate registries AND an open stud book, they can go for it. And the Trakehner does have a closed stud book, so it's a warmblood AND a "real" breed. For another example, the baroque horse is a type, the Lipizzaner and the Andalusian horse are CLEARLY breeds, with closed stud books and all. But what about the Appaloosa or American Quarter Horse, which are "breeds" by most people's definition, but which still does allow a limited number of crossbreds to be registered if they fit the breed standard?? Oh yes, and then there are the 8 "breeds" native to Indonesia, except they all sound like the same type of horse...(see Java Pony) ARRGH!?!

I know that's not an answer, let's just call it food for thought. Where are you going with this? (smiles) And yes, everyone can hijack my talk page to discuss this further if you don't want to put it into WikiProject Equine and have a feeding frenzy... Montanabw^(talk) 05:36, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I don't know why the Irish Sport Horse is termed "type"? when the Dutch Warmblood is called a "bred"? The KWPN (has a lot more different breeds (different blood) included in it (Gelderland, Andalusian, Neapolitan, Norman, Norfolk Roadster, Holstein, Groningen, the Friesian, East Friesian, Alt-Oldenburger, and Holsteiner + Thoroughbred) than the Irish Sport Horse (although we in Ireland now have Holstein, KWPN, SF etc. continental warmbloods, coming in these last 10 - 15 years or so - personally I don't like KWPN, I perfer German blood, Holstein, Hanoverian, Oldenburg (in that order) - but as you know Thoroughbred blood is the greatest blood of all in a Sport Horse. Ireland's only Olympic Individual Gold medalist in show jumping, Ambassador (1972) ridden by Graziano Mancinelli (ITALY), was by a son of Nasrullah called Nordlys. Nordlys was a grey [6]. Well Nordlys, who stood with Maurice Phelan (whos son Eamonn is head stallion man at Coolmore Stud), outside Lemybrien, County Waterford, sired a lot of International winning showjumpers (Nelson Pessoa's (Rodrigo's father) Miss Moet who held the World Puissance record at 2.33m (7' 7.5") and Cruising's[7],[8] Dam, Mullacrew to name two). We had two International winning jumpers by Nordlys, the grey Barryville and the bay Monks Meadow, both won Puissance's. Nordlys has The Tetrarch blood on both sides. Take a look at the pic of him!![9] for colour? nicknamed, the 'Spotted Wounder', he traces back to the Byerley Turk.

As I write this, Irish TV is showing racing from the Curragh and a piece on the Agh Khan. They are showing pics of Byerley Turk, Godolphin Arabian & Darley Arabian!!

Where am I going with this? I just wanted your (and others views). I am going to "do some work" on the Irish Sport Horse article. Plus I'm going to the RDS Dublin Horse Show CSIO5*(1st week August), where I hope to take some photos to put up in Commons. I'll try a see the Connemara pony, Irish Draught, maybe Thoroughbred stallion classes. Diff. photo the International showjumpers and National show jumpers (4, 5 & 6 y.o.'s). My 17 y.o. cousin has qualified a horse, so I'll be taking some of him - - Culnacréann_{The'FortySix'}

See how Irish Sport Horse is classed on list of horse breeds. That probably reflects wikipedia consensus. I think it's a "breed" there. You may also want to take a look at one of Countercanter's articles, heavy warmblood. Quite nicely done, I thought. Montanabw^(talk) 02:45, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Go Man Go

Thanks! Just reverted/changed a few things. I've given up explaing "out of" to non-horse people. It's not worth the bother (grins). And I try to avoid using ()'s for definitions of words, rather use phrases, they just look better to me. I did manage to find the date of his induction, the AQHA finally put it up on their page (for years they didn't). Got the stakes information. Just not sure where to put the QH vs TB stuff that Ruhrfish is looking for. It's in a footnote right now, but I'd like it in the body, just can't figure out WHERE!

Horsie stuff... speaking of QHs... our broodmare. Well, she's saddle broke. Takes a rider fine. Has brakes. Just no steering. None. Nada. None. So she's staying in Texas for 30 days while she acquires a steering wheel. So her daughter gets to stay there too, so we only waste the gas ONCE going and getting them! Took pictures of the cowhorse today though ... in one of those fancy desert style halters. He was baffled at this whole "fancy halter" thing... but behaved. Score one for Khemosabi breeding! (Cancels out that Nabiel on the bottom, his dam is a Nabiel daughter...) Ealdgyth - Talk 22:53, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Wow, thanks for the barn star! I don't edit much in horse related areas (because I don't have much to add) but horses are a big part of my life and I like to keep my eye on some equestrian articles. I see all the work that you do and appreciate your expertise on all things related to horses. - Epousesquecido (talk) 04:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Ditto what she said! Thanks for the barnstar, and thanks for all your hard work on WP. I'm so glad that this mess hasn't made you leave WP...the project would be much the worse with you gone. Dana boomer (talk) 15:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Me too! A nice surprise when I logged in yesterday. Btw, if you get bored conversing with me in English, then try my Romanian page! Gwinva (talk) 23:58, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the collection of barnstars and other wiki-awards is very pretty, they are fun to select just the proper one for a person. (I'm still waiting for circumstances that will allow me to award the Surrealistic Barnstar! LOL!) They are kind of like Hallmark, only better. But Gwinva, so explain to the rest of us how one winds up with a Romanian page? LOL!! Montanabw^(talk) 04:55, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Who knows? I discovered it by following a link in that very nice email from the Romanian Welcomebot. Not being all that familiar with Romanian (who is??) it took a little research to discover just what language it was! I occasionally follow article inter-language links in search of pictures and things (sizing up the opposition and all that: have you noticed that the Spanish Horses in warfare is a translation of ours? I wonder if we should let them know when we make changes....) and can only assume the welcomebot picked up my activity through the unified login. Gwinva (talk) 05:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Imitation is the sincerest form of praise, eh? Montanabw^(talk) 07:21, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the sandbox PF into one article again, I know I made a mess with the trying to make parallel forms. The references were were not showing up properly after I did that. anyhow it is "better" again...lol Arsdelicata (talk) 09:32, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

American Warmblood (?)

Hi Montanabw, I was reading your comment on "breed or type?" and had a good chuckle over your thoughts about the "breed" American Warmblood. (BTW, that photo in the article is my little American Warmblood filly. :)) When someone asks me about her breed, I always say American Warmbloods are kind of the mutt of the warmblood breeds. - Epousesquecido (talk) 01:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

LOL! I try not to overdo it, I wish there were something like the American Kennel Club for horse breeds. Not that the AKC doesn't have its own politics, but it would be nice to have some guidelines for when a crossbred becomes a breed...after all, most if not all breeds were once crossbreds... Food for thought, Montanabw^(talk) 05:50, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Hand conversion

The template syntax allows for a "lk=in" to add a wikilink to Hand (length). For example: 14 hands (56.00 inches; 142.24 cm). Unfortunately, no way to make it link hand and not inch in this case... Also, at present, there is no way to use the traditional 14.2 format for either input or output. This may be a problem, but it beyond my wiki-abilities to make a number that looks like a decimal into not a decimal. (I also believe that the layperson has no idea that 14.2 means "14 hands and 2 inches" rather than "14 and 2/10ths hands". This format, while jarring to topic experts, is much more understandable for the general audience.) Feel free to revert, if you feel the articles were better off before. I can't think in hands and so I like to see the metric units and I think it makes the articles overall more understandable. There are downsides, especially with the non-traditional way that hands are written not being supported. JRP (talk) 04:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll see if there's a way to only link hand and not inch, but I don't know of one. What I've done is follow the templates and the way converted numbers are written for all of the other conversion templates, rather than build a new one (which I couldn't do, frankly) for "hand". That means that the placement of parens, etc. is a little different than how you do it, plus the way they write out hands and inches. But I think in general what you suggest is doable. The documentation for Template:convert has a bunch more options that you can look at to see if there's something closer to your style... JRP (talk) 05:20, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

This most be a USA thing? Maybe you don't use centimetres daily. Just letting you know that in the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia too, 14.2 hh is ALWAYS rounded up to 148cm in measuring ponies. So none of your calculations to make it 147cm (actually its 1473mm or 147.3cm).[10] So here it is: 12.2hh = 128cm, 13.2hh = 138cm, 14.2hh = 148cm, 15.2hh = 158cm, 16.2hh = 168cm, 17.0hh = 173cm, so the height of horses and ponies is rounded up or down to these heights. And its always 'hh' when written down. 86.153.161.214 (talk) 19:04, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip on rounding, especially given that standard rounding rules don't apply. Good to know. In the US, "hh" or "h" are both used for abbreviation. Montanabw^(talk) 19:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I think I understand, but let me reiterate what I know. 14.2 hands is 48 inches (14 * 4 + 2 = 48). Are these standard inches or is a special hand-inch used? The problem is that 48 inches is 147.32cm, but that there is a convention to always round-up in hands-to-cm conversion and so it's 148. The problem that I have with that is that the conversion template knows that it's 147.32 and so picks the right number of significant figures and says that 14.2 hands = 147cm. That tells me that hands isn't really being used a s true unit of measure here, or at least one that doesn't actually have three significant figures.

With all that in mind, we can craft a conversion that uses the look-up instead of an actual decimal calculation. I don't know how to do that, but it can be done. I'll do some research. I suppose that having an almost-right metric conversion is better than none. JRP (talk) 21:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

LOL! Basically hands use normal inches, no problem there, and when fractional inches are involved, they are used. So the worst it gets with US inches is something like the Theodore O'Connor example where he was 14.1-3/4 hands. (i.e. almost a horse, but not quite). I'm not going to touch European conversions into cm if they deviate from standard rounding, as I don't have a clue. Perhaps the IP who pointed this out has a source, but for now I wouldn't sweat it, as we usually use the standard in|cm convert template in the horse articles. Montanabw^(talk) 15:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The conversion from hands high to centimeters is totally f* up. Such as the size for the Arabian horse where the article states that "describes the Arabians as standing between 14.1 and 15.1 hands (57 to 61 inches (140 to 150 cm)) tall". It's just that 14.1 to 15.1 hh is 145 to 155 cm, a difference of a full two inches, caused by the converter using 2.5 cm to the inch instead of 2.54 cm, and then rounding down to the nearest 10 cm (!?). I corrected the numbers in the article about the Arabian horse, but you changed it back. Why? Did I bruise someone's ego? If a conversion algorithm doesn't work, as the conversion from hands high to cm clearly doesn't, it shouldn't be used... Allan Akbar (talk) 09:48, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The solution is to fix the template, not to manually change the 500 articles that use the template. That's the solution. Montanabw^(talk) 23:16, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

GA review of Horse

Hi, Montanabw. I'll deal with this privately as I don't want to make the GA discussion any longer or prejudice the GA review. First, I think going for GA without getting the supporting articles in good shape is risky. The combination of biology / evolution and widespread, diverse and millenia-old human uses of horses makes it a very large subject, so it needs a few supporting articles to handle the details. A buddy and I came to a similar conclusion after my efforts on Cambrian explosion produced a result that was reasonably strong scientifically and not too difficult for non-specialists, but uncomfortably long. My buddy set up WP:CEX aiming to create a suitable package of supporting articles, and I'm the other active member. You may have to do the same with Horse.

I see what you mean about the Creationist nuisances. The dumb thing is that they are decades behind the more scientifically informed Creationiss, who realised 50 years ago that horse evolution was not easily attackable, and switched to other targets.

I'm sorry I can't offer to help with horse evolution, but I'm quite busy with other paleo topics, and my background knowledge of Cenozoic mammals (i.e. last 65 M years!) is very sketchy.

Re the limb design for cursorial animals, look for some refs by Googling for e.g. "biomechanics limb cursorial", using Google Scholar and Google Books. If you don't have full access to the text of articles in scientific papers, very often the abstracts tell you enough. And Google Books' previews have been very kind to me (saved me $000's!). Look out for the name R. McNeill Alexander, he's the dean of biomechanics and writes in a pretty accessible style. The basics of cursorial limb design are:

• digitigrade stance lengthens the stride by making the foot bones functionally part of the limb (see the leg diagram at Tyrannosaurus).
• the muscles are concentrated in the medial part of the limb (nearest the trunk) to minimise rotational inertia, especially when swinging the limb forward. That's the reason for chicken drumsticks, and you should see ostrich drumsticks (Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible recommends every-day analogies). As a result the lower part of the limb consists mainly of bones and tendons operated by the muscles at the top.
• Ungulates take this one step further (groan!) by moving on their finger- and toe-nails.

Feel free to annoy the Creationists by putting in a plug for convergent evolution. Good luck. -- Philcha (talk) 08:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Jumping in here... Although I agree that getting supporting articles in shape is nice, by looking at the horse article you will see that there are almost 50 supporting articles just linked through main/see also templates at the beginnings of sections. There are over 1800 articles under the WP:Equine umbrella, with over 180 being considered mid-importance or higher. Many of these are in fairly rough shape, due to lack of time on the part of WP:Equine members and lack of interest from other editors. If we waited until we had all of these cleaned up, it would be years before we took Horse to GA/FA!

Also, as Montana told you on the GAN talk page, none of the current WP:Equine members have the background to know and really understand the evolution of the horse. We can toss in what we read in books, but none of us really have the depth of knowledge to know if what the book is saying is true or a load of horse-pucky.

At some point, we will get around to cleaning up all of the 1800+ WP:Equine articles, and honest, we really do try to focus on the more important ones first. We are making progress...it's just slow and being made slower by some relatively nasty wikipolitics. However, due to the lack of expertise I cited above, Evolution of the horse will probably be nearer the bottom of the list than the top for the editors that are active at WP:Equine right now. If we suddenly gain a member who has a Ph.D. in paleontology and loves horses...well, then, things may change! Dana boomer (talk) 11:23, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Dana boomer. The approach I suggested is the most efficient way to create a package of articles, because doing the small, narrow-scope ones first gives you a stock of refs and often phrasing that you can use in the big, wide-scope articles. However if you're in a hurry to get Horse to GA and need help with paleontology I suggest you check out Wikipedia:WikiProject_Palaeontology/Participants - a few are explicitly interested in Cenozoic / Tertiary animals and may be able to help. -- Philcha (talk) 12:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Phil and Dana, my thinking here is to have an accurate and acceptable summary in the main article that is accurate and correct, as far as it goes, which inevitably must be superficial. You comment to ask the palentology crowd is welcomed, and as for the evolution article, like I say, the people who care seem to spat a lot over there, making us all duck and run! In the cosmic scheme of things, the Horse is rather a unique animal being a companion animal and a sporting animal as well as just a "critter," and could have been nominated under both biology and sport, so it's tough to know which focus to prioritize. In the meantime, we are taking the WPEQ articles on their individual merits, with several breed articles having passed GA and one having passed FA, along with a couple of biographical ones. Anyway, good discussion, appreciate knowing your thinking. Montanabw^(talk) 23:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

*Insert appreciation here*

Thanks so much for such an in-depth review of the Banker Horse sources. I appreciate all of your efforts in my (somewhat still struggling, although definitely improved) attempts at wikipedia source selecting. Not only am I rejecting sources written by people named "Cowboy Frank" (for real...) but, I am also venturing into the public library for really really really really really credible references! --Yohmom (talk) 00:51, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

When I get back from going to Arabian Nationals this week, I'll scan in and mail you the three-four pages from the Encyclopedia of Endangered Livestock breeds so you can source that in also. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:53, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

LOL! Glad we can help. Oh yeah, I found "Cowboy Frank" quite a while back. On occasion that site finds good material and sometimes does not. Problem is you have no idea what the sources for any of it are. It's a case in point of why the WP:V standard is what it is. (Full disclusure (blush): I have been known to use stuff from Cowboy Frank, but usually as a placeholder until something better comes along!) In short, I wish more horse stuff was better researched in general, it can be a real challenge to get from "what everyone knows" - which often isn't - and an oral tradition to sourced, verifiable material. Montanabw^(talk) 00:26, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of appreciation...I would indeed be most grateful if you could take a look at some of the chunks of info I threw into the Banker horse article this morning. I am sure it needs a few (thousand) tweaks. --Yohmom (talk) 22:01, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Senior Stallion class... nationals...

(drools) Just... drool. Dakharo, Odessey, Major Jamaal, JD Pistal, Brandon Bey JCA. And Eden C in the Futurity. Our friends yearling colt made Top Ten. And her 3/4s filly went top ten. And our trainers western bred half-arabian filly went top ten. AND we found a trainer to do an evaluation on our Noble Express filly... Been a good show! Ealdgyth - Talk 02:03, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

And I am SOOOOO freaking jealous! (grinning, ducking and running)! Keep the reports coming in. I can't get the stupid live show cam to work on my computer... Montanabw^(talk) 17:24, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

*joining in the drool fest* Yes, I know I'm stalking, but honestly, wow! I'm so jealous...wish I could have been there! Congrats on finding the trainer: good ones are always hard to get, and congrats to your friends as well on their successes. Good luck with your filly! Dana boomer (talk) 17:53, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh. My. God. Shaddofax. My Noble Express filly. To die for trot. Watched the three-five stallion class. Valentino won it, but Shaddofax wowed the crowd with a astounding trot. Like... park horse trot. Otherwise, well... the usual issues with halter classes. The usual names winning. Ealdgyth - Talk 02:34, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Heh. My transmission decided to try to die in Amarillo. Lucky me. Hopefully they'll get it fixed tomorrow but we might be stuck here until Monday. Lovely. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:45, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Your tale of automobile woe is making the Asleep at the Wheel version of "Amarillo by Morning" go through my brain (not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing)...hope all goes well. What did you think of the Tulsa site for the nationals? Montanabw^(talk) 02:52, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Liked it a lot better than Louisville. Never saw Albuquerque, so no idea on that. Nice clean barns, the halter arenas a bit small. Lots of space for shopping. Of course, the place is huge huge huge. Lots of golf carts... Ealdgyth - Talk 03:06, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Halter arenas were probably designed for Quarter Horse shows. (DO they even trot them, really?) But horse-related shopping...oh, you've done it now! I'm DOUBLE jealous! Montanabw^(talk) 03:40, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the new halter scoring system is going to survive. Lots of unhappy folks, because it isn't much more "sane" than the old system. And all the halter classes were done by noon Thursday, so most of the "big" names packed up and left. Byatt, Gallun, Jade Creek, etc. were gone by Friday morning, with like a stall drape left up. A lot of others packed mostly up and left one or two horses for the "presentations" on Friday and Saturday night, but all the big boys are gone. One reason we left, because there wasn't much point staying around. A mare a friend bred won the purebred cutting, which was cool. The sire of that mare is the horse we're going to photograph (if we ever get out of Amarillo) and is the sire of two of our horses also. The sire of our two coming foals had a top ten halter mare, so that was good too. I bought some more halters, the "desert style" ones, as well as some other stuff. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:33, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

So is the problem with the halter scoring system that something with sickle hocks, calf knees and tied-in bone is still getting a 20 for legs if it's led by the right handler, or is it that no one has a clue how to do math? (And wasn't this supposed to be based on the system used for decades in Europe??) (Maybe answer that question via email, eh?? (grin)). I know that the little people won the attempt by the AZ assn to repeal it, so there is the grassroots support, but the grassroots isn't showing halter. Oh gawd, horse politics... :-P Montanabw^(talk) 22:45, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, nothing is getting 20s for legs, but it's that the judges aren't all on the same card, so to speak. One judge gives a horse 15s, the other gives them 18s. And somehow the horses that get the high scores always seem to be led by the "big" names, while the non-big names that might have nice horses don't get the benefit of the doubt. Some of the scores were SO over the top it had people calling "corrupt judging" in the stands. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:09, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

IMHO, at least now we have proof! LOL! I think the goal of the scorecard was to increase objectivity of halter judging, sounds like it isn't there yet, but it does sound like we have a nice little battle brewing between the BNTs and the grassroots. I'm going to buy popcorn and keep watching this show, should continue to be very entertaining! (Note: you'd never guess I have issues with current halter trends...and that I decided not to pursue a judge's card due to my dislike of breed politics! LOL! ) By the way, if you are online, does this mean you are still stranded in Amarillo? Montanabw^(talk) 23:22, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep. Car wasn't ready when the shop closed at 3 yesterday, so no work today, they are hoping noon tomorrow. UGH. We've exhausted the photography possibilities of Amarillo, at least they got us a loaner car (even if it is powered by gerbils). Luckily, when we drive we travel with the Xbox, so we have amusement. And books. Just annoying becaue we were planning on hitting Zion NP to photograph, and probably won't make it now. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:59, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, "Powered by Gerbils" -- You know you just made me squirt coffee out my nose with that one! :-D Bummer about missing Zion, but hope they get the car fixed soon!

The Sorraia entry

Dear Montanabw, Thank you! for helping me with my first few attempts at trying to "clean up" the Sorraia information offered by Wikipedia. I wondered, of course, who or what was looking after things.

I appreciate your advice, and do not dispute it one bit...but I do think I am over my head and may not be able to figure out this Wikipedia world and its necessary protocol--for some reason it is much more difficult for me than figuring out my own blog.

Like you, I am busy in "real life" and so will probably just let the information that is unclear and confusing stand as is, along with the very poor photo, until I can find the time to better understand how to better import information to Wikipedia according to its standards.

Thank you so much for your help thus far!

Incidently, I share my world with a purebred Sorraia stallion, Altamiro, who's image (from my own camera) I also put on the Wikipedia Commons data upload because I wanted to mention later in an edit to the page on Sorraia that there was one purebred Sorraia in Canada who is a herd sire for a transcontinental effort to help save the heavily bottlenecked gene pool of the Sorraias in Portugal and Germany by crossing this stallion with select mustang mares who posses the Sorraia phenotype.

I work in close association with Hardy Oelke who can be contacted at oehorse@t-online.de

Neither Hardy Oelke or myself are interested in trying to promoto the Sorraia for financial gain...our interest is in preserving this ancestral horse in the best way we know how, and the internet is a very beneficial tool for this.

As you may know from his two websites dedicated to the Sorraia and the Sorraia mustang (which are mentioned in this Wikipedia article) Hardy offers a considerable amount of helpful data, research and information on the Sorraia.

If you would care to know more about the efforts of my husband and myself here in Canada to help the cause of the Sorraia, you may find out more by visiting: http://ravenseyrie.blogspot.com/

Once again, I thank you profusely for your efforts to bring information on the Sorraia to the Wikipedia environment. I myself, or Hardy are happy to confer with your for the citations and references desired as well as offering many much more appropriate photos which better represent the Sorraia horse.

My best, Selona Selona (talk) 00:18, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

English saddle Article

Campdrafters may use both styles of saddles and sometimes competetive events are are also held for bareback drafting riders(ouch)! The larger race "pads" have a tree, the very light ones don't and in that sense I would think that differentiates them from a saddle.Cgoodwin (talk) 07:10, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, I can restore it, then...but bareback? Are they freaking NUTS? (grin). In the states we call racing saddles "saddles," not "pads" (a pad, to us, is a saddle blanket) and the source indicates that most have some sort of tree, even if a half tree. Montanabw^(talk) 07:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

There is no touble in getting a run in one of these 'drafting events, LOL. In the racing scene these saddles are often informally called "pads", including the heavier exercise saddles.Cgoodwin (talk) 08:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

LOL! That darn US/UK English thing strikes again! We are a people separated by a common language. Montanabw^(talk) 08:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)