Tuesday, 31 January 2012

Picking the Right Riding Spurs

By Nick Jacob


Riding spurs have been employed for many years as a method of sending signals to horses while not having to make any sounds or sudden movements. Everybody has seen the western movies where the riders use spurs that are decorated with a spiky metal star at the rear, spinning around as they ride the pony. Nevertheless this sort of riding spur isn't truly appropriate for most types of present day horse riding. Using the right spurs is important.

There are a couple of differing kinds of horse riding spurs and which one you need to invest in is dependent upon which kind of horse riding you'll use it for, and whether you'll need any spurs at all. For children and/or younger riders, spurs are basically worthless since the rider's legs won't reach far down on the horse to apply the right pressure with the spur.

The "English Spur" is often used amongst dressage and equestrian riders. This is a more refined form of spur that's utilised to send extraordinarily subtle commands to a horse that are virtually invisible to the untrained eye.

If you are in to Western riding then the more flashy sorts of spurs are the ones you should be taking a look at. These are the characteristic cowboy spurs with gold or silver colored metal at the back that makes quite a bit of noise. These are extremely unsuited for any sort of competitive dressage or equestrian riding.

The long part that's connected to the spur is called a shank. Now, dependent on what kind of riding you'll be doing you will have to use different sorts of shanks. This is due to how the rider's legs are placed when they sit in a saddle. For Western riding the legs of the rider will be pushed forward and a touch to the sides. So this implies that the shank will have to be curved inwards for the spur to have any effect on the horse.

It is similarly important to understand that if a horse rider is using a Dressage saddle or an English saddle, the legs will be down on the sides. This implies that the shanks will only need a slight angle on them to be in a position to poke the horse when needed.

Something to keep in mind is to be exceedingly careful when using spurs. Wild and unexpected pokes in to a horse can make it aggressive and irritated and in the worst case scenario harm the horse. Use the spurs with caution until you are an experienced rider and know precisely how hard you can push the spurs.




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