Skib
20th Feb 2007, 01:28 PM
Not sure where to post this. But as we older folk take learning to ride seriously I'd like to pass on my recent discovery of Sara Wyche's books.
Does anyone else like them?
They don't come from a well known publisher and I have gathered them up pretty much by accident.
The postman has just delivered The Horse's Muscles in Motion - and I haven't read it yet. I got hold of it because a girl I hack with has to learn muscles for BHS Stage 3. But if you look at the contents list on Amazon you'll see it covers bones and nerves as well.
Sara Wyche is a Scottish vet, into holistic medicine and perhaps should be in the NH section along with my other great educator Mark Rashid.
Her gift is to present horse anatomy so that it grabs the attention of a non-specialist like me? Not just a diagram of bones and muscles ready to memorise to take a BHS test? But her own meaningful drawings linked to explanations of how things are and how they work inside a horse?
The first book of hers I came across was "The Anatomy of Riding", looking at the relationship between the rider's body and that of the horse. It probably wasnt the best one to buy. I gather she became famous for her previous book, "Understanding the Horse's Back" and then "Understanding the Horse's Legs"
One thing I like is the way she differentiates between different types of horse bred for different purposes? Say between the back length and build of a cob and a TB racehorse? Anatomy is general. Yet as she expresses it, it becomes individual and particular?
But these aren't just academic anatomy. She looks at things that go wrong. At saddles and saddle fit along with the back, and feet and shoeing along with the legs.
It will be clear that I haven't yet read them all cover to cover - but it is like Rashid, she's a teacher who puts across into my ageing brain a lot of things I want to know about horses. And now I have the opportunity to groom and have hands on experience of horse's bodies, I have come across the right teacher at the right moment.
Does anyone else like them?
They don't come from a well known publisher and I have gathered them up pretty much by accident.
The postman has just delivered The Horse's Muscles in Motion - and I haven't read it yet. I got hold of it because a girl I hack with has to learn muscles for BHS Stage 3. But if you look at the contents list on Amazon you'll see it covers bones and nerves as well.
Sara Wyche is a Scottish vet, into holistic medicine and perhaps should be in the NH section along with my other great educator Mark Rashid.
Her gift is to present horse anatomy so that it grabs the attention of a non-specialist like me? Not just a diagram of bones and muscles ready to memorise to take a BHS test? But her own meaningful drawings linked to explanations of how things are and how they work inside a horse?
The first book of hers I came across was "The Anatomy of Riding", looking at the relationship between the rider's body and that of the horse. It probably wasnt the best one to buy. I gather she became famous for her previous book, "Understanding the Horse's Back" and then "Understanding the Horse's Legs"
One thing I like is the way she differentiates between different types of horse bred for different purposes? Say between the back length and build of a cob and a TB racehorse? Anatomy is general. Yet as she expresses it, it becomes individual and particular?
But these aren't just academic anatomy. She looks at things that go wrong. At saddles and saddle fit along with the back, and feet and shoeing along with the legs.
It will be clear that I haven't yet read them all cover to cover - but it is like Rashid, she's a teacher who puts across into my ageing brain a lot of things I want to know about horses. And now I have the opportunity to groom and have hands on experience of horse's bodies, I have come across the right teacher at the right moment.