Irish gypsy drag racing

[near horse]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pyjnw-Olq4&feature=related

Some crazy guys racing and being chased by the police. The one horse must be pretty tough as either of mine woud be running w/ sweat and blowing like mad after a run like this.

[Kevin Cunningham]

Those guys are crazy! that must be some dare to race down a busy road like that, impressive, but so incredibly dangerous.

[grey]

The part that I found mind-boggling was all the people on the wrong side of the road. No, no, even taking into account that they drive on the opposite side of the road over there, there’s a staggering number of people (including the person driving the car that is taking the video) who are simply driving on whatever part of the road they desire. Lots of people vindictively tailgating the sulkies. Such strange behavior!

[grey]

I was still a few minutes from the end when I posted that. Guess all those cars were full of spectators and cheerleaders! Crazy!

[jen judkins]

You gotta love the trotting horses…having ridden arabians for decades, I can tell you they can move like that for many miles…mind boggling. If you look carefully, you can see that these trotting horses actually change the rotation of their hips so they track wider behind to avoid any interference. Amazing animals.

This was a thrilling race, though I agree, some very strange and scary driving behavior! Does anyone know where this took place? I thought the Irish were primarily english speaking.

[grey]

In my experience, even when Irish *are* speaking English, you wouldn’t necessarily know it through the brogue and the vernacular!

[fogish]

They were speaking English all the way up to the end, I am not sure at that point. I have studied Scottish Gàidhlig and it is very similar to Irish, stressing broad vowels instead of slender with a few other differences. Gypsies/Travellers speak a mix of Irish Gàidhlig and English but mostly English. I am not sure if the families in Wales and England speak Manx and other similar languages or only Irish and English. The way they were going it was most likely a race between two families that didn’t get along very well, they also have bare knuckle boxing matches with each other that have bets up to 10’s of thousands of dollars. It’s crazy what a feud can do.

Don’t they train the horses to step in unison diagonally while they are racing?

[grey]

Depends on if they’re trotters or pacers.

[fogish]

Pacers = diagonal. Trotters = standard trot? I’m getting into foreign territory here, I haven’t planned to train my minis to have a gait they don’t naturally have so I never really looked into them. I think there is a tolt, pacing (?), something the saddlebreds and Tennessee walkers do… obviously I am a wealth of knowledge in this area.

[grey]

The trot gait has diagonal legs moving in unison. Left front and right rear strike the ground at the same time. It is a two-beat gait. That is, there are two beats before each foot has struck the ground and the cycle repeats.

Pacing has legs on the same side of the body moving in unison. Both front and rear left legs strike the ground at the same time. Also a two-beat gait.

A tolt is a four-beat gait, like a sped-up version of a walk. No two feet strike the ground at the same time. We have an Icelandic here for training and his tolt is a real hoot to ride. Just gliding along.

Some of the gaits among the various “gaited” breeds are pretty similar but because they came from different parts of the world, there are different names for them. Also, some people just like to argue so they invent nano-increments of difference between different gaits and then make a fuss about them. 😉 Add to that the fact that many gaited horses don’t always exhibit the textbook-perfect cadence of their breed’s special gait and you get a whole cornucopia of different gait rythms.

[grey]

Oh, and trot is a diagonal gait while pace is a lateral gait.

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