horse 'bicycle'

Over long distances (tens of hours, to days) even a moderately fit man will be able to walk further than a horse can (that's why the cavalry are never there when you need them, they are cathing up). Give the man a bicycle and the break point is of the order of 4 hours.

I saw a TV show a while back demonstrating how an unarmed man could catch a gazelle. He chased it. It ran away. He chased it, it ran away. etc. 4 hours later the gazelle collapsed from exhaustion. BBQ.

Cheers

Greg Locock

In sci.physics, Greg Locock

wrote >

If this is correct this might explain how we survived so long. We're natural marathoners. :-)

Blinders don't always help; and it doesn't take a wildcat to cause problems. The worst fall I ever took from a horse was while riding down a trail with tall grass and low bushes on either side. We came around a small curve at an easy gallop; and there was a paper cup on the ground, right in the middle of the trail. Since the cup came into view suddenly, right in front of the horse, it startled him. He didn't buck, or jump, or anything so dramatic. He just sorta sidestepped - right out from under me. I hit the paper cup (and the ground underneath it) with my face, did three or four front rolls, which bruised every conceivable part of my body; and I ended up sitting on the trail, facing foward, and watching the horse as he kept right on galloping, and disappeared around the next curve.

The treadmill will need some stiff side-bars, and maybe a framework over the top and in front of the rider, equipped with safety harnesses and an air bag.

It might also help if the whole assembly was preceded by a street-sweeper device of some kind. That could solve paper cup problems, and might also scare away the wild cats.

KG

-- I'm sick of spam. The 2 in my address doesn't belong there.

A horse needn't even *see* something to spook; a sound is enough. I once rode a mare to the top of a small hill covered with long grass. While we were sitting still enjoying the view (well, *I* was enjoying it), a sudden breeze rustled the grass to our left. I don't know if the horse thought it was a snake or what, but she tried to jump to the right and ended up stumbling down the hill *sideways* with her hoofs flailing in all directions. All the way down I was expecting her to trip and roll over me. Fortunately, she was very sure-footed and made it to the bottom without doing more than jostling me a little.

So earmuffs may be necessary, too. :-)

While I was in college, I was dating a girl that worked part time tending horses in a stable outside town. One day early in spring, she took me along to her job. After mucking out the stables, the boss suggested we take a couple of horses out for a ride since they had not been ridden outside the barnyard since the snow started to fall months before.

The ride was along a one-lane gravel road through farms. The horses had plenty of spirit and soon started to gallop on their own. As soon as we got to the first unfenced field, the horse I was on did an abrupt right turn and stopped to graze on the new grass. I was left sitting in the muddy ditch.

Horses interpret everything to be a wild cat.

But he can't see in front; that's why you always approach a horse from a side angle. If you approach headon, when he doesn't notice you, he'll react massively.

That doesn't work either. My sister had an intersection with that kind of framework; they put a mare into that kind of framework so she couldn't do that sidestep you described when getting mounted. It didn't stop the mare. As a result, my sister's face had an intersection with that framework. When she was in the hospital, the medicos started thinking about calling the cops for wife abuse. They had to make the hospital call the vet to verify that her husband didn't hit her.

Now the streetsweeper can cause problems. There was a good reason that man went from beast to machine; at least you can kick a machine when it doesn't work and it won't kick back.

/BAH

Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

Kickbacks? You mean like this?