The email answer from J Ashton Moore to Melissa Wright’s question was priceless.
https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/all-king-edwards-horses-carry-many-big-fools/
19 Likes
This was a fabulous article, I really enjoyed it! Excellent writing.
1 Like
I learned the order of letters from All King Edwards Horses Can Make Big Fences. 
6 Likes
hahahaha…loved his response!
No mnemonic stuck with me until “A Fat Bay Mare Came Home Eating Kale” It remains with me to this day, because of the mental image.
3 Likes
A Fat Black Mare Can Hardly Ever Kick. Definitely untrue! I love the Fat Bay Mare Came Home Eating Kale and this is the first time I’ve heard it.
All King Edward’s Horses Carry Many Bloody Fools. Or, All King Edward V’s Swaybacked Horses Carry Many Ridiculous Bloody Purple Fools. The centerline: A D Luxe I Guana.
1 Like
All Kind Elephants Have Cute Mothers Bad Fathers
2 Likes
I learned: A Fat Black Mama Cat Had Eight Kittens
1 Like
A Fat Bay Mare Can Hardly Ever Kanter is how I learned it!
Non-riding husband of a friend coined:
All Fat Boy’s Mothers Can Help Elephants Kill
That was over 30yrs ago & it’s still my GoTo 
1 Like
Jeff Moore’s note is great 
But I don’t get the closing paragraph. The author’s suspicions rest in France, with the first appearance of the modern ring at the Antwerp games. King Albert. Antwerp is in Belgium. King Albert was King of the Belgians at that time. 
1 Like
Yes, but don’t they speak French in Belgium? I think that was the point.
The mnemonics that go counterclockwise always fascinate me. Mine is All King Edward’s Horses Carry Many Bloody Fools. The intermediate letters are fairly easy, I tell my students to just think RSVP. The letters on the centerline, I invented a (really dumb) one for folks to remember them. Going from A to C it is: Dressage Legend Xenophon Is Great.
But that is CLOCKWISE.
2 Likes
I’ve had the pleasure of scribing for Jeff Moore. An outstanding judge and his comments were frequently phrased similarly to the quote in the article.
At one show, he asked me how it was going during a break and I asked that he please refrain from the word “unharmoniously” as I could not for the life of me come up with a decent abbreviation of it! He laughed and said OK.
@Mondo I remember the letters on centerline by going from C to A and skipping X, then it’s just GILD
I’m in the All Kind Elephants Have Common Mothers Brothers Fathers camp.
4 Likes
Not in Antwerp they don’t! That’s a definitely a Flemish city 
And in the southern part of the country, they speak Walloon (a dialect).
And even francophone Belgians would be insulted by that writers’ lumping them in with France (the country) as she did.
1 Like
Right. That’s why I think the counterclockwise ones are interesting.
1 Like
All King Edward’s Horses Can Manage Big Fences. Learned about 100 years ago for pony club and it’s stuck ever since.
3 Likes
I was given a really nice horse by my boss years ago because he really didn’t like being micromanaged (I was an hunter rider) and she was importing a warmblood from Switzerland.
Her one requirement was that I took a few lessons with her trainer, who went on to marry Steven Peters a few years later. She was the nicest trainer I ever had—my teenage-era trainer was a former cavalry officer and used to throw rocks at us and crack a lunge whip when we we weren’t approaching a fence with enough energy. 
Besides yelling “hunter leg” at me every few minutes ( in a very nice way), every time she told me to do something at a particular letter, I would have to stop and look around to find it. She thought that was hilarious!
6 Likes
I was privileged to ride 2 of my horses in clinics with Jeff Ashton Moore & audited 2 or 3 more.
He is the only clinician I’ve audited that gave me useful information that translated to riding on my own.
Every rider & horse worked with visibly improved.
I loved his dry humor, his habit of calling all horses “Punkin” 
& complete lack of breed snobbery.
My first clinic 1 brought my TWH, hardwired to gait. This horse Did.Not.Trot!
I asked on this BB if that was going to work, got the usual mix of “sure, go ahead” & “how dare you!”.
One poster suggested I call ahead & ask Jeff, so I did.
His answer:
“He’s a horse, right?”
So we went. And learned.
At one clinic the rider was WP & tacked as such.
Made no matter to Jeff & again, both improved by the end of their session.
I am, however, gobsmacked to learn he’s my age 
9 Likes
I learned “All King Edward’s Horses Carry Many Bloody Fools” and as teens in Pony Club, we came up with Common Girls eXit Directly After for the center line.
1 Like
