Riding
Awareness of the outside world. Ancient Alabama, part 10. AL.com: Alabama Black Belt among world’s top sites to find ancient sea monsters, Pillion, 9 Dec 2021. BTW, “Named for its dark, rich soils.” Encyclopedia of Alabama: Black Belt Region in Alabama. This was my understanding. More below.
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Milton attended a group lesson at Stepping Stone Farm. The idea was that being in a ring with other horses trotting would encourage Milton to do the same without excessive heaving and swearing on the part of his rider.
Milton trotted. Everyone stayed on. Yay.
OTOH, Milton had several occasions wherein he felt the need to express himself. As with the driving demo, it was all quite understandable. One can’t help but wishing that he didn’t feel the need to be quite so expressive. [Milton Does Demo Duty]
Being straffed by a bird. One of the peacocks took off and launched straight at horse and rider. Cleared their heads by a few feet. I only saw the end of this with the bird flying off. Actually, Milton gets lots of points here. He stood stock still. Past spooking and clear out to the other side. Many applications of horse cookies were required to get him back in gear. Good boy.
Loud noise. Well, yes, it was a loud noise.
A horse coming up on his six. Either Milton is competitive and does not like being passed. Or he remembers that horses what get passed in races get strongly encourage to stir their stumps. Or he just doesn’t like other horses in this space. Hop. Hop. Hop.
Another horse having a moment. Our two are like this at home. If one of them is in trouble, the other thinks he will be next.
Thank you to Coach Courtney for allowing a TB invasion of an ASB group lesson. She wisely put Milton in with the unflappable horses. The horse who had the hissy was a) unrelated to Milton & b ) a sass factory being remediated by an advanced rider. The schoolies took care of their riders. The horse who passed Milton completely refused to be drawn into Milton’s drama. The riders learned that sometimes you might need to avoid another horse in the show ring.
Once again no media. Too busy chewing my metaphorical nails and maintaining a non-metaphorical death grip on the arm of Assistant Coach James.
Update. Because I was unclear to at least one reader. Husband Greg rode Milton in lesson. I watched.
Onwards!
Katherine
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Awareness of the outside world, continued. “The Alabama Black Belt as a region of insurgent African American aspirations makes a strong claim to take over the meaning of the term from its older and other senses.” Southern Spaces: The Black Belt, Tullos, 2004. The article quotes Booker T. Washington in the same vein and says Richard Wright applied the term to residential areas in Chicago. ~~~
Virtual Brush Box 