Blue At The Barn

Foto Friday

 

Detail of show ribbon hanging in trailer, [Our First Blue]

Liniment bottle, product

Well-used cookie ball, [Cookie Ball!, Semi-Permanent Gold Star]

Water jug, product

And of course, the supervisor, Blue

Photo Exercise. 1. Pick A Color. Five Self Assignments That Teach You To See. Color + barn = blue. Naturally.

What’s blue at your barn?

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Why Not Rack Off Into The Sunset?

Adventures in Saddle Seat

 

Yesterday, I said that my life would be easy if I committed to saddle seat. So, why don’t I?

It’s expensive and I’d hate every minute of it.

Not riding or showing. I love the ASB attitude and showmanship. It’s the rest of the process that fails to appeal.

It’s expensive … Other people caring for your horse does not come cheap. Other people training your horse is an even faster wallet suck.

Let’s talk about showing. A new show outfit. A second suit if I wanted to do equitation. A show bridle. Fancy horse shoes. Show fees. Academy horses have several riders to share the costs. The show bill for my spiffy suit horse would be all on me.

… and I’d hate every minute of it. Someone else caring for my horse? No. Someone else making decisions about my horse? So much no. Someone else riding my horse on a regular basis? A thousand times no. I understand the paradigm. I know it works. Not for me. Not now. Not ever. Mine. Mine. Mine. Have I sufficiently conveyed my level of possessiveness?

If I had my heart set on ASB dreams, I would adapt. I would find a way to pay for it, as much of it as I could. I would come to terms with my control issues. If it was my dream, I’d deal. I just don’t want it enough. I don’t want it enough in any discipline. If the road to equestrian fame and glory means giving up the reins and being a guest on my own horse, I won’t go. I’ll keep my horses at home and stay a backyard hero.

I’ve said all of this six years ago, in my first year of showing saddle seat [Suiting Up]. Nothing has changed. Why repeat myself? I figured ‘Why not?’ was an reasonable response to yesterday’s post. So I answered the question.

One last note. Lack of barn drama is another benefit of the AOT life. Some barns have more; some barns have less. No barn is immune. The only sure-fire method to avoiding barn drama is the ability to walk away chanting, ‘Not my circus, not my monkeys.’ If I had a horse in training, at SSF or anywhere, I would be one of the monkeys.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Saddle Seat, I Wish I Could Love You

Adventures in Saddle Seat

Do you have any idea how easy my life would be if I decided to rack off into the sunset on a high-stepping American Saddlebred?

I’d give Coach Courtney the nod.

She would find me a horse. The length of time involved would depend on my ambition and budget. If I wanted to show locally, she’d need – maybe – five minutes to decide which horse in the barn would do the job. If I wanted to shoot for the moon, it might take her as much as half an hour to have six potential Louisville horses lined up for me to look at between here and Kentucky.

She would go with me to try the horse. Reagan [Barnshine] might come along to ride them first. I would have supervision for the test ride, advice on the horse’s suitability, and someone to negotiate with the seller for me. No standing about on my own wondering how to exit gracefully if the horse proved to be a no hoper [We Are Not Idiots]. In the first place, there would be fewer no hopers. This would be true whether I chose sale or lease.

My future superstar would live at Stepping Stone Farm. Someone else would climb out of bed to feed in the dark of winter and in the heat of summer. Someone else would worry about finding enough hay and setting blacksmith appointments. Someone else would already be taking care of the horse if I had to leave town.

Coach Courtney would oversee wonder horse’s training. She would decide how much work and how often. I would take lessons on my horse and on practice horses. She would oversee my show schedule, advising me on which shows to attend and which classes to enter. My show career would have a plan, rather than being a drunkard’s walk through local prize lists.

I already know 90% of the shows. I’ve been in the arenas. I know where stable parking is. I was going to say that my horse would be wafted to and from the shows without me, but that already happens with Academy horses. No change there. Ditto, help in warm-up and on the sidelines. I would have advice on how to dress for my show ring suit debut. In fact, try to get into the ring without Reagan’s sartorial oversight and approval!

Can’t you see me, zipping around the ring, resplendent and well-prepared, on a lovely horse who has been trained as my perfect teammate? All it would take is a nod.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Tsundoku Additions

Training Journal

 
Tsundoku is acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them. Wiki
 

 
Now that I am riding my own horses (Kermit Dance!), I am back in the land of schooling myself, with the help of my eagle-eyed groundperson. To inspire us, I bought several books of horse exercises.

Creative Riding with Obstacles by Barbro Lagergren and Lina Zacha (Brightmare 2013/2106)
Creative Riding in the Arena by Barbro Lagergren and Lina Zacha (Brightmare 2016/2019)
Core Conditioning for Horses by Simon Cocozza (Trafalgar 2019)

I’m not sure of difference between the two Brightmare books yet. Since they were shipped over from Sweden, I tossed the second one on the boat.

Do I need these books? No. Get on. Ride forward and straight. Do figures and corners. Do transitions within and between gaits. It’s simple, it’s just not easy. The quote comes from Steve Maraboli, so Google tells me, and was made popular in horse world by Wofford, Practical Horseman: Simplify Your Riding, [Weekend with Wofford].

“Adopt a classical position, resist all fads and gadgets, and ride the horse quietly and softly between the two straight lines of the stirrup leather and the elbow to the horse’s mouth,” he explains in the book (Training the Three-Day Event Horse and Rider). “It’s simple. It’s just not easy.” Jimmy Wofford Teaches the World

The rationale is that the books may have an idea for a new exercise or a different way of thinking about an old exercise. In truth, buying riding books grants me the illusion of progress.

Props to The Errant Moon: Books and how much I love them for my new favorite word.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Ulcer Meds For Lameness, aka My Horse Is Weird

Horsekeeping

We cleared up Rodney’s lingering lameness with a dose of UlcerGard(R).

Progression of symptoms and treatment:
Tweaked right front [Woe Is I]. Three days of Bute. No major change.

Cleared up.

May have tweaked left front [Noshow Number Two]. No Bute.

Abscess [ibid].

Abscess went away with soaking/wrapping [Treatment]. Kept up two nights.

Then we went into a period of is he?/isn’t he? He was sound at a trot and canter. On a circle, he’d take the very occasion odd step. We couldn’t pinpoint anything, just that he wasn’t mover that he usually is. He was spookier than usual. That could have been explained by all the time off he’d had lately. He reverted to being pushy [Evil Twin]. Well, maybe that’s him.

Finally, by genius in-house diagnostician said, Give him a dose of UlcerGard. Yup, that was it. One dose and his attitude and movement cleared up immediately. Rodney may be a cupcake, but he’s not a complicated cupcake. We gave two more doses over the next two days, to be sure. Three is a nice round number.

This could have gone back as far as the first tweak. His “lameness” for the second show may have been lingering tummyache from the first lameness. Possibly from the meds. Equally possibly from the life disruption of having a stomachache.

Does this make sense in general? It’s not as crazy an idea as it sounds at first. When my stomach hurts, I’m not bounding around the house in gazelle-like fashion. I’m creeping about with my hand over my stomach, taking dinky steps to avoid any jostling.

Does this make sense for this horse? Undoubtedly. He was on ulcer meds for years [Zeno]. We keep tubes of UlcerGard on hand. His stomach is a known issue. We just had to stop looking at his feet.

That was our November. How was yours?

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

My New Twitter Handle

Graphic Design, Blogging About Blogging

 

 
@willwrite4feed. willwriteforfeed was one character too long. Using a 4 seemed a more legible option than dropping one of the Ls in will. Why am I back in Twitter? For a writing contest, [Can You Write Short?].

Process Notes
My standard steps: Inkscape for design, Gimp to dress it up. The lettering contains nothing that I would consider drawing, either physical or digital. Everything was geometrically aligned to a grid. Still, I’m pleased with the result. For a change.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott