Foto Friday: New Clothes

shirt & vest 2016

Ideally, I prefer Foto Friday to be about art & expanding my photo skills. However, I couldn’t wait to show off my new saddle seat Academy outfit. Isn’t it beautiful? Custom from Becker Brothers with intense shopping guidance from Reagan Upton, Stepping Stone Farm’s show ring style guru. As reigning National Equitation Champion (also ASHA 2015 Adult Eq High Point), Reagan knows a thing or two about looking good on a horse.

Speaking of photo skills, I had trouble adapting to the light and ended up blue-shifted. IRL, the outfit is on the border between red and blue. We could have gone with a red vest. It was pretty, but I was afraid I’d look like a car valet.

Your preference, bottom button undone for luck or done for neatness? Or perhaps undone for other, more esoteric reasons: Gq UK, Why do we always leave the last button of a waistcoat undone?, July 2012.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Becker Brothers card

Time Management, Or Not

I hate the screamy voices in my head.

When I am idle, they take me to task for sloth [A Look Inside]. When I’m busy, they yell at me for being busy with the wrong things.

Now that I have the delightful task of juggling three barns and three disciplines, I have been doing very little else. No fire calls. No zoo volunteer work. No LEGO club meetings. Some is for reasons; nothing mysterious, mostly pondering my utility. Some is endurance; a 30-minute lesson takes me out for the rest of the day. Some is distance; because of where we choose to live, a two-hour shift at the zoo ties up a disproportionately larger chunk of time.

I’ve said that the voices can be helpful:

That screaming voice in your head is the only thing keeping you from making an even bigger idiot of yourself than you already do. [The Upside Of Negativity].

That’s still true, but my voices have a tendency to go beyond their remit. ‘Is this your life now? Poncing about playing with ponies? Where is the community service? Where is the dedication to a cause larger than yourself? How do you justify the space you take up on the planet?’

Why are we so mean to ourselves? I would never address a fellow human in such terms.
~~~
Gratuitous Cat

Percy hangs out with the laundry.
Percy hangs out with the laundry.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Show Report: Fun Show 2016 #1

Saddle Seat Wednesday

ASHAA Summer Fun Show 2016 #1
Heathermoor Farm
Leeds, Alabama
June 4, 2016

Driving
Alvin: CONES!
Me: Wheeee!

Our recent displays of style and verve [Team Awesome] have left us long on panache but short on precision. After stomping a cone and threatening the jump crew, I asked for a mulligan. On the second try, I made it through all the gates with only one ball drop, but still channeling a fantasy life wherein I was jumping-off in the Dixon oval at Devon.

We swapped drivers. Greg had long, straight lines and smooth turns. It’s not clear how to judge a Combined Saddlebred Driving Pleasure class. Knockdowns? Reinsmanship? At the Arab show [Report], I looked better, but Greg had fewer penalties. This time, Greg won either way.

I was grinning like an fool the entire time. Alvin, of course, was a star [Alvin’s induction into the ASHAA Hall of Fame: Awards].

All set to invade the Saddlebred world.
All set to invade the Saddlebred world.

Riding, The Mental Game
The idea of riding a horse, any horse, fills me with dread to the point of tears. Alas, Sam does not appreciate when I am hopped up on mega-doses of caffeine [MSSP]. Therefore, I could not take my lovely, lovely, anti-anxiety pills [Physiology of Nerves]. I had to make do with standard doses of soda & a Starbuck’s chocolate chip cookie. It was not enough. When I sought moral support, both husband and coach laughed at me. I can’t figure out if this is annoying or exactly what I need.

Show Details
Katherine
Academy Driving (modified), 2nd of 2 with Alvin
Academy Showmanship WTC Adult, 2nd of 3 with Sam
Academy Equitation WTC Adult, 1st of 3 with Sam

Greg
Academy Driving (modified), 1st of 2 with Alvin

Family Ribbons
Family Ribbons

Brag pics from the Trader Joe’s parking lot. I didn’t even make it home before I started texting.

Thank you to the Wamble Family and Courtney Huguley for, once again, letting us drive/ride your wonderful horses.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Milton for the Moment

We are having the vet out to check one of Milton’s feet. There may or may not be anything wrong. If there is, it may or may not have anything to with my mind-numbing absence of progress. We shall see.

Meanwhile: holding pattern. Field walks. Ground-driving at a walk. No trotting on the lunge line. No jumping on the lunge line because it’s Sunday and d*mm*t somebody is going to jump something.
~~~
Gratuitous Postcard

Russia - front
Russia – front
Russia - back
Russia – back
Russia - stamps
Russia – stamps

Bird Market
by Eduard Uspensky
(abbreviated)

Bird Market,
Bird Market…
On golden July day
Between cages and baskets
We walk with papa.

We see – fish is sold,
Fins burning fire!
We looked at the fish
And decided that we take!

Giving away free kittens
A nice seller.
On the kittens we have looked,
looked,
looked –
And finally took.

Here we were offered a squirrel.
– How much is?
– Five rubles. –
At it we have looked,
looked,
looked –
It is necessary to take it quickly!

The sender says this is from a poem about a father and son buying animals, including a horse, at the market. Mom is not pleased when the menagerie returns home. We had a Russian friend translate. The Google translation was … amusing. He also identified the author. Full lyrics in English here. Technically this is a card that came in an envelope, but it came through Postcrossing.

RS Postcrossing post
Official Postcrossing site

Thank you to I for the postcard.
Thank you to V for the translation.
Thank you for reading.
Katherine Walcott

More Poles for Rodney

trot poles

Rodney likes poles. He likes them upright as weave poles. He likes them horizontal as cavaletti. (Three of four pictured. Parallax makes it hard to get a decent picture of the whole series.) While he doesn’t like the cavelletti quite as much as the weave poles [Speciesism], he has been known to give a lap & chew after trotting over them on the lunge line.

Last weekend, I sat on Rodney (!) and walked over them. As we came down the side of the ring, he put his ears up and looked around the corner toward the cavalletti. ‘I know what comes next!’ We are a long way from galloping around a course, but there was a whisper of promise.

Later in the weekend, we added a pole on the ground between standards to the circuit. Our first step into a larger world?

Rodney pole jumplet

Yes, I need to speak at my ground crew for leaving the cups up and empty (& me for not noticing). We were planning to lunge Rodney after. He worked so well that we went home instead. It was walk-only, but we managed sufficient contact for decent circles and a steady pace over the cavalletti. He did not curl his neck up like a salted shrimp [Positives].

Subdued Kermit dance.

References
Headgear [View]
Mane hack [Zap]
For the non-geek speakers among us, quote.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

10 Reasons To Wear A Helmet

1) “Dear Daddy: I fell off my horse at the camp show. Don’t worry, I can move my arm now.”

2) Getting assigned the schoolie who only goes bareback.

3) If a horse jumps but does not clear a large, unsecured hay roll, then the hay, the horse, and the rider will roll.

4) Jumping a fallen tree. Failing to clear a low-hanging branch of a non-fallen tree on the other side.

5) Jumping a fallen tree. Getting a toe caught on part of the tree halfway over.

6) “Sorry, I’m late for my class. My horse fell over in warm-up.”

7) When your horse says, ‘Oooh, I don’t like that jump. Very dangerous. You go first.’

8) “Having trouble with your horse? Here let me try.”

9) There appears to be a horse lying on my leg. That can’t be good.

10) Hanging on during a bucking fit. Then a stirrup leather breaks.
~~~
One K logo

Written for a contest by One K Helmet. Winner announced on their Facebook page on May 20, 2016. Didn’t win. At least I got a blog post out of it.

All of these happened to me, from my first fall off of Wind Chimes in the late ’70s to my dumping by Milton in the mid ’10s [Universe]. There have been many more, including two more horse falls. I picked the ones with the best WTF factor.

Of the 10 falls, four were jumping, six on the flat. Three involved the horse falling as well: one jumping, two on the flat.

Of the flat falls, two were horse stumbles (one horse stayed up, the other flopped over [Helmet Evangelism]), one was rider error, one was a horse wiping out on a corner, two were bucking fits.

The flat falls happened at the walk, trot, canter, and buck.

The jumping falls happened before the jump, over the jump, and after the jump.

Every ride. Every time.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott