I have a new horse to share the load with Spotted and Mr. Spot. Like them, she is from Schleich. The bin said Trakehner mare, but I’m not finding her on the Trakehnen Breed page or elsewhere in the site. Photo taken at the Birmingham (US) Botanical Gardens.
To celebrate her German heritage, I looked up German words for spot: entdecken, erblicken, erkennen, erspähen, Fleck, Flecke bekommen, Klemme, Kurzmeldung, Marke, Nummer, Pickel, Plätzchen, Punkt, Pustel, Schweinwerfer, sehen, Sendezeit, Spielball, Stelle, tüpfeln, Tupfen, Werbespot. [Word Hippo: German/Spot]
Various meanings:
Spot as in location – Stelle
Spot as in mark – Fleck
Spot as in to see – erspähen
I blog a lot of smack about Previous Horse, aka Caesar, show name Seize The Day:
He was a cranky, opinionated PIA. Caesar only ever loved Caesar. He cared not a whit if I fell off. [Dreary Monday]
or
Previous Horse was the most stubborn being I have ever met. When he said No, he meant, No, that is not physically possible, no horse has ever done it, I will not even consider it. [Casting a Shadow from Beyond]
or
The only way to deal with a strong-willed horse is to be even stronger. I know this. I spent 20 years keeping Previous Horse’s monstrous ego in check. [Grooming Bats]
He certainly was a grumpy bastard.
Sometimes.
Most of the time he was a perfectly normal horse. I tend to talk about those aspects that distinguish him from other horses. Like the time he launched all four legs off the ground. While tied to the trailer. At the age of 22.
But I digress.
Caesar was athletic. He carried himself in a compact package. I never got tired of watching him move in the field. We never bothered much with gymnastics. We’d set up a line. He’d bop through. ‘That was easy. What’s next?’ I asked him to trot a line of cavalleti to make him round and stretch. He treated the exercise as a line of spread bounces: jump two, bounce between the next two, jump two, bounce…
Caesar was balanced. He never saw the point of obsessing over the correct lead on a turn. If it was a wide turn, he’d zoom around using whichever lead he was on at the time. If it was a tight turn, he throw in a flying change. I never taught him these. He just did them as needed.
Caesar had a sense of fairness. He would misbehave. I would wallop him. He’d shrug. If I lost my head and gave him a gentle, attention-getting tap with a crop, he would leave off what he was doing and have complete come-apart at the injustice.
Caesar had opinions. Loud ones. A friend was drumming business for a horse whisperer. Even she agreed that Caesar didn’t need to be whispered. He made his feelings clear.
Caesar never made me nervous about getting on. Even from day one. He is the only horse of whom I can say this. We reached.
Caesar, aka Previous Horse – 16h, bay, Thoroughbred gelding, b. 1983. Bought at age 6 off the track. Showed Adult Jumpers. Died peacefully at home in 2009 at the age of 26. [Cast of Critters]
Card came with silhouette above. Prices and other info may be outdated.
“Most people who ride at top level will say if they are not feeling butterflies before a big class, something is wrong. They’ve made friends with the energy and are able to use it in a positive way,” says Johnston. “They allow themselves to be passionate about wanting to do well.”
This was one of the mantras that did not work. Resonated beforehand. On the day, no effect at all.
Saturday, May 2, 2015
With Alvin Ailey
301 Aca. Equitation WTC Adult, 1st of 1
302 Aca. Show. WTC Adult, 1st of 1
317 Aca. WTC Championship, 3rd of 3
Thank you to the Wamble family for the awesome Alvin.
Show Photographer Casey McBride. In the Championship, black horse, blue helmet. (Note all entrants in this class wearing helmets! I’d estimate three-quarters of the entrants in most classes had helmets.) Photo rant. Lately, I have been hearing less about folks downloading without paying. Either social media protocol is getting better, the photographers have given up, or I am not listening in the right places.
As for me, I didn’t ride as well as I would have liked. Perhaps 50% of what I was getting in my lessons. Do I count that as progress? Ha! I want it all and I want it immediately, regardless of how reasonable I tried to sound previously [Show Today]. Plus, it’s hard for me to sit chilly when my horse is in a mood to ease on down the highway, particularly as I have a tendency to careen around the ring myself.
It may not have mattered. In the solo classes, I got blues for reaching the finish line. After the championship class, the feeling around the barn was that I was not going to beat the adorable children no matter how well I rode. If true, that’s okay. There are other times when being the old fart works in my favor.
As far as getting control of my nerves, the day was a complete bust. I had mantras. They didn’t make a dent. I brought articles to read over. I never picked them up. I took advantage of being the only entry in my class to run a comparative diagnostic on why I was still anxious. No dice. The only thing that has ever succeeded in keeping my head together at a horse show is the distraction of having a horse to get ready.
Milton continues to transform back into the lovely horse I met in Lexington [Logistics: Shipping]. His ears are up. His coat is glossy. His topline is less hunched. He lets us pick out his back feet without attempting to kick. It’s amazing how good life is when you don’t ache all over [Clean Cups!]. Oddly, none of his symptoms or behaviors were ever digestive. He continued to eat and poop with alacrity. But enough about him. Let’s talk about me. What have I learned?
That I am not an idiot.
GIVEN: I don’t know everything about horses. I will never know everything about horses. I will continue to make mistakes. I need to own my mistakes, rather than blame the horse, the weather, or the unkind fates.
HOWEVER: I have been doing this a long time. I have been fortunate to have been around horses regularly since the late 70s. I have had daily responsibility for my horses since 1992. I need to own that as well.
THEREFORE: if I am having that much trouble coping with a horse, there is a reason external to hapless inability on my part.
Would the timeline would have changed had I not been wallowing my own inadequacies? Perhaps we would have been more aggressive. Perhaps not. Either way, I would have been much less miserable.
For those who haven’t enjoyed sticky, green hands: “Recommended as an aid in treating horses and ponies with thrush due to organisms susceptible to copper naphthenate.” Zoetis US: KOPERTOX®
For the rest of us, did you know “Shake well before use”? News to me. ibid.
Sport Psych
When Tim Price and Wesko knocked down a pole in the final phase of the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, the mistake cost them $56,000. That was the difference between first and second place. Can you imagine the pressure?
Karen (Lende) O’Connor, the USEF color commentator this year, has won three times at Rolex, including the CCI**** in 1999 with Prince Panache [Wiki: Rolex KTD]. On Sunday’s livestream, she said you have to “Embrace it.”
Technical Considerations: Position
At the last show [Report], I lost control of my shoulders. I drooped. I flopped. I pitched forward with abandon. [Photo series: Dueling Disciplines]
At my next lesson, I had a crop shoved down the back of jodphurs and another laid across my forearms. The first reminded me to sit straight. The second insisted that I lift my hands, my arms, and therefore my shoulders. I felt like a fool. But it worked. Is it possible that maybe, finally, I understand what to do with the upper six inches of my torso?
I can achieve the correct position at a halt and under controlled conditions, i.e. on Bingo in the round pen at home. The next step is to maintain my form on different horses, when I need to adjust the horse, and/or as I get tired. Perfect isn’t going to happen right away. Today, I’m hoping for “Decent effort.”
Technical Considerations: Traffic Management
Despite my less than stellar showing, I did improve on looking where I was going in the show ring [Counting]. Unfortunately, I started looking in the MIDDLE of the curve and as I started down the long side, exactly what I would do if I were looking for a jump out of a corner. I need to look BEFORE the curve, so that I can plan a path around the other competitors.
Virtual Brush Box 