Pondering Wrist Position

A common riding admonition is to keep a straight line from elbow to bit. Okay. What is straight?

wrist

If I look down at my hands while riding, A is the one that appears straight. B feels straight. The answer, at least for saddle seat, is C. (A if driving.) When I combine this wrist position with the elevated hand position, I feel as if I about to poke myself in the chest, if not the eye.

Update: Here I am considering the axis that would consitute cocking the hand up or down while holding the reins. As far as the in/out axis, the back of the wrist should be flat in relation to the forearm (not popped out as pictured in A). Not sure about driving.
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Gratuitous Photobomb

wrist paw Blue wm

The Power of Narrative

“We are Pan narrans, the storytelling ape.”
The Science of Discworld II: The Globe
by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen
[Elbury 2002]
Wiki.lspace.org: Narrativium

Milton is impatient. After one or two trips through a new exercise, his response is ‘Yeah, Yeah, I got this.’ Sometimes we change the exercise to keep him challenged. Sometimes we tell him that he’s not as clever as he thinks he is and that he must practice.

Does Milton experience the concept of impatience as I do? Not at all.

However, horses definitely have opinions. Two horses can have separate, even opposite, responses to the same situation. Working with horses requires taking the individual into account. Before I can work successfully with a horse, I have to discover his (or her) narrative. Sam needs to be treated as a fabulous show horse, especially deep into a long series of Academy classes. Natalie wants to be treated like a fairy princess. Is this true? No? Yes? I have no idea.

When I tell myself these stories, I behave in a way that causes the horses to react favorably.
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Gratuitous Cat Photo
Ghost ladder 12 30 14

Pics Or It Didn’t Happen

Rodney walk 4 26 15

I’m not ready to go public with video. Instead, as proof of concept, here is a still from one of them. Rodney and I have been doing short, quiet, walk sessions on a semi-regular basis. Yay!

Rodney is wearing a synthetic schooling bridle because leather upsets him [Here We Stand]. Go figure. He’s wearing neon green because why not?

Riding bareback avoids putting saddle pressure on his scar area [Daddy Dearest]. This problem will have to be solved eventually. Although, I could foresee that much of his at-home work would still be done without a saddle.

I was not happy when I saw that my ground crew had a camera. Our previous photo session didn’t work out well [Universe]. I made him put it away while I got on. Superstitious? Magical thinking? Moi?

Is the glass half full or half empty? Both. We have a long way to go. OTOH, we’ve come a long way.

Livestream of Rolex XC Today!

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What: The Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event

Where: USEF Network

When: Colleen Rutledge and Shiraz start off at 9:45 EST. Boyd Martin and Master Frisky are the last ride at 1:25 EST. Looks like they are going straight through. No two-hour lunch break. Ride Times.

Who: I have no idea. I vaguely recognize about half the names. No clue who is hot these days. I’m just hoping for an American win. It’s been seven years since Phillip Dutton won in 2008 with Connaught. Much as I admire Mr. Dutton’s riding, he is a product of the Australian system. It’s been 10 years since American eventing produced a four-star winner. Kim Severson won Rolex with Winsome Adante in 2005. Full list of Rolex winners. Simplified list of Rolex CCI**** winners.

It would be nice if we could win our own damn event.

equestrian-events

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Rolex is not only continuing without me, but has the audacity to change and improve. The media tours are now given on horseback. Saddle seeks Horse: I’m Riding at Rolex this Week. For Reals. Want!

Rolex reminiscences:
2012
Monday, Preparation: Peregrinatio in Stabilitate
Tuesday: Lexington, sorta
Wednesday, The Jog: Riding at Rolex
Thursday, Day 1: Digital Killed the Party
Friday, Day 2: Foto Friday: Celebrity Mounted Games
Saturday, Cross-Country: From Inside The Ropes
Sunday, Finale: Aftermath
Monday, Coming Back to Home: Living Virtually

My Rolex haiku on Eventing Nation

2013
Kentucky Memories

2014
This time last year, I was finishing up the month of alphabet posts: What Do You Want?

Perseverance

Part 3 of 3
[Part 2: Hindsight]
[Part 1: Clean Cups!]

Did we keep plugging away at Milton’s issues from strength of character? Not really. We got stuck. Actually, I got stuck. My steadfast support staff maintained that it would work out. Partly in self-defense. He didn’t want to be living with me if it did not.

As a hypothetical exercise, I imagined a stranger rolling up my driveway with a trailer to say, “I want to buy Milton. Here is X dollars in cash to cover the cost of the horse and the shipping. It will be be as if it never happened.”

Hypothetical response 1: Take him he’s yours.
Hypothetical response 2: No. No. I want keep him after all.
My hypothetical response: ???

I had no idea what I wanted. Even hypothetically.

Logistics
Where would I find another horse? I was not swimming in options. In several years of horse shopping, the closest candidate we’d found was an unbroke 9 year old. Not a good idea at all, but my rescue impulses were running strong. At least Milton saved me from that blunder.

Psychology
I was done. So very, very done. If this didn’t work out, I could not imagine starting again. Overreaction? Undoubtedly. Didn’t make it any less real.

Trust
Despite all evidence to the contrary, I retained my trust in Fairy Godmother’s judgment [Mail-Order Horse]. If she said Milton was a good one, then there was a nice horse in there. Somewhere.

COUNTERPOINT
All of the preceding assumes that things will be different with Milton. Perhaps nothing has changed. Perhaps this week’s posts have been an exercise in misguided optimism.