Show Report: Rocking S

Rocking S sign

Bingo was my dance partner at this show. As I’ve said before [Training Aids], I am relaxed on Bingo and am less likely to get drawn into his drama. Not that he has much drama in the first place, hence the relaxed. It was a local show, so polo shirt instead of vest. My main competition was the same – myself.

Academy Pleasure WTC Adult 2 of 3
Although I did a reasonably good job of leaving my horse to his own devices and concentrating on my own position, I got out-cuted. Or whatever is the proper term for ladies well past the pigtail stage.

Academy Equitation WTC Adult 3 of 3
I dialed Bingo up a bit more without losing the focus on my riding. However, I blew the right lead. This on a horse who is so easy that kids learn to canter on him. What’s up with that?

Overall
Had glimmerings of the type of riding required for competitive equitation. Also glimmerings that these nuances may not be in my skill set. Nuance is not a word people use to near me. More on this anon.
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Gratuitous Donkey Cuteness

Rocking S donkey

Delay

The show report for this week will be one day late. Instead of diligently writing the post on Monday, I decided to conduct an experiment in automotive differences. Turns out a Fiat 500 microcar does not jump a curb as well as a Ford F250 pickup truck.

The Villain
The Villain

I shredded the sidewall of the tire.

To save space, the Fiat carries sealant instead of a spare. This would have worked with a normal puncture, at least enough for us to limp home.

No amount of sealant was gonna fix this.

The Victim
The Victim

Oh well. Triple A and the tire folks swarmed round. Eventually. All should be fixed as soon as new tire arrives at shop. Once the car is reshod around lunchtime today, I shall hie myself home and blather on about my latest equitation escapades.

Hint: my ribbons would have indicated wins in Canada and the Czech Republic. In the US, not so much. Wiki: Horse Show Awards

Idea Request Accompanied by Barrel-Scraping Noises

(My end-of-the-month, state-of-the-blog post comes early, for reasons that will become apparent. Previous commentary on blogging listed here.)

You know when you go to serve a horse’s meal and your scoop picks up half a load before hitting the bottom of the feed bag? You still have several days – or weeks of Rodney’s – worth of feed but the bag is getting low and it’s time to organize a trip to the feed store.

It’s like that.

I’m still yapping away. I can smell 1000 posts over the horizon in mid-October. That is an arbitrary but round & shiny number to pursue. OTOH, there have been several occasions lately where I says to myself, ‘What on earth will I write about?’

That’s where you come in.

Over at Wait But Why, the blogger has gone to five countries and reported back. It would be cool to have a new, ongoing project both to do and to write about. I’m not about to fly to Japan to scope out yabusame, but there’s no reason I can’t do participant/observation closer to home.

Saddle seat shows are still on the schedule, along with the attendant Reports & Tweets. Also weekly lessons. I’ve already made the obvious observations. I am pondering more elaborate theories about saddle seat vs dressage and about equitation, but I need more data to see if the theories are anything more than my fevered imaginings.

I have a few activities up my sleeve, one in August, one in October. Each will be good for a post or three.

Rodney continues to make daily progress without solidifying any long-term gains. A fascinating trick, if frustrating.

We are not mentioning horse shopping. Move along. Nothing to see here.

I could always use more cat pictures. Because my cats are cute and 10 squillion Internet cat pictures can’t be wrong.

More photos in general.

More … what?

I most definitely want to keep blogging every day. The island of inactivity is not a good place for me. I end up “exceeding my daily allotment of Cokes and making gratuitous Pepperidge Farm Milano cookie runs.” [Baaaak] I’m in the car. I want to go for a drive. I’m blanking on a destination.

Any ideas? No suggestion too outlandish, too expensive, or too cumbersome. The most outrageous idea might spark an slightly more doable option. Go wild. Leave a comment, or email Katherine (waves hi) at rodneyssaga@gmail.com.

Thank you.

Show Today: Rocking S

The Tamarack Hill Facebook page [July 14, 2014, you’ll have to scroll down] has a post about perseverance. The relevant part for me was:

You basically sucked? … Big damn deal. That`s why they invented tomorrow. Whine, feel sorry for yourself, have your little pity party—we`ll give you about a day for this, two at the most, then get the hell back up, evaluate why you screwed up, and start to fix it for next time.

The speaker is not identified. I assume it is the farm owner, Denny Emerson. Mr. Emerson has always had a nifty turn of phrase.

I like that he doesn’t just say Buck Up. Sissy Pants. He says, yeah, it’s terrible when you do badly. I hate it. You hate it. We all hate it. Go off and hate it for a while. Now, come back & try again.

So this is me having finished with my pity party of the moment and going back for another attempt to figure out why I have placed last in my class so many times this year.

Dammit.

My Short Happy Modeling Career

Post inspired by my mother’s comment on Saturday’s post. [Repost]

Photo by Allan Tuttle
Photo by Allan Tuttle

This is one of the vanishingly small number of pictures of myself that I like. It is a good picture because my father was an accomplished photographer. It is a good picture of me because I am annoyed.

It happened thusly,

Background: My father was a photographer of note for his college paper. One of his civil rights photographs appeared in Life magazine. He always said that law school saved his life. If he had stayed with photography, he would have gone into photo-journalism, would have headed to a war zone, and would probably have been killed. He was that good.

Flash forward. When I was wee, I recall him trying to take pictures of me, repeatedly exhorting me not to mug for the camera. It never worked. With one thing and another, he drifted away from photography. When digital cameras came out, he bought himself a PHD (push-here-dummy) camera and started taking snapshots. Not photographs, snapshots. He was particularly fond of the classic tourist pose of family member in front of famous tourist site. I gave him grief for taking such cheesy shots. He happily agreed and keep taking them.

Circumstances: In 1998, my father was working in Florence, Italy. I went over for a visit that happened to coincide with the World Equestrian Games in Rome (Really a coincidence. The dates were not my choice. Not that I was above capitalizing on the chance. But I digress.)

On cross-country day, I stood out in a field getting rained on and having a wonderful time. He went back to the hotel. By the time he picked me up in the afternoon, I was footsore, damp, and cranky. He was well-fed and rested. As we drove back in from the countryside to the city, we passed some scenic and/or historic body of water. I have no idea what was special about that lake, nor why he wanted to stop. He was driving, so we stopped. Lake. Check. Scenic. Check. Can we go now? He asked me to stand in front of the lake so he could get a picture of me with the lake in the background.

You have GOT to be kidding me.

While he was framing and taking the photo, I was thinking, I did not want to be standing in front of this stupid lake indulging your stupid obsession with stupid tourist snaps.

Result: Outstanding picture of me. Go figure.