Watching the Tevis, Take II

Once again, I spent the day following the Tevis Cup online: main site, webcast, Facebook. As with last year [Watching the Tevis], I remain fascinated by the race but convinced that a 100-mile ride is not for me. Forty-five seconds of a jump-off is about my concentration limit.

But still, you don’t have to ride endurance to imagine how it would feel to reach the finish:

Tevis finish

I get chills.

Statistics Avalanche:

186 riders representing 13 countries.

107 finished. The last finisher, just under the 24-hour time limit, was the oldest horse: Hadji Halef Omar, 22yo, 15h, grey, Arab gelding ridden by Stephanie Palmer-Ross. Congratulations.

Youngest horse to start was 6 years old.

The tallest horse was MMC Last Dance, a 16.3h, 17yo, chestnut gelding. No breed given. He finished in 7th place ridden by Barrak Blakeley, a junior. A woman named Gabriela Blakeley finished in 8th with the same time. Walsh Blakeley made 85 miles. One assumes this was a family riding together. Cool. Update: The kid won the Haggin Cup for Best Conditioned!

Men & women, adults & kids, professionals & amateurs all competed in the one division.

Mares, geldings & three stallions.

Breeds on the initial rider list: Arabs, more Arabs, Arab-crosses, types of Arabs e.g Shayga, plus a handful of others. This has 195 entries, so some DNS.

Crosses: App, Thoroughbred, Quarter Horse (that’s a new one on me), Saddlebred (National Show Horse), Morgan (Morab), Pinto, Standardbred, & Friesian.

Non-Arab: QH/Walker, Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horse, Mule, Missouri Fox Trotter, Mustang, Tennessee Walking Horse, & Appaloosa. No Thoroughbred, so I wasn’t as invested as last year. One horse was listed as Anglo. In an Anglo-Arab cross this indicates the Thoroughbred half. Weird way to refer to a TB, so I assumed the label referred to a cross.

Historic stats and stories available on the Wiki page.

When I went to bed, the top competitors where nearing the final checkpoints. The back of the ride was 20 miles behind trying to make the cut-off time and not get caught by the broom wagon. (I think. I am not as good at parsing an endurance leaderboard as I am an eventing one. Endurance folks please correct or expand upon any of this.)

Have you wondered why they wear what they do? Jenni Smith’s Journey to The Tevis Cup: Tevis What to Wear; Nineteen hours in the saddle requires careful choices. (BTW, she finished 5th on a borrowed horse!)

Or why people volunteer year after year? Mostly Beautiful Things: Confessions of a Tevis Volunteer or Why I Keep Coming Back.

Finally, a shout out to the web volunteers who made it possible for the rest of us to enjoy the Western States Trail Ride as it happened. Thank you!

Tevis computer

Off Topic: The Seven Deadly Sins of Reading Other People’s Blogs

Caveat: Today’s subject is not about horses. For more non-equine subjects, see my other blog, Off Topic. Rodney’s Saga returns to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

SLOTH – This was clever. I should leave an appreciative comment. Meh. Too much work. Click.

PRIDE – My blog is sooooo much better than this. Preen. Strut. Back pat.

LUST – If you can imagine it, someone somewhere is doing it. And sharing the details on the Internet. Pant. Pant. Pant.

GLUTTONY – I have now read every post in your entire archive. I want another one. Hurry up. Write faster. What’s taking so long? More. More. More.

GREED – Banner ads. $$. Affiliate links. $$. Online stores selling blog-related merchandise. Money. Money. Money.

ENVY – They have 10,000 followers? I want 10,000 followers. They got 400 comments? I want 400 comments. They saw 2,000+ shares of a post? I want 2,000 shares of a post. They were invited to a special preview party for bloggers ? I want to be invited to a special preview party for bloggers. Want. Want. Want.

ANGER – This is so BAD. Why do you bother?! Your uninteresting content is overshadowed only by your inept delivery. You need to have your blogging license taken away. How can I get back the last three minutes of my life? Rage. Fume. Stomp.

OT 5.19.14

Rodney’s Week: Dry Pool

You have seen the video of the horse rolling in the kiddie pool? Rodney has little fear of weird stuff [Noodling] and he plays in his water trough if we are slack with the refreshing showers. I really thought he’d love a pool of his own. He tolerated walking through but had reservations [Pool, Out There/photo]. This time we took it back a few steps.

The pool had been draped over two cavalletti to drain. I wrestled it upright and dragged it over to a flat, ant-free space. All of this while holding onto Rodney with the other hand. He watched carefully while I flipped the pool over, spun gently once to keep it in front of him, and then said, ‘Oh well. Large plastic thing following me. Meh.’ I’ve had horses who would have levitated across the field at this.

He marched back and forth, across the short side, across the long side. He stood in the middle. Over time, some air had leaked, deflating the sides of the pool. This made the sides less rigid and more prone to collapse. Rodney would attempt to step over the side, fail to clear, and land a foot in the middle of the plastic tube. While I was having mental images of horse and pool everywhere, he’d make a few attempts to lift his foot out of the way and then stand there, ‘Clearly there has been a mistake here. How do you intend to fix it?’

I tell you, this horse is the weirdest combination of fear and confidence.

Next step: adding a small amount of water.

Equitation Counterpoint

As I said yesterday, it is possible that whatever natural talent I had for equitation – if I ever had any – may have terminally eroded [Three Reasons I Suck At Equitation]. However, it’s not all bad.

Specifically, two things I appreciate so far this year. First, I started off with a nice win [Show Report: ProAm].

ProAm2014 cropped

I would be a lot crankier otherwise.

Second, I was able to score a blue when my mother came down to watch [Show Report: NEGCHS]. She would have been happy no matter how I did, but this way she got to see a victory pass.

Pretty ribbons, good loot, and the tradition of victory passes. Things I will seriously miss if I ever go back to hunter/jumper, eventing, dressage.

Why am I placing so much lower in WTC classes than I did at WT? That’s a long ponderment for another post. Short answer: the competition is better and I am riding worse, at least in an equitation sense. I’m cantering! At a horse show! Wheeeeee! This attitude does not lend itself to quiet poise.

OTOH, ya can’t accuse me of not having fun out there. “As soon as I storm into a show ring, my eyes glaze over and I’m looking for the next jump.” [Show Report: Dixie Cup]

Three Reasons I Suck At Equitation

1) I think I still ride the way I did as a 20-something.

I used to be good at equitation. Or at least I used to look good enough that I could waffle about for the level at which I showed. If one wants to win Big Eq in any discipline, one had better be more than a pretty face. I wasn’t at those levels. I was young and thin and sat a horse well. It was enough.

To me, those rides were yesterday. In my mind, I am swanning around the Capitol Centre looking regal in a ladies sidesaddle class. I forget how long ago that was. In reality, my body has suffered decades of muscle memory wherein my equitation atrophied while I worked on my effectiveness. The position I unconsciously assume is no longer a model of elegance. I just think it is.

2) I forget where I am.

After 20 years of retraining and riding an OTTB in the jumper ring, my first thought is to how the horse is moving. This is why I do better on veterans such as Sam or Alvin. I can leave them to get on with their jobs, while I get on with mine. When Trump or Lola wander off book, I drop everything to concentrate on the horse. Not that one can’t equitate and ride, I just don’t.

This is compounded by the fact that I don’t fully grasp what makes an ASB tick. The result is far too much discoordinated floundering.

3) Presentation is not a skill I practice in any other sector of my life.

In the last two years of saddle seat showing, I have spent more time worried about my personal style than I have in the last two decades, on horse or off.

I don’t own panty hose. I wear make-up when forced to for shows. What few dress clothes I own gather dust in the closet. I have been known to cut my hair with horse trimmers. I work at home in my pajamas. The impression I make on other people comes through my words, not my looks. When I go out in public, my main concern is that my ass is covered. Literally. We are talking cloth over buttocks. If my barn jeans have gotten away from me, I occasionally fail at this.

It comes as a shock to the system when I am suddenly required to exude poise for five minutes on a Saturday.

In sum
This doesn’t mean I can’t become an equitation diva. Or that I couldn’t learn a lot if I try but fall short. Liza Towell Boyd, the best child rider of her generation, could not win the Maclay finals. I would be in good company.