Horses & Other Interests
In the winter, Mathilda prefers her feed from store X rather than store Y. It’s a national feed. The bags are identical. No one from either store can tell us what the difference is. But rest assured, there is a difference.
In the summer, she will eat feed from either location.
This is not out of character. [Carrot Snob Redux]
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Gratuitous Clothing Picture
My new barn jacket. Specs here (but not price). Mmmmm, winter warmth. Happiness.
Full name: Spotted. Therefore the captions can be read two ways:
(Celebrity X was) spotted at location Y.
Spotted (is) at location Y.
She is also known as Spot to her adopted sister Eowyn over on Life, the Universe, and Everything: Adventures of a Curious Mind – What was that?
Sex: mare. I was using the male pronoun by default (and isn’t that a whole passel of issues). One day she rolled over and I realized my mistake.
Age: Unknown. I’ve had her just over a year, since December 2012. “Created in the spirit of Wee Traveling Horse (also here on Facebook) and Flat Stanley, as seen on Third Watch.” [Boston] (update: The WTH link has gone private. Check out WTH on FB instead.)
Height: Three-quarters of a hand.
Breed: Spotted is a Knabstrupper of Scleich breeding. Think of her as a German Appaloosa. The breeder’s site has this description, “All Knabstruppers are prized for their health and kind temperament.” Spotted certainly has been low maintenance & tolerates the weird places I make her pose.
BTW, here’s how the American Knabstrupper Association handled the transition to the Danish Association. Don’t you wish all horse associations could be this reasonable and polite?
List of Spotted posts.
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Mathilda will turn 30 this year. Since we don’t know her exact birth date, we have given her the Thoroughbred birthday of January 1 and declared her to have achieved that age.
I mentioned this to my Mom (waves hi). She asked how old that was in people years. This site says 85, which seems low. I’ve heard 4 horse-to-people-years as youngsters, tapering to 3 as the horse matures. This would put her in the late-90s to 120, which seems high.
To me, the emotional impact of “This horse is 30.” is equivalent to “This person is 92.” Give or take a year. A horse 40 would be a people 100.
Questions? Comments? Conversion rates of your own making?
BTW, the conversion site says I would be 18 in horse years. I don’t feel ready to be sold off as a schoolmaster.
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Source of yesterday’s picture.
My two ASHAA highpoint trophies from last weekend’s banquet [Awards].
The delayed explanation of Sunday’s post.
To provide a Christmas gift to each student without breaking the bank, Stepping Stone Farm made ornaments with a variety of fillings. 
Some riders chose the name of their favorite horse. Others chose an upbeat motto.
In saddleseat, riders are allowed, nay encouraged, to use their voice.
Wup Trot – an abrupt expulsion of breath, similar to “hup”. Said to initiate the trot, or to further animate an existing trot.
Whoa Walk – to get the gait and to settle a horse who would prefer move on to the next gait.
Canter
Line Up – There is no command for this. The horses know what happens when they get pointed to the center of the ring, to the extent that circles can be difficult because horses stop to line up as soon as they cross the center line.
Plus a wide variety of clucking, chirping, and kissing noises. I’ve had lessons that have worn out my clucker.
In dressage, riders are penalized 2 points for every error. Errors of course are mistakes in the pattern. If the mistake does not put the rider off track, i.e. cantering a letter early, the judge merely makes a note. If the rider diverges from the proper track, the judge blows a whistle and makes a correction. Four errors of course equal elimination. Errors of voice involve talking to the horse, or producing any noise that could be considered communicating with the horse.
Can you see where this is going?
There is no limit to the number of voice errors one can accumulate in a given test. Four errors does not equal elimination, just a drastically plummeting score.
After all the saddleseat I have been doing lately, I’m convinced that I will wup-trot my way through my next dressage test. Rodney, or whomever, will execute a flawless test. We will achieve an arena record for high score. When the errors are subtracted, we will achieve a second arena record for the first negative dressage score.
This is my ornament:
When I first go thru a silent auction, I put a few low bids on small, useful items. I’ll even put a ridiculously low bid on something fancy a) to start the bidding and b) in the off chance that everyone else at the banquet has lost their minds. The ASHAA awards banquet last weekend was no different. At a saddleseat function, small useful items included a hair bow that matched my vest (which I didn’t get) and a pair of jod straps (which I did). The larger item was a beginner watercolor set, which quickly went out of my reach. I came home with these:
Saddleseat pants drag the ground when one is off the horse. Elastic straps gather the extra and keep it off the ground. Colorful elastic straps add a note of perky.
Then the bar opened. I don’t drink much these days. I decided to make an exception for the festivities. After that, I went along the auction table again. An item I admired was slowly climbing up by $5 increments. I laid down a bid with a large enough jump to shut up the other bidders. And this followed me home:
It’s a framed print of Dana’s Doodles Saddlebred Horse Victory.
Drinking and bidding do not mix.
Virtual Brush Box 