Virtual Brush Box

On the Eighth Day of Christmas: 8 Fences Jumping

The typical hunter class has eight jumps. Before (if?) (when?) Rodney gallops cross-country or turns-and-burns in a jump-off, we will do hunter classes to get our collective feet wet. Therefore, eight jumps would mean a hunter class would mean I was riding & showing & jumping. Yay!

Alternatively, there is noise about working some of the ASBs over small jumps as an exercise and as a way to see if any of them wish to show in saddleseat hunter.

Part of me wants to say, ‘Sure, I’ll bring out my tall boots & some standards and take everything in the barn over a fence.’ The other part of me is ranting, ‘Are you serious?! You SUCK at jumping.’

Yes, I have jumped in the past. I’ve even had a few days when I felt bulletproof. But those were long ago in places far, far away. In the meanwhile, the screaming monkeys in my head have built a puissance-class wall of anxiety and self-doubt. Do you recall the mess I had become before my first saddleseat lesson? [Sam I Am] I’m like that with jumping. Squared.

Unfortunately jumping is all about confidence. Particularly if the rider is supposed to be leading the parade. There are Sams in the jumping world. They are rare and special treasures.

Most ASB Hunt Seat classes have one jump. Therefore eight jumps would mean eight more show classes. Yay!

Oh, who am I kidding? I’d be happy this year to jump eight jumps period, anywhere, any horse, in the show ring or out.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas: 7 Mags a-Payin’

One of my goals for 2014 is to get re-energized about writing for money. When the economy tightens, the first thing to go is the freelance budget. It is past time for me to poke my head above ground and see what magazines are left standing.

Pictured: horse publications for which I have written in the ten years. The PFHW cover is a stand-in as the relevant issue has gone walkabout.

I’m ~~easy~~ professional. I’ll write just about anything for which I can talk someone into paying me. I’ve ghost-written a book, edited science papers, and reviewed adult products. However, the majority of my work – by word count, if not by $$ – has been for horse magazines.

Despite attempts to diversify, I suspect this will continue to be true.

Watch this space.

On the Sixth Day of Christmas: 6 Grassy Acres

On the Fifth Day of Christmas: 5 Dressage Rings

On the Fourth Day Of Christmas: 4 Custom Shoes

A while back I asked my blacksmith what constituted a good client:
Someone with many horses and therefore much business?
Someone whose horses have difficult but expensive shoes? Easy but low-paying shoes?
Someone whose horses behave?

All my horses learn to stand for the blacksmith, load on trailers, ground-tie for grooming, etc. I was hoping this polite behavior was earning me extra points. If you have a good blacksmith, you want to keep him happy.

The answer:
“Their checks clear.”

On the Third Day of Christmas: 3 Feed Sacks

This is what we feed our 17h, 1300lb horse. A minuscule amount. For comparison, Mathilda is six inches shorter, 300 pounds lighter, and gets twelve times the amount of food (1 cup vs 3 quarts). They both eat three times a day.

Rodney is fat. Not just ‘in good flesh’. He sports pokeable pads of podge on parts of his body.

Ingredients:

Yup, 2 horses, 3 bags of feed.

We would have them both on Senior for digestibility, but Mathilda refuses to eat all Senior. She gets half grain as a compromise. Rodney gets a taste of grain so his system is familiar should he ended up getting a mouthful by mistake – say I let him in for pen time & forget to take out the leftovers.

BTW, this is M’s old feed pan. We bought her a new one to see if she prefers the taste of new plastic. She does. Silly cow. (Although, in her defense, she eats inside, so her pan is no longer rainwater fresh. Still.)

On the Second Day Of Christmas: 2 Talking Steeds

“You hold on with your knees,” said the Horse. “That’s the secret of good riding. Grip my body between your knees as hard as you like; sit straight up, straight as a poker; keep your elbows in.”

Horse and His Boy
by C.S. Lewis
[HarperCollins 1954]
p. 15

Heretofore, my instructors had explicitly told me not to dig my knees into the saddle. So, I always assumed that the author got it wrong as a non-rider. Turns out the Bree goes saddleseat [Part III, paragraph 2]. That would make sense for a noblemen wishing to ride long distances in style.

Bree talks about trotting two pages later, so he isn’t gaited.

Collected cover art.

Update for the non-horsemad: the second horse, Hwin, is introduced in Chapter 2. I assume the rest of you grew up wondering what it would be like to talk to Bree and Hwin. Or was that just me?