One of our cats is recovering from an ear infection. (Yes, it’s going around. No, cat drops don’t hurt humans. I digress.) He is better but still wobbly, too wobbly to jump to the top of the fridge where the free-choice dry cat food lives. (Fear not – everyone gets an cat-appropriate dollop of canned food at night check. No one starves around here. End of second digression.) Instead, he gets a chance to eat dry food on the floor behind closed doors. He won’t eat it. OTOH, he will eat the dry food if he is lifted up to where the big cats eat.
While I was looking for ASB sport horses, a young lady from the barn was trying out horses for her future saddleseat equitation mount. Let’s call her Princess C. Her Royal Highness had far more success in finding candidates than I did [Midwest]. Since I would not be buying the horse, riding the horse, nor training the horse, I had no stake in the decision. That left me free to speculate. All that follows is idle thoughts inside my own head. I have never ridden upper-level equitation nor known anyone who did. Since when did a lack of experience stop the horse world from pontificating?
Princess C. is a beautiful rider. She wins her equitation class more often than not. Such is her aura that judges have been known to overlook errors that might derail a less stylish rider. IMHO. However, current shopping was for horses that would win at the finals. Equitation finals are tough. The classes are filled with beautiful riders used to winning all their classes. One needs a way to stand out.
The Mismatch – A few days before, I had seen Princess C on Willie. Pretty rider. Pro horse. The effect was eye-jarringly wrong. Neither horse nor rider made any mistakes. The effect was simply unharmonious. Like potato chips and ice cream. Separately, yum. Together, please no.
The Good Soldier – One of the horses HRH tried was a well-trained, good-looking soul. They could have trotted from the try-out ring into the show ring and won any class in the region. In the finals crowd, they would have been fine. That’s it. Just fine.
The Sports Car – The most expensive horse she tried would have been a terrible equitation ride. He was sharp and full of flash. He drew the eye. Unfortunately, he drew the eye to the horse. I have no clear memory of how Princess C looked on him.
The Holy Sh&t Horse – I took one look at these two and thought -deleted-. It was an awesome combination. Sure they were both tall and attractive and well-matched. But there was more to it. HSH was young and need guidance. I could sense the potential for strong teamwork, for – dare I say it – the start of a beautiful friendship. Sure, equitation is all about form, but what judge could resist a happy kid on a happy pony?
The take-home message was not so much about the specific horses but how much the picture could change for the same rider on different horses.
For my next show, I have been given the choice between Alvin [photo] and Lola [photo]. My other friends – Sam [video], Casey [video], Willie [photo] & Trump [photo] – will not be attending. Both horses are fun. Both horses would do well in the show ring. Because of the class schedule, Lola would be a more convenient choice. However, Instructor assures me that a quick tack change for Alvin would be no big deal. I was stumped.
So, I defaulted to my standard response these days, “I’ll make a blog post out of it.’ As I considered how to describe the two horses, I realized that the main difference was that I had shown Lola [Report] but never Alvin.
You lot are an adventuresome crowd. The last time I asked for help choosing which horse to show [Reply Hazy], you told me to go for the fireworks. Or so I thought. Upon later examination, the responses to that post were 50/50. I was conflating those comments with the comments to a post in which I wondered which classes to pick [Greed]. In that one, you unanimously told me to go for the gusto. Still, the overall trend is encouragement to try new things. Therefore, I imagined your response and picked Alvin.
All of which may change up to and on the day. We are talking about horses after all.
They say you can tell what answer you desire by who you ask for advice. So, thanks for the advice, even if it was in absentia.
Horse shopping trip last week. The first two horses were in Kentucky, but close enough to the border that the land was hot, flat, and Midwest-inspired. The second stop was in Indiana.
Potential Horse #10: Chestnut, 4 year old, ASB gelding. Big, sturdy, sweet. A fabulous hunter for ASB Hunter Under Saddle. As with most breed shows, saddleseat hunter or western is won by standard Saddlebreds wearing english or western tack: knee action, elevated heads, contained paces. I have seen a few horses who clearly do straight-up hunter/jumper enter the ASB classes. They don’t get the time of day. So, no cross-over for this dude. Did not ride.
Potential Horse #10.5: Black, 3 yo ASB gelding. Cute look. Nice potential for resale. You can always market a black horse. Didn’t go farther than his stall. I’m not looking for a project. I already have 17 hands worth of project.
Potential Horse #11: Chestnut, 7 yo, ASB mare. This one already did sport horse activities. Had even attained elevation over a few logs. Not so typey that she would have gotten immediately laughed out of a dressage ring. Quadra-tracked around the corners with ease. Square with her knees over a jumplet. Compact but rode big. Yes, I actually got on a horse. Mostly because we had come so far. I even jumped. Or more accurately pointed while mare zipped over/through a pair of lathes propped on buckets.
Despite all of the above, she did not hitch a ride home. First off, I rode for sh$t. That’s never a good feeling. But that had less bearing on my decision than you might think. When I tried Previous Horse, his gaits were walk, jig, and buck. How you ride on the day is important. How you will ride in the future is vital. This mare would be perfect for someone who wanted a fun, reliable ride around lower-level events. When we came out of in corner and headed down the long side, I had no problem envisioning a cross-country course unrolling in front of us. She would be fabulous … for someone who wanted a hot, responsive, controlled explosion of a ride. That’s not me. (Not I?) Sure, I could ride her, or eventually learn to, but hers is not a personality that would be a good match with mine for the next 20 years.
Potential Horse #11.5: There was supposedly another horse, who might have had hunter/jumper potential. By that point I was too hot, sick, and mired in despair to ask.
I was hot because it was over 90 and the indoor rings of both barns were built to withstand Midwest winters. In the summer, they could double as saunas. I was carsick from all the driving. I was in despair over my usual hopeless stew of horse hunt anxieties. In this particular variation, I began to wonder if there was any intersection between the set of horses I was able to ride and the set of horses I had an interest in owning.
Pluses: All the horses we saw came as represented. This is more unusual that it should be. They all looked as if they would be suitable for some job, if not mine. Ditto. Plus, both barns were run by trainers with whom my instructor had long-standing relationships. Everyone had an interested in maintaining good trading partnerships for the future.
Spotted crossing into Alabama.Minuses: The previous week, I had a case of swimmer’s ear. A nasty little infection that hurts all out of proportion to the severity. Simple to fix. Get the right drops. Over and done. Or so I thought. I am not the hardiest of travelers. I wasn’t surprised to be a little carsick after spending the majority of two days in a car. I was surprised to be a lot carsick. Apparently my inner ear was still irritated enough with me that it fought back with a vengeance. No mess, but much whimpering.
Being that sick for that long colors the entire experience. Just writing about it makes my head a bit swimmy. I’m considering never buying a horse and taking up Tiddly-Winks.
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On a lighter note:
I have started Tweeting again, see sidebar. Hubby is following, using the handle @Mathilda_minion. Yup.
Signed,
Mathilda’s Assistant Minion
Last week, I did something I have never done before. I went with a trainer to look at horses. The lady with whom I take saddleseat lessons took me up north to see if any ASBs wanted to become sport horses. Technically, she is my instructor rather than my trainer. I keep my horses at home. Nor would she be the trainer for Future Horse, who would also live at home. As I understand the rules, the trainer is the person responsible for the horse, i.e. Big Name Rider oversees the horse’s care while Big Name Owner pays the bills. On entry forms, the trainer signifies the person to bust when the horse fails a drug test.
Still, I hopped in the car because she is a horse trainer. I distrust her slightly less than trainers I have encountered in the past – what can I say, I’ve had bad luck – and she has connections in the horse world. The sum total of my knowledge was two horses in Kentucky and a chestnut mare in Indiana.
The downside of such a trip is the possibility of disappointing a person whose good opinion you value. I was convinced I would anger/frustrate/annoy Instructor to the point where she would be sick of the sight of me. The atmosphere at the barn would become so fraught that I would be compelled to give up saddleseat. I would go back to being despondent 7 days a week instead of merely 6.
Which proves that I can fall into a tailspin as fast in Indiana as at home.
I have not monetized this blog. I have never seen advertisements using my desktop nor my laptop, logged in or not.
However.
While I was out of town horse shopping (more on this shortly), I borrowed a smart phone since I can’t go one day without obsessively checking for responses. At the bottom of the post [Rain Games] was a video ad. It was for beer, I believe. I didn’t watch the whole thing. I was too busy trying to figure out WTF. Policy here.
WordPress is giving me the service for free, which reduces my right to squeak to virtually zero. It’s not that I object to the ads. Not much. It’s more that I had no idea. It would be nice to know what is being put out there under my name.
Have you ever seen ads on Rodney’s Saga?
Update: Thanks for the data. I been pondering the upgrade anyway. I will eventually run out of free space, especially if I start posting photos again. Plus, it would be nice to have the plain rodneyssaga.com as an address.
Derivation of this post: I asked the following question of a few folks. They thought that it was funny & that I should poll the group at large. So here we are.
When put the photo from this post [Doctor Whooves] as my desktop background, I finally took a look at the non-scarf end of the horse.
Oops.
I’m all about not going back to correct previous posts. Once opened, that door would lead to a bottomless, time-sucking vortex. Plus, a trimmed version of the photo marginalizes the scarf by pushing it closer to the edge of the frame. So, change the past or let it all hang out?
Virtual Brush Box 