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Been There, Done That has jumped in with both feet. Since last we checked, there a have been three more horse posts.

The Worst Test

The worst dressage test I ever rode was on the same horse who gave me the best dressage ride I ever put in. Odd, isn’t it!

In his second-level work, “Moses was very good at canter-halt, not quite so good at halt-canter.” My favorite canter-to-halt story happened years back when I rode a friend’s horse in a sidesaddle flat class. George was the perfect Victorian-style horse, if he were pulling a milk cart. A fine ladies hunter he was not. He moved through the other competitors like an elephant moving through a coalition of cheetahs.

Since it was a pleasure class, we had to hand-gallop. George was not amused. Since it was side-saddle, I had my legs to the outside. The judge was to the inside in the middle of the ring. I thumped for all I was worth with both legs. George lumbered into a fractionally faster canter. When they called, as they inevitable do, for a halt, I merely stopped kicking. George locked all four legs and screeched to a stop. As the Thoroughbreds adjusted to the loss of velocity, I dropped the reins, sat aboard my immobile mount, and looked smug. FTW.

What’s in a Name?
&
More Names

The wittiest use of ancestry in a horse-name I’ve ever heard of was a racehorse I encountered when I worked at the track. His sire was The Axe II, and his dam was Top O’ The Morning. They registered him as Splitting Headache. Also creative was Prince John X Platinum Blond: Stage Door Johnny.

In the comments for What’s, I told the story of Previous Horse’s well-deserved barn name. I’ve blogged about Rodney’s various names [Square One, Contest Winner]. Mathilda is named for one of my Dungeons & Dragons characters. There have to be serious geek points in that.

Click over to find out how she jazzed up an uninspiring stable name.

Upcoming
I may have a new blog to announce soon. A friend just asked for some advice on starting one.

A while back, Hubby and I traveled to Shanghai. Our group was taken out to dinner by an friend of mine who had married a Chinese woman. He claimed to know very little about local customs, but he sure knew more than we did. He enjoyed spending the evening playing Old China Hand.

I know how he feels. My blog may not have taken the blogosphere by storm, but I’m happy to dispense whatever advice I can muster to anyone who will listen. I love playing the Old Blogging Hand.

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Title: on the information superhighway (there’s an old term), everyone is local. I, for one, think that makes right now a cool time to be alive.

Show Report #3: A Hot Mess

Using the John Deere wheelbarrow to unload.
Using the John Deere wheelbarrow to unload.

Third show in the winter series last Saturday. Same ribbons, reverse order. The bad news: I was a basketcase about riding a horse other than Sam. I had ridden Casey the previous week to good effect. There was no reason to think I would ride all that much worse at the show.

Casey is a special butterfly around the mounting block. Many ASBs don’t stand still for the rider. Casey’s particular wrinkle is that no one can touch his reins. Not the person on the ground, not the rider getting on. Get on, walk a few steps, then pick up the reins and you are good to go. I got the first part of this message but failed to retain the second part about riding him normally once we got going. I also knew that if you took a death grip on the reins and continued to pull, Casey would object rather vehemently. This all came together in my show-addled head as Must. Not. Touch. Reins.

I larked about the ring with my reins luffing like badly-managed sails in a high wind. Casey threw in a few canter steps, flipped his head, and asked, ‘Excuse me, isn’t there supposed to be a rider back there? Am I on my own out here?’ Either other riders had worse rounds or I was awarded horsemanship points for sitting through it all. I won.

My instructor was prepared to give me a sternly raised eyebrow over my riding, only to have me take the class. It’s hard to argue with a blue ribbon.

Second class, second place. Some canter steps, probably a bad diagonal in the confusion. My eyebrow-raising move for this class was to forget my gloves. I left them sticking out of my pocket. They sat there, waving at the crowd as I lolloped past.

winter numberLesson for the day. The riding ability is there. My mental game is completely shot. In retrospect, I feel okay about riding in Beginner. The three blues (first place for you foreigners) were good for my ego. The three reds (second place when you do the ribbon colors in the correct order) meant I did not dominate the competition. I am assuming the marbles are recoverable rather than lost. Therefore, if I ride in the Winter Tournament next year, I would like to skip Intermediate and move straight to Advanced in order to practice patterns with an eye to cantering at National Academy Finals 2014.

I say if to the next Winter Tournament. I have every intention of staying with saddleseat, at least as a diversion. Even if Rodney and potential New Horse are thundering along, it would be good to keep new things in the mix. However, I could die, the king could die, the horse could learn to fly. Which is by way of an old family joke about a fellow who arranged a year-long stay of execution to teach a horse to fly. Which is by way of saying Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.

My next scheduled show for 2013 is the 26th Annual ASAC Horse Show in Clemson, SC. This will be the start of the show season for the big-time horses and riders. It will an open show with performance classes rather than a fun show for lesson students. It will be at held a show facility rather than at a local barn. In the Academy division, that means shirt, vest & tie rather than collared shirt/sweater. Adult Walk Trot will not have a beginner/intermediate split.

I appreciate everyone’s high opinion of my fighting spirit [Greed comments]. Walk Trot is gonna be enough of a challenge for a while. I still have a lot to learn about riding saddleseat & showing saddlebreds. Might as well learn it at a trot.

Saddleseat posts, including reports from shows 1 & 2.
Speaking of ribbon placings, Wiki has a colorful chart showing the international differences.
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Barn Cat
Barn Cat

Emergency Rations

Horsekeeping Tip #3

If you are ever short on carrots, try a slice of bread as a treat. Mathilda loves it. She’s always been a carb-chowhound. Last time Hubby used bread to pay the mare toll, he was feeding a slice in pieces. When he went to give some to Rodney, she stole the rest of the slice from his coat pocket. Rodney still isn’t sure that bread is on his list of approved food substances.
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GKP Rhythm Ghost 2

Labels: A Gender Rant

cov MLP dvdI have in my hot, little paw the DVD of Season 1 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP). I’ve posted before about the nonacceptance of MLP fans, even within the science fiction community [Plea]. This is a rant of a different color. I don’t consider myself a MLP Fan. That’s because I don’t qualify, not because I’d be embarrassed to be one. After all, I happily admit to being an AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) eagerly anticipating two LEGO events in 2013.

If I was a MLP Fan, what would I call myself? The general term of use is the masculine term Brony (bro + pony). Female fans are Pegasisters (Pegasus + sister), at least technically. As best I can tell among MLP Fandom, the use of Pegasisters is less prevalent. Is this because the term is more awkward? No argument there. Is it because male terms tend to be inclusive (mankind) while the female terms tend to be specific (womenkind)? … and mildly degrogatory? Consider the difference in connotation between king-size and queen-sized, or between master and mistress. Could it be that “brony” gets more play because no one is uncomfortable with grown women playing with children’s toys? The infantilization of women is beyond the scope of my ranting ability. I simply devolve into froth. Until corrected by those more knowledgeable, I would chose to call myself a brony, due to the inelegance of the female term.

I spend more time wrestling with this than you might expect. At the fire department, I am militant about the usage of the term firefighter over firemen. The men of the department don’t understand, but they know to expect the fisheye from me if they slip. At one meeting we were running a practice scenario where an ambulance had to come by to pick up the firemen. To which I asked, ‘So, you’re just going to leave me sitting by the side of the road?’ Eye rolls all around.

Conversely, I don’t get my knickers in a twist about the term horseman. I’ve had people call me a good horseman and been flattered.

The difference?

Horseman is pronounced closer to horsem’n, without the emphasis on horseMAN. Simplistic but it does make the term less of an irritant.

Then, there is not a good blanket term for horseman. Horseperson is awkward. Firefighter is better language than fireman. That’s what we do, we fight fires. A fireman could be the stoker of a steam engine on a locomotive. Philosophically, I would prefer a gender neutral term for horsemen (& bronies). But I’m not gonna fuss over it.

The biggest difference between the horsemen and firemen is that women are accepted in the horse world more than they are in the fire service. A few summers ago, my department made a guest appearance at a day camp. We marched in wearing turnout, looking like a like of khaki snowmen (there ya go again). We announced our names. When folks heard my dulcet soprano, I could feel the startlement and saw a few craned necks.

Yes, there are woman in the fire service. A good friend of mine is a career captain. (My newbie volunteer enthusiasm amuses her.) But coed is not the default standard, even less so down my way. Therein lies my problem with the word firemen, the attitude behind the usage. When people stop being surprised to see a woman in turnout gear, I’ll stop railing about terminology.

BTW, why is everything I do so gendered? Surrounded by women in the horse world. Surrounded by men in the fire department & at BrickFair. (With notable exceptions in all cases.) But that’s a question for another day.

What words get your rant up?

Carrot Snob Redux

Mathilda has been refusing her carrots lately. She appears interested but won’t actually take a bite. What is she telling us?

1) It hurts to chew. Check teeth. Done. The vet felt that her teeth weren’t too bad but that he could improve her comfort. Mild points on the inside lower jaw filed down. She is eating her grain with more vigor and eating more hay. Still no to carrots.

2) I don’t like the taste. Winter carrots aren’t as sweet as spring and summer carrots. She has expressed opinions about her carrots before [Carrot Snob]. Nothing to do but wait.

3) You are trying to poison me. Mathilda has always had a deep-seated suspicion about oral medication or anything that might contain meds. These days, about half the time, if Hubby breaks the carrot, feeds half to Rodney, then Mathilda will eat the other half. Rodney is her royal taster.

This is why I call her names.

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GKP Ghost 2

Show Ring Greed

I thought I was out of the box with an American Saddlebred sport horse [Support]. Turns out, I’m nowhere near original. Saddlebreds have been and are being used in sport horse disciplines. In addition, the saddlebred world has a growing Hunter Country Pleasure (hunt seat) division at regular saddebred shows.

The kind lady who has been giving me saddleseat lessons has mentioned the possibility of my showing in a few of these Hunter Country Pleasure classes. The downside is that since I would be cantering in the hunt seat classes, I would have to move up to cantering in the Academy (lesson student) classes. The plan had been to show in the Walk-Trot section of the National Academy Championship Show in November. This means I cannot show at a canter in any class, in any show, recognized or unrecognized, all year. I’m torn. I want it all.

I want to show as much as possible, particularly in a young division with classes that might not be wall-to-wall competitors.
AND
I want to win as much as possible, which means staying at Walk-Trot for a better chance during the year and in November. Cantering is just one more gear in which to screw up.

Usually. decisions are between sin and virtue. In this case, it’s greed in every direction.

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GKP Dash 2