A Few Steps Forward

This week I took Rodney for a hand walk to the end of the pasture and back. On the way out, he registered concern about gremlins in the woods. A few verses of Soft Kitty solved the problem. On the way back, he decided to be obstreperous. The conversation ran thusly:

R: I wanna charge back to the barn.
Me: No.
R: Why?
Me: Because I said so.
R: Okay. [Pause for a stride or two.] I wanna charge back to the barn.

Repeat for the length of the pasture. For the last two years he has essentially been sitting on the couch watching reruns. He sees no reason to go back to work.

This, Ladies & Gentlemen, is enormous progress. Not scoring a walk halfway around our own field. That’s just embarrassing. Victory is that I was able to turn his actions into a coherent story. Whether the story is real or anthropomorphic fantasy does not matter. I was able to use it to form an effective response. This is not something I have been able to do with him in the past.

Walking next to 17.1 hands of jaw-crossing, neck-curving, on-the-muscle fussiness worries me not. You wish to be rude? Bring it on. Previous Horse was five inches shorter but fiendishly quick. He was never evil but could be mean. As a bonus, he had arrogance to make a test pilot look meek. I dealt with him for 20 years. In comparison, my kindly giraffe, your attempt at attitude is a snowman’s fart in a blizzard.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~GKP Ghost 4

Foto Friday: Sun Over the Roofline

The Sunday Stills for this week was “Sunrises/Sunsets…. With a Building.” A tricky shot since my barn is too ugly for public consumption. It is a cheap tin building that has become old & decrepit without becoming scenically so. The horse areas have been remodeled and are safe. The rest is better out of sight. So, a profile/shadow shot was in order.

FoFri sun roof

Does Dressage Need Golf Handicaps?

In her post, Our Responsibility To Dressage Judges, Bonnie Walker says that

There has been much talk about placing a different standard of testing for the adult amateur versus the professional …

Wtf? Seriously? Incidentally, Ms. Walker does not approve

… and I am against this. While my sympathies lie with the AA who gets slammed at a show THERE IS A REASON. It is not as though your judge sees you enter the ring all doe-eyed and adorable and grins with malice.

With Previous Horse, I spent many years in hunter/jumper land. It always seemed to me that the amateurs were regarded with a faint air of condescension. Necessary as cash cows but not quite real riders. (Yes, I was an amateur. Yes, it reflects my insecurities. Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.) Now a group of folks are volunteering to enter into that arrangement?

In case, I am being too subtle, I am whole-heartedly against easing of standards. If you want respect as a rider, go out and earn it. In addition, it’s not as simple as professionals vs. amateurs. Compare an amateur rider supported by a well-off family to a professional who teaches 14 beginner lessons and then rides his competition horse by headlights. I know where my sympathies lie.

If we must take action to appease folks, I offer this suggestion, courtesy of Hubby:

Rider Handicaps for Dressage

Here’s how I see it working. Judges proceed normally. Raw scores are posted in one column. Next to it is a multiplier based on experience, previous wins, past scores, what-have-you. Ribbons are award based on the adjusted score. As you improve, your handicap at that level goes down, discouraging riders from dwelling at a certain level. A ride at a new level gets a bigger handicap, cutting riders a bit of slack, inviting people to move up. The multiplier would be small enough to adjust for the halo effect without covering egregious errors in riding. While this would have been a bear 20 years ago, computers could be programmed to input the handicap along with other rider data.

Exceptions could be made. Raw scores could be used for qualifiers, or moving up, or whatever. Upper levels &/or bigger shows would not allow handicaps. After all, if you aren’t a scratch rider, what are you doing there?

A lot more math needs to be done, but the basic idea is on any given day, every rider has a chance to win the class. Golf does it. Hubby’s crew regattas do it. Horse racing is built on it. There is no inherent reason handicapping wouldn’t work.

What think you? Ask your friends. Post the link on forums and bulletin boards. I hereby invite the Internet firestorm telling me why this is a horrible idea.

Rodney Update

How has our intrepid hero fared while I have been stepping out with other horses? He’s missing a shoe at the moment but overall he is bouncy and happy. I might have good news about his mental state.

With her newly floated teeth, Mathilda is likely to get more from each bite and therefore to require less food. With any luck, a reduced diet will allow us to cut out her lunch meal, freeing us – mostly me – from having to be around the house every day at 2 pm. Can I get a hallelujah!

While we were changing diets, I decided to reduce Rodney’s stomach meds [Say Aaaah!] to see if whatever ailed him had been cured. Around that time, Rodney was seen chewing on the boards and even gnawing on the roof of the barn. I put it down to wanting to be out of the rain &/or simple Thoroughbred weirdness. My crack in-house medical staff realized that equine mouth activity can signal stomach upset. He upped the meds beyond previous levels.

Astoundingly. after 2 1/2 years Rodney has finally relaxed to the point where he is reacting like a normal horse. Monday morning he escorted me to his feed bucket to make sure I was serving correctly. Gone was the lingering trace of frantic that has been his lietmotif. He still spooks at this and that. He will always be a TB. His change in attitude has revitalized mine. It is the slight but enormous shift from ‘This horse is a wingnut. What now?’ to ‘This horse is a wingnut. I got it covered.’ I find myself looking forward to working with him.

In raising his meds to therapeutic levels, Hubby switched Rodney to 3 times a day. Mathilda’s lunch is safe. I don’t mind. If getting Rodney to be the horse I think he can be equals being around to give him a dose of equine Zantac (R) three times a day for the rest of his life, sign me up.

He has been on his stomach meds since October 2011. His behavior had massively improved since then. Adding a third dose shouldn’t have made this much difference. However, it would be consistent with what we are learning about his attitude. Back when Hubby was lunging him, Rodney had to be coated with flyspray lest he go mad from the torment. We know liniment makes him nuts [EEEE-ouch!]. My first horse was a hypochondriac. Previous Horse flat out made s**t up. This is different. This is sensitivity with the receptors dialed up to eleven.

Maybe. Possibly. It could all be wishful thinking intersecting coincidence. Check back with me next week.

Off-Topic: Fiction

I aim to keep an equine focus, but some days you just wanna stray outside the pasture. When writing the Versatile Blogger entry, I trolled my brain for an evocative turn of phrase. The search algorithm returned ‘share a lifeboat’. Here’s why.

In October of 2011, Esquire had a 78-word fiction contest. (Winners.) My entry:

Alone
I am by myself in the lifeboat. We were four when we started. Sam realized he did not want to live without his wife. He swam back to the ship. Maureen thought she saw a helicopter. She stood to wave, overbalanced, and fell in the water. Jean leaned over the side to look for sharks. He fell in too.

I see people bobbing in the water but no one comes near my lifeboat. I prefer to be alone.