Spinning Wheels

Snapshot of the inside of my head:
I haven’t organized a saddleseat lesson.
I can’t find a horse to go look at, much less buy.
I haven’t followed through on my mysterious initiative with Rodney.
(We won’t even discuss my writing career, exercise plan, housekeeping regimen, or so on.)
I am a horrible person. I wallow in sloth. I don’t deserve the gifts I have been given. I’m too old. I’ve let too much time go by. I should go eat worms. Hello tailspin, how have you been?

Over on the rational half of my brain, I did the math. Mathilda takes 3 hours a day, minimum: two grazing sessions of an hour each, plus water breaks & meals. (Hubby changes the water buckets & cleans the pen.) Rodney’s heat therapy is another hour. That constitutes half a workday before I pick up a brush or do a single exercise.

I don’t bewail my fate to incite a pity party, although I will always take any brow mopping being offered. I say this outloud and online in an effort to remind &/or convince myself that there are legitimate reasons why I am pedaling madly with a slipped gear chain, rowing furiously with my boat tied to the dock, or whatever other dysfunctional transportation metaphor you care to employ.

Olympic Memories
My second clearest Olympic memory from Atlanta is of the horses. I can still see the French Eventing Team coming off the trailer projecting, “Nous sommes ici!” In the barns, the horses were vibrant, alert, curious. They looked as if riding them would be both a handful and a whole lot of fun. Either Olympic-level sport selects for this level of engagement or Olympic-level training brings it out.

My clearest Olympic memory is of two Big Name Riders having a shouting match on the path from the barns to the ring. BNR-A said, “I think, for once, you should do as you’re told.” and stomped off. BNR-B stood on the gravel looking small and stricken. I thought, you can’t yell at him, he has an Olympic medal.

What was your ‘They’re just people’ realization moment?
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Gratuitous kitten shot

Foto Friday: A Tell-Tale?

During the summer, Mathilda’s ears are lined with Swat.


Red Saddlepad for Dressage: Anna Kasprzak riding Donnperignon.

The freestyle maKes me wish I had rhythm. Or rode dressage. Question for musical types. I had it in my head – perhaps from figure skating commentary? – that one should not perform to a song with lyrics since the voice was already interpreting the music. No? Also, what’s with the prevalence of English lyrics?

Horses are not done. Don’t forget Modern Pentathlon’s riding phase over the weekend. My grooming claim to fame is braiding a horse for the Olympics, in Modern Pen.

It seemed like such a simple idea

The Red Saddlepad for Show Jumping goes to … I still can’t tell. The official results on the London 2012 site list everyone, down to Beezie Madden in a three-way tie for 72nd. Given that the top 20 moved on to round B, the last place for today ought to be whoever is listed in 20th, right? Which would be a tie between Daniel Bluman on Sancha & Edwina Tops-Alexander on Itot Du Chateau. But I’m only guessing. None of the sites I found list today’s results alone. They all reference the Olympic site.

How can something as simple as honoring one rider’s effort have turned into such a statistical hairball?

Horse Hunt (non)Progress Report #6

It’s looking like deja vu all over again. After a small flurry of activity, things are starting to go hinky. When we were shopping for Rodney, the weirdest things went wrong.

    We were scheduled to drive two hours south on a Friday only to have the horse turn up with a stone bruise. She swore the horse would be sound by Monday, did we want to come then? Um, thanks but why don’t you get him sound & call us?

    We never got to the Big Name Rider in our state. He went out of town. It snowed. I went out of town, Mathilda had the sniffles and we didn’t want to infect his barn. This went on for months.

    One trainer canceled a meet because the horses had just been vaccinated. Was this one of those sneak-attack vaccinations that come up without warning?

    I arranged to be at X barn on Y day at Z time. This was interpreted to mean I wasn’t interested in the horse.

    We asked a trainer if the horse in question was the sort that one had to pull or that one had to kick. She became irate and explained in a tone used to address imbeciles that all horses are one or the other. Well yes, that was our point.

    Another candidate was a young, green horse we found early on. We passed. As the months went by, we decided to give him a look. Photos and emails were exchanged. We chatted. We exchanged life histories. An appointment was made. The night before, she canceled. Never explained. Ever. Never contacted us again. Dropped off the planet. We posit that the young, green horse was taken for a final outing and acted a little too y&g. But we don’t know.

This time, we are starting to accumulate non-responses, even from folks who were initially happy to talk with us. Is it me? Do I offend without intending? If I’m going to piss you off, at least let me do it consciously so I can get my teeth into it.

Plus, we were all set to go check out a horse for sale at a local show only to have her go lame in the same storm that caused so much fun around here [Blustery]. Yes, **** happens with horses, but after last time, I’m prone to over-reaction.

I bought four horses before Rodney. Those four purchases combined did not give me a fraction of this much trouble.

Your horse buying experiences – similar to my early, easy ones or the later, hard slogs?
List of previous horse shopping posts.

Red Saddlepad
Turns out Dressage has the same up-or-out system as Show Jumping. I just wasn’t paying attention after the Grand Prix.
Low score for the GP Special: Patrick van der Meer riding Uzzo.
Lowest score to move on to GP Freestyle:Valentina Truppa riding Eremo Del Castegno.
I believe the scores reset for Thursday, so no one in last place here either [Tip].

Horsekeeping Tip #1


A quick drizzle of hoof oil prior to hosing protects the hoof wall from the wet/dry rollercoaster.
What is your favorite horsekeeping tip?

Red Saddlepad
The show jumping competition is messing with my head. Determining the Red Saddlepad is even more confusing today. As before, there was a cut-off. Highest penalties for Round 3: Jose Robert Reynoso Fernandez Filho riding Maestro St Lois. Highest penalties & moving onto Round 4: two of the three 16-faulters. The other fellow can’t move on because he is the fourth from his country to qualify. Plus, tomorrow the scores reset. No one is in “last”.

Spectator Burnout

A funny thing happened while I was watching show jumping. I got bored. In the middle of watching some fabulous horse or another, I found my mind wandering. I didn’t have this problem during the Dressage Grand Prix.

It could be my latent Dressage Queen emerging. While I have been told by more than one person that dressage is actually interesting to ride once one climbs out of the swamps of the lower levels, I remain dubious. The explanation of closet DQ rates as technically possible but unlikely.

It could be that I have spent far too much of my life watching showjumping. Way back in the pre-Internet dark ages, we lived near a showgrounds from which I covered hunter/jumper shows for the Chronicle of the Horse. My notes of the big class were so thorough that a competitor once used them to protest her score. In contrast, upper level dressage is a novelty.

Mainly, I think it is the camera angle. Since horse and rider rocket back and forth across the ring, cameras are confined to the edges. You get a quick close-up as the horse zooms past then back to the view from the wrong end of the telescope. For Dressage, the cameras can get close enough to see what the horse is thinking.

What have you been watching?

Red Saddlepad
Highest penalties w/o elimination: Ahmad Saber Hamcho on Wonderboy.
Last of the top 45 pass on to Day 3: A 16-way tie among the 8-faulters.
(I’m still undecided on which way to award this.[Poop])

Poop Happens


Using quasi-compost on the washed-out, rocky areas to create a comfy path for her Ladyship to reach the water trough. I think it looks lovely. And surprisingly warm!

Olympics
Red Saddlepad not awarded for Show Jumping Day 1 due to the nature of the results. For the round, Reiko Takeda on Ari had the highest number of penalties to pass thru the finish flags. However, the highest score and qualified ride again on Day 2 was a 4-way tie: Samuel Parot on Al Calypso, Tiffany Foster on Victor, Luciana Diniz on Lennox, Pius Schwizer on Carlina IV. One could argue it either way.