Yin or Yang?

Day two of my perseveration on horse shopping. The first step to buying is knowing what you want. I don’t.

Back when Previous Horse was retired and Mathilda was a sprightly, young 20-something, our goal was to gradually locate replacements for both horses. As I said back in January, “This has been the plan all along: one fancy show horse for me & a husband horse that could double as my second horse, not as talented but fun. A sports car & a truck if you will.” [Truck Shopping] Clearly, Rodney was intended to be the sports car, or luxury sedan as it turned out. So which to get next?

My brief, happy career with a jumper string.
[Photo by K. Mautner]

Yang: The Sports Car
Get an interesting young horse, perhaps a OTTB, and start riding, training, showing. If Rodney decides to get his act together, I end up riding two horses at the AEC. Worse things have happened. This would be the road for a motivated, upper-level bound rider. Buy & work a bunch of youngsters. Sell the ones that don’t suit. We would suck at selling. It’s the La Brea Tar Pits around here. Once a critter comes on the property, it stays. [Explosion]

Or find an upper-level horse looking for a happy, working retirement. Yes, an older horse looking for an easier gig is a gift for us lower-level critters. It does happen. After all, somebody has to win the lottery. Then again, with the best of intentions, it may not work out for soundness or rider compatibility reasons. Other times, intentions are not the best.

But even if I was handed a set of reins to an amiable, four-star horse & told, “Here, he’ll pack you around Training.”, there is something unutterably wearying about the idea. Either I lack the fortitude to go down that road again or an insufferably optimistic part of me still harbors the hope that Rodney will be that horse. For now, no hot rods.

Yin: The Truck
“A non-Thoroughbred might be fun. Get a Morgan or an Arabian to cross-show in jumper classes at breed shows (do they even have these?). I used to show with a woman who did this with a Quarter Horse and earned herself a big-time belt buckle.” [Truck] You know, I know, and the universe knows that I will end up with yet another bay, Thoroughbred gelding. It doesn’t hurt to start out open-minded.

I’ve never been particularly brave about getting on strange horses. It took me years to get up the nerve to ride the mare I’m holding in the picture. (When I finally did, we had an absolute blast, but that’s another story.) How can I face trying out horses when it’s been over a year since I’ve even sat on one? Perhaps that is the test. A horse I can face riding now would also be a horse that would continue to bolster my enthusiasm and confidence in the face of the Amateur Operatics that are the life of a Thoroughbred. OTOH, is it fair to ask a horse to carry that much psychological baggage? I’m also concerned about introducing a third horse and sorting out the resultant herd dynamics. Again, a calm, sensible soul would solve more problems than cause them.

Of course, a solid citizen who was also gorgeous & talented would be nice, but until they invent holodeck horses, I must be reasonable. Plus, there is a side-effect to finding Mathilda’s replacement. There’s nothing like bringing in the replacement dog to have the original dog live forever.

Leaving aside the question of whether this paragon exists & how to find him or her, is looking for a “truck” horse wisdom or wimping out?

Related Posts
Horse Shopping day 1: Crowdsourcing
Shopping for Rodney in Horse Illustrated
Horse shopping online: Putting Myself Out There … On Horseback.
Truck Shopping

Crowdsourcing

Writing the check. A dreaded activity that I’d be glad to engage in.
[Photo by K. Mautner]

You’re helping me & you didn’t even know it. I took a tiny step toward a third horse today, thanks to this blog.

An astute reader suggested I post about the barriers keeping me from looking for a new horse. Not the barriers to horse-hunting & buying, we all know those: riding a lot of toads, deciding this particular toad is for you, writing a check for toad-purchase, and so on. What practical & psycho-social issues are keeping me from even starting to look?

Boy, did I get wound up. Almost 200 words of notes came spilling out of my fingers. I was all set for an epic whine on the subject. But, why? The area I live in doesn’t have the density of horses that Lexington has. So what? I have trouble getting people to take me seriously. So what? My past decisions didn’t always work out. So what? Much as I would have enjoyed a good solid rant about horse-selling – you want how much?! For that!? – at the end of the day, I would be no closer to the tertium quid*. Instead, I decided to dedicate this week’s posts to aspects of the subject & perhaps get help from the collective knowledge lurking in the ether.

As I toodled to the the post office, I noodled with bloggable points. Must remember to include that before Mathilda had gotten hurt, I’d had an email conversation with a local barn selling OTTBs. But then, all plans had been shelved. Up to this point, I was strictly think about what to write, completely in a narrative headspace. Then I took stock. The truck was running. The mare was up for a few hours. Why not now? So I did.

Since my visit was spur of the moment, the horses in question had already headed for the back of their 50-acre pasture and the trainer was deep into her activities of daily living. We chatted a bit about what I was looking for. I saw the barn & watched her ride. I didn’t see, much less ride, a single sales horse. The point is, I did something. Activity before progress.

[*We often referred to Previous Horse & Mathilda collectively as “Thing 1 & Thing 2”. A new horse would have been a third Thing, i.e. tertium quid.]

What is your most amusing &/or uplifting story about finding a horse?

The Upside of Illness

There is none. I must respectfully – and carefully – disagree with the Marines that pain is weakness leaving the body. Pain is the body having a temper tantrum. It overreacts [vasovagal response]. It’s bad at explaining itself [referred pain]. It’s loud and annoying and you can’t wait for it to get over itself and get back to normal behavior.

However, there is clarity in sickness. A while back, a post-root canal got infected while I was out of town by myself. Can we count how many things are wrong with that sentence? Put it this way, I was in my favorite city in the world & I came home early. That’s how much pain I was in. While I was ill, life seemed so simple. The existential voices that question my purpose in the universe and the logistical voices that worry about to-do lists were both drowned out by the one screaming voice wanting it all to STOP.

My view of the universe lately.
For the last two weeks, my daylight hours have been spent grazing Mathilda or sitting with her. I did very, very little else. I managed one short interview wherein I was so mentally absent that I had to toss my written notes and go back to the tape. Fortunately, the gentleman in question was informative enough and charming enough that he carried the day with a minimum of prompting. I kept up the daily posts here, usually late at night, just before I collapsed into bed. If there hadn’t been Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event to escape into [Peregrinatio], the blog would have ended right there.
Trust a cat to capitalize on a captive audience.

Dishes? Not even a twinge as I passed by the overloaded sink. Clothes? I just put the same barn jeans back on from the day before. Hygiene? No one’s going to see me other than Hubby & horses. They were going to have to take what they got.

As Mathilda has gotten stronger, I can leave the barn for longer. As the crisis recedes, life reasserts itself. I look around and realize that the house is in even worse shape than usual. There are blogs I need to draft ahead. There’s this cute fellow who appears to live here. Life is better now. Life is much, much better. But life is more complex than it was a week ago.

Feliz Cinco de Mayo

In honor of Cinco de Mayo & since I can’t think of anything else, a web tour of horses in Mexico.

[Do not surf on “mexico horse” unless you have a strong stomach for shock photos. Don’t know what that had to do with with my search query. I didn’t ask. I think I found my limit on how free the Internet needs to be. Now I’ve made you want to go look. Don’t. Really.]

The racehorse Cinco De Mayo Mio

The Dutch Warmblood Cinco de Mayo ISF Star

The National Horse of Mexico is the Azteca Horse, an Andalusian & Quarter Horse/Criollo cross. Never heard of ’em. Now I want one. Check out the barn candy at AAHIA. Azteca info from the International Museum of the Horse.

La Federación Ecuestre Mexicana: salto, dressage, concurso completo, rienda, paraecustre, endurance.

Comite Olimpico Mexicano, a 2012 show jumping team is in there somewhere.

My Little Pony speaks Spanish: Mexican Ponies 101

I’m sure it’s unPC, but we’ve all done it in the back of a pick-up truck: riding Mexican.

And for today’s educational segment: CdM is
a) a small regional holiday in Mexico
b) an excuse to party
c) a source of Mexican-American self-identification
d) all of the above.

I’ve ridden a racehorse in Italy & a Camargue [tourism in French, reference in English] horse in France. What international adventures have you had?

Foto Friday: The Observer Effect

After I took this admittedly inadequate picture of Arthur in an old salt block holder, I moved in for more Cheezburger. This woke him up and he came over to see me. In trying to capture a moment, I destroyed it.

Photo by Kathie Mautner
When I was at a baptism, the font was blocked by eager relatives snapping the moment of immersion. It looked more like a media scrum than a religious ritual. Yet, if my friend had not had her camera during my wedding, I wouldn’t have one of my favorite pictures (used Tuesday).The pink shoulder is my mother, black shoulder is my father, & this is one of a handful of pictures of two of them together.

If discretion or secrecy is required, writers can take mental notes and perform a brain dump at the first opportunity. Until we can implant William Gibson‘s Zeiss-Ikon eyes to take visual notes, photography will be a balance between intrusion and posterity.

Where do you draw the line?

Big Bad Bunny

Working Together
by Sara Light-Waller

While hovering over Mathilda like a chick-obsessed hen, I have had no time and less energy for anyone else: husband, dogs, cats, other horse. Husband has understood. Dogs, cats & other horse, not so much. For example, today was the first day I found the enthusiasm to give Rodney a thorough grooming. On the upside, I’ve had a week & 1/2 to observe without interacting.

What I Learned
Rodney is not sulky. This constitutes a glorious change from Previous Horse who could have sulked professionally. While Rodney might prefer more attention to the Thoroughbred, he’s not going to get crabby about the lack.

Rodney is curious, when he feels safe. If you are trying to shoo a horse away from, say, another horse’s hay pile, you have to balance getting a reaction with scampering out of the barn screaming that the sky is falling. Rodney defaults to sky-falling, even to what I consider a gentle gesture. He is, however, open to being soothed and deflected from his headlong rush.

The Point Being?
I need to learn to move with Zen-like patience. I am not advocating being mean to a horse. Ever. But an aggressive horse must be met with equal assertiveness on the part of the handler. If a horse plans on testing your boundaries, you better be prepared to defend those boundaries immediately and effectively or you’re gonna get bit. Rodney, on the other hoof, is more likely to go into his startled bunny routine [Know You] than threaten me with pinned ears. ZLP is going to be hard at home, impossible at a show.

I’ve noted before that Rodney accepts funny objects [My Two Horses]. Now, I’ve started to deliberately use his curiosity to defuse his panic attacks. When he overreacts, if I physically step back and give him time & space, he will climb down out of the rafters, even coming over to me to see what’s what. If I can figure out how to work with it, his inquisitiveness will be to my advantage. It will be interesting to see how translates to under saddle.

Your horse, bunny or biter?
—-
Today’s illustrator, Sara Light-Waller, can be found at Sacred Touch Healing & Flying Pony Studios.

A Suffusion of Yellow

[Nothing of bloggable note happening around here, so I must look outward.]

From the App Store, a Magic 8-Ball [proprietary or virtual] for horses:

Horse I Ching

When I “Ask the Horses”, the result can be weirdly accurate. Other times, it’s an S of Y. Today I asked:

Q: What will be Rodney’s first horse show with me?
A: Conflict is not always obvious to the observer. Things may appear to be going well, though an eruption is brewing just below the surface.

Make of that what you will. Either way, you get gorgeous horse pictures along with the advice.

InSilico also puts out

Celestial Tones

&
Magic Mouth

The people behind InSilico are horse folks, so profits go to a good cause, i.e. carrots. feed, hay…

What is your favorite non-linear source of advice?