Snippety-snap

A friend recently asked me why I don't post more pictures of the horses I talk so much about. There are several simple reasons.

• No flash. It be agin the rules at Rock Creek. For the most part, the horses at our very public facility would probably take camera flash in stride, but it takes just one freakout to make the others edgy (to say nothing of what it would do to the nerves of anyone having to deal with said large flailing animal). The barn and ring are dim, and these days it's dark outside when I arrive for class, so it's hard to get a natural-light shot.
• No angles. Assuming arguendum that there's enough light in the barn and the horse is standing still, you can shoot a no-flash pic and have it come out in focus, but it's beyond me to get a good angle on a horse on cross-ties in a narrow aisle.
• No hands. I've snuck glances in the ring's mirror and can confirm that Lear looks entirely adorable when he goes on the bit or floats over cavaletti. He's even kind of cute when he's at peak goony spasticness. But given his history of squirreling out over random things, when I'm working with him I try to keep both hands on the reins and all my attention on him.
• No skill. You get right down to it, a not-very-good photographer is a not-very-good photographer. I'm working on it, I promise.

When I rode in Canada this summer, the guide, Pierre, often walked beside his horse if there wasn't a trot or canter coming up. Eventually we learned that it was safe to drop our stirrups when he was on the ground; it is for that reason alone that my patellar tendons still flex.

Kidnapped by hill folk

Ah, Western class, you are so much more bearable now that I'm not getting stuck on Heza, bending my not-designed-for-this pelvis in half trying to squeeze him forward like the last squizzle of toothpaste. It's become clear that the issues I have with him are only in part my own; the arthritis in his hocks is the major culprit. MkII is unhappy, to put it mildly, because although she's been given the okay to retire him down to Tennessee when she leaves (which won't be until her husband finishes school...a year, maybe? she's been vague, and I'm not sure she's got any plans to teach or rejoin her EMT crew set up), she doesn't have a facility ready for him. But he needs to be retired sooner rather than later. He moves stiffly and will eventually buck to show his discomfort; that's not a horse that belongs in a teaching barn, and it seems cruel to keep him here.

Simon, however, is in fine fettle and fetlock. He is, as mentioned, a chestnut, about 15 hands, with one white sock and one white stocking on his hind legs. His front hooves look big and ringed to me, like maybe at some point they were allowed to grow out too long, but he picks them up promptly and doesn't pull away, so apparently there's no trauma he's worrying about. His body is pure QH, but his neck is long and goosey, his head is very delicate, and his mane is very wavy, suggesting that there might be a little Morgan or other crossbreeding in his background. His muzzle and mouth are so small, in fact, that the barn's having trouble finding a bit to fit him; they may end up trying him in a hackamore or bitless bridle, although God knows what the insurance would say. Anyway, I volunteer the barn for the hassle of finding proper tack, because his canter makes me want to sing and utter cheerful blasphemies and flee into the hills with him. His walk is fine and forward, his trot not a true Western shuffly jog but also unlikely to bounce a rider out of the saddle, his hand gallop fast but not frightening. But his canter, oh sweet merciful heavens. Surely MkII would say something if he were genuinely gaited, but that's the closest comparison for feel—there's just no impact at all in his canter, as close to floating as any QH I've ever been on. Mwah. Love it.

I learned about his hand gallop by accident, cuing too strongly the first time. It wasn't a problem in my case, but later the other instructor took him out for a lap. She too got the hand gallop at first, and as she was trying to bring him down she encountered the bitting issue just as he encountered an unexpected herd of deer. He went sideways fast, and after a second of fighting for balance she went otherways and down. She popped up with nothing worse than a cracked dignity, some bruising on her ass, and grumpy knowledge that today is likely to involve lots of muscle soreness.* After running around in a panic for a few seconds, Simon calmed down and came over to be reasonable. Once we were sure he was mellow, I got back on and walked him back to where he'd seen the TERRIBLE HORSE-DEVOURIN' MONSTAHS so that he wouldn't end the lesson on a scary note. The deer THDMs were gone and he didn't act spooky at the spot, which is good—some horses will always have the vapors at the place where they saw something narsty, but he's evidently not one of them—and that was the end of the excitement. Well, except for me acting like I just saw a Beatle. New horse! New horse!

* Oh, and she'll have to bake something. The rule here and at several local barns is that anyone who takes a fall during a lesson must bring in homemade baked goods before the next lesson. I think it's meant to displace some embarrassment: If you're on your ass in the dust and everyone is cheering because now you have to bring them sweets, you don't feel so much that they're judging you as a rider. You do, however, feel somewhat persecuted.

PS If anyone's looking for a pony, one of the boarders is selling her QH/TB eventer. FOR FIFTEEN THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS. Not that I'm in shock.

We may experience some slight turbulence

New pony at the barn! New pony at the barn! More to come on him, but cross your fingers for my renaming to stick (previous efforts to rebaptise Max the Halflinger as Halfpint, in honor of his wee size and resemblance to a draft horse, were sadly unsuccessful). Yesterday's cute little chestnut, who has lovely warm eyes, perfect ground manners, a canter that made me want to stand up in the stirrups and cheer, and a general willingness to please, arrived wearing the ridiculous name of Tank. He's still a little wary, as any horse is in a new place, but while he's always on the watch lest someone near him act unpredictable and wacky, he's trying to do his best. His ring skills and perfect manners have already attracted a coterie of admirers, women with ready smiles and grimy hands. He's in beautiful condition, well muscled and polished of coat. He's here on approval, but given the warmth he's already engendered in many hearts, I suspect he'll be asked to stay. But not as Tank. Tank. Feh.

Hm, what's a name appropriate for someone who's a little nervous but also smart, shiny, buff, and appealing? Funny but not glib, unpretentious but evocative, appropriate for daily use but maybe a bit of an inside joke?

Simon it is.

Consolatory expedients

I didn't watch the Derby, and events like Eight Belles' death make me never want to see or hear of another horse race ever again. You could argue that every horse ever put under saddle is under some sort of compulsion, that TBs are like sled dogs and have that desire to run bred into their bones, that most racers don't die on the track or suffer major long-term injury or end up sold to butchers, that racing is one of the few ways that most Americans see and support any form of horse industry. I don't care; watching races makes me slightly sick, and I've pretty much given it up. The loss of one non-betting, non-track visiting individual won't bring the industry to a screeching halt, of course, but it will make me feel like less of a voyeur.

Lest all that fumfering sound too noble, in fairness be it spoken that I had forgotten it was Derby day. I was busy making chocolate-chip banana bread of such fearsome deliciousness that it must be gotten out of my hands vitement lest it end up elsewhere on my anatomy with equal vitesse. This recipe is so easy and yet so tasty—and involves no fat beyond that of two egg yolks and the chocolate, which is so full of antioxidants that it's practically a health food, so that's all right—that you'd be tempted to let whole groves of bananas go squishy just to have an excuse to make another batch. Don't resist.

Earn your spurs

Although he wouldn't have been my pick to play Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings movies, ain't no denyin' that Viggo Mortensen is a horseman through and through, that rare modern actor who can ride well. It was just a tiny bit distracting that he was the only rider in the Rohirrim scenes whose horse was collected into a classical frame. There have been plenty of equine glitches in modern movies, like the final scene of "Hidalgo" (itself a terribly cheesy flick) in which the title pony is released to join his wild brethren and takes off after them, showing his...ach, damn, showing his neatly shod heels, the moral equivalent of showing Queen Elizabeth I with braces, but you can't fault Mortensen's work in the saddle.

The fact that he is in a position to grant wishes for his fellow fanatics behind the scenes is really just icing on the cake.

Bullet-form update

Summarizing:

• Dressage: Laura remains huge and slow, the heavily shedding glacier of our class. I am a little faster with the whip this time and she gives me better energy, but the bending exercises remain a challenge. I leave limping, hip a-grumble and legs a-sore. "She reminds me of something," says Pat. "Or someone." "A big old lady in house slippers?" "HA. Yes." Even mares of a certain age need yoga, though, and dressage-bound she will stay.
• Western: Chock with dread, I nonetheless return, making a last-ditch attempt to be a good student. Molly, my partner for the day, still refuses to turn right, shoving her head out and bolting toward Sterling whenever I cue for a bend. We try bending her at the walk, at the jog, facing this way, facing that. No joy. She wants to be with him, he is her one true love. We try having her follow him through a figure-eight pattern around two barrels; she will follow him around barrels, but then she figures out that she'd rather cut across and stand by his side to face the world. He is disdainful but doesn't threaten her the way he does other geldings or higher-status mares. Eventually we teach her a cloverleaf pattern, and I stop before each barrel, gather in the inside rein, and don't move her until I've got her pointing her nose inward. This, to my surprise and delight, works. She can turn right! It's hard to tell which of us is more shocked.
  
• Western, the switchening: Sterling's mom and I switch mounts for a few minutes so that I can ride a horse who doesn't have problems turning. Instead I get a horse who eels from side to side with my breathing, as hyperresponsive as a glider in an updraft. I ask for the trot, and he wobbles off, not at all sure why his mom isn't running the show. His trot jolts me out of the saddle with every step, and he responds to my jiggling by moving into a floating canter I could happily ride for days. "Slow him down! Circle him!" calls Mk II. I don't want to, but I do. I'm grinning like an idiot. I ask Sterling's mom how she manages to sit that jog. She rolls her eyes, shakes her head. "Oh, it's only taken me four years to learn how. You've just got to sit and sit and sit." Fun in Western again. I had given up.

Checking kites

Kite pics! Photographic evidence to the contrary, I don't wear my stripey Hot Topic-esque gloves all the time, just when it's chilly and I'll need manual dexterity but can't rationalize wearing my riding gloves, or when I'm being very juvenile. Both applicable here.

I spent a quiet weekend, after a long cafe dinner with friends on Friday, napping and cleaning and mulling over what to do about the situation with Teacherwoman Mk II. It seems increasingly likely that I'll end up dropping her class, which will mean having gone from three hours of saddle work a week to one, unless I find another local barn that suits me. The odds of finding another Western class are slim, but more English work, even jumping, would still let me keep the appropriate leg tone and flexibility. Riding is supposed to be fun, and for the last month or so I've had dressage classes that were fantastic, followed the next night by Western classes that have left me wretched with frustration. That's not to say that dressage has been easy and that everything I've tried has worked, but each time I've come out thinking, "Okay, so that worked and this didn't. Next time we can work on this and make sure not to lose that." (God knows what the horses have been thinking, although for Cappi it's probably some variant on, "Sup-sup-suppertiiiiiime!") In Western, though, I feel like I've regressed; all I can think about when I leave is how many things we couldn't do right. Last week was a low point and is forcing me to reevaluate what I'm getting out of the classes versus what I want. Mk II knows how to ride, and many students really enjoy her classes, but she and I may be too similar in all the wrong ways—we're both acerbic, analytical, impatient, sharper-tongued than we mean to be—to work well together as student and teacher.

But lest I leave on a note of repining: The Dupont Circle Farmers Market gave me something of a boost. Not only were there Stayman apples (hey, if Eve fell for them what hope do the rest of us have), there was a bluegrass quartet singing something oddly familiar. "And if fate/ Should break my stride/ Then I give you my Vincent/ To ride." Why do I know that song oh my GOD I know that song! A girl could feel special.

Bitter experience?

I'm rereading The Citadel of the Autarch (which Wikipedia contends was once misprinted as The Castle of the Otter) and savoring, as always, the illusion that I will someday understand exactly what is going on in the story. In the meantime, I enjoy Severian's company. Damn but Gene Wolfe can write.

Since the time I had ridden Vodalus's charger out of Saltus, I had supposed in my innocence that all mounts might be divided into two sorts: the highbred and swift, and the cold-blooded and slow. The better, I thought, ran with the graceful ease, almost, of a coursing cat; the worse moved so tardily that it hardly mattered how they did it. It used to be a maxim of one of Thecla's tutors that all two-valued systems are false, and I discovered on that ride a new respect for him. My benefactor's mount belonged to that third class (which I have since discovered is fairly extensive) comprising those animals that outrace the birds but seem to run with legs of iron upon a road of stone. Men have numberless advantages over women and for that reason are rightly charged to protect them, yet there is one great one women may boast over men: No woman has ever had her organs of generation crushed between her own pelvis and the bony spine of one of these galloping brutes. That happened to me twenty or thirty times before we reined up, and when I slid over the crupper at last and leaped aside to dodge a kick, I was in no very good mood.

Does what it says on the tin

This morning the dermatologist swapped me a little dermis for two tiny stitches and a warning not to lift heavy objects or twist around too much for the next few days. Hoisting weighty things in a torque-wise manner is probably out, putting paid to the idea of tacking up a horse tonight or tomorrow. I could always ask someone else to do the pregame work, but then there's mounting up and the near-certainty that something would go wrong in a way that called for twisting, so after a little inner struggle I gave up and canceled my lessons for the week. I am grumpy but lack the nerve to face down the RN if I were to bust a suture by, say, wrestling with Okie's right-turn issues. So, apologies: no horse gossip this week. To make up for it, here are a few objects of coveting. Secret Santa presentations cheerfully considered.

Last night's mini-med presentation on NSAIDs was a general disappointment. The presenter was new to the program and hadn't planned the lecture very well, so we spent a lot of time flipping back and forth in the enormous packet of slides and being given tantalizing glimpses of information there wasn't time to address. Some of the presentation was borderline insulting, including the reading aloud of a printed list of NSAIDs on the market, and some was overly technical given the audience. Not quite nul points, because she included some interesting material on why the COX-2 inhibitors were put on the market (and why they're being pulled) and some fascinating data showing that the pain relief from opiate-NSAID combos is inferior to that of some prescription NSAIDs alone, but overall it was a little scattershot and not the best use of two hours. My favorite Q&A moment involved someone demanding to know why the pain-relieving effect of leech bites had not been discussed. Was it because the FDA hasn't approved them for use and the medical institution is biased against alternative therapies? The presenter just looked at her blankly for a second and said, "No, it's because they're not NSAIDs." Hee! (Pedantic NB: Leeches are, in fact, approved for use in U.S. medical facilities, although not specifically as analgesics, and were the first live-critter medical devices approved by the FDA. Maggots were the second. Disgusting medical knowledge, heyah, GETcher disgusting medical knowledge.)

Wrangle wrangle

Tickets: Too much money.
Car rental: Not very much money.
Dental insurance: So very much money.
Wrangling cattle for a cowboy who once hollered at you because you declined to bulldog a charging cow: Absolutely priceless.

Which is to say: Tickets to AZ, I has them. Last year's fun was tempered by the need to get up at o-hell-no-thirty in very chilly predawn darkness. This year the weather should at least be warmer, since we'll be down there in May, and instead of layers of shirts I will be toting SPF Avogadro's Number to protect my neo-Victorian pallor. I'm almost more nervous this time, because working later in the season means more of the calves will be big and ornery, while I have not added much mass. Last year there were a couple of times when I had to yell for one of the guys to lean on my shoulders lest the calf on which I was resting my entire weight still manage to get up. I suppose I could line my chaps with lead plates, but that's some spendy smelting tailoring right there.

Dressaging this week was the usual fun. I got there early enough to snag Cappi, hah! And after just one week on Laura, I had to relearn to find his barrel. It's tough having long legs and a teeny horse. He was great, though; at one point he considered going back to his old left-evasion ways, just as I was bending him and asking him to reach down for the bit. But a little leg pressure, and suddenly he relaxed, reaching down like a champ and keeping his energy forward even as his head dropped. Bless. Max the square peg was back in class, doing his usual routine of "oh God, cantering, so much work, two strides is all I got, boss!" riiiight up until his rider slipped the crop behind her leg and smacked him smartly. Suddenly, as twere a miracle, he found all sorts of energy; she never tapped him again, but he had gotten the picture. Turns out he has a very pretty canter, too, so kudos to her for determination and timing.

Western was...well. I love me a Western saddle, I love having a single hand on the reins, give me a smart cow pony and watch me try to hang on. But it is ridiculously frustrating to work with horses that aren't consistently trained to respond to Western cues, and yet be told to improve my cuing. Not sure that this class will stick; I'm having trouble working with this teacher. It would be different, as would so many many things, if I had the money to keep and train my own horse, but for now I'm trying to grit my teeth and be zen with every bone in my body. "You get all tense," says Teacherwoman MkII, and it takes my limited self-control not to snap anything smart-assed back. (This counts as personal growth.) So we'll see.

Dinner tonight with Mr. and Mrs. JackZodiac at Restaurant K was a lovely treat. I got the chocolate pie, which comes with homemade sour cream and sour cherry coulis and which The Voice had gotten during our Restaurant Week dinner. It's still toe-curlingly, pass-me-the-cigarette, I-just-got-religion good, but I'd better do a hell of a lot of running around at the kite festival tomorrow to compensate. Swope's recipe makes the kind of dessert that can single-platedly shift your center of gravity. The fact that I had it after an orange/jicama/spinach salad with hibiscus vinaigrette and some luscious rockfish Veracruz did not help. Well, okay, it helped with other things. But I'm betting Danny wouldn't thank me for squashing his calves flat.

Are we gonna need a bigger stick?

Pat's back! Dressage again! Generalized hurrah!

I was just too late yesterday to get either of my regular ponies, with one student snagging Cappi and the other sharking Grayson, although of course to steal Grayson is to borrow a world of potential trouble. I refuse to ride Edmund, because God did not make me with removable pieces or boundless wells of patience and calm, so I settled on Laura, a big gray mare who hasn't been a regular in our class.

It's been about four years since I was on Laura, which puts it back in the days when my teacher was a Slavophilic vet-school grad prone to saying things like, "Let us proceed to the ring, hortatory subjunctive!" Laura had recently come back from an enforced vacation, which had followed an earlier vacation during which she was turned out with a colt who people thought wasn't sexually mature. Oops, it turns out you really ought to check before assuming that. Bomp-chicka had apparently ensued. So Laura went off and had her foal, and eventually the two were separated and Laura came back to the barn. Oh, and she was still lactating. So then the game became keeping her from getting completely backed up and developing mastitis, but not encouraging her body to continue to lactate. Long story short, my teacher turned to me after the lesson and said casually, "Hey, want to learn to milk a horse?" Uh. Hm. Let me consult the files. Nope, nope, never had a weirder offer. But what the hell, nothing ventured nothing made into airag.

When I've seen Laura work in the years since, she's been kind of shlubby and reluctant, though not actively naughty, so I wasn't thrilled about riding her. But by the time I'd figured out how to climb onto her and get my legs adjusted (she' s at least a hand taller than my regulars and considerably rounder of barrel), she had seen the dressage crop and done some mental math. Conclusion: "Better do what the lady with the stick says." Not only did she move out at a solid working walk, she worked her ass off in the maneuvers, managing respectable leg-yields and turns on the forehand and bends to both sides while moving straight. We couldn't quite get the shoulder-in, maybe because by then both she and I were getting tired, she because she's out of shape and me because I too am out of shape and was trying to squeeze her huge bulk forward with my puny legs. All in all, though, the class went very well; it's heartening to find that I can transfer cues from horse to horse without too much trouble. The taste of progress is delicious.

After all the detacking and grooming fun and games, I went home to change and go back out to the gym. What kind of parasite has eaten my brain, I do not know, but it wants its treadmill time. Thank God for podcasts.

Limping toward Gomorrah

Did you know that horses are heavy? And that the hooves of them are hard? And that standing between a horse and her grain is not smart? If so, you're three points ahead of me and my big toe this morning. I've gotten so much better about not swearing in the barn, which since the place is full of moppets and their parents is for the best, but last night I backslid with a vengeance.

Last week, Heza and I had a horrible time, the kind that you get when the horse is in A Mood and you are in A Mood, and the two of you end up pissing one another off as though you were roommates and the infamous Who Cleans the Bathroom fight had reared its head again, but instead of maturely talking it out or just leaving it alone until you can be grown-ups, you stay in the same room and silently try to tweak one another's nerves. Like that. And my hip was acting up, so I couldn't press him forward without feeling the muscles on that side going numb in a way that portends an expensive visit to the Bulgarian masseuses, and Teacherwoman MkII was not sympathetic. I avoided writing about all this stuff at the time, because the whining, oh my God, the whining would've made all the dogs on the internet (oh yeah, like you don't know they're reading...what else is Sitemeter for?) apply for asylum in Brazil. So what with one thing and another, I was pleased that last night promised a new-to-me match, a short little chestnut QH mare named Molly. Her quirks are inconsistent speed, which I can handle, and not turning right, an issue that caused some of the aforementioned backsliding and swearing and eventually the use of stronger direct rein than I prefer. Sing it with me: Sommmmebody needs grounnnndworrrrk! She also wanted very much to be next to Sterling, which is a problem because he's a gelding and will never be the boy she wants; he knows it and therefore defends his space fiercely. But overall Molly and I handled things pretty well: She does downward transitions on a dime and responds well to soft steady leg, both things that I need to practice more, and I was happy by the end of the class.

But then, of course, back at her stall, I was stupid enough to leave my toes where she wanted her hoof to be, and instead of lifting her foot she tried to press through me as I yelled many loud bad words. The running I did later on doesn't seem to have hurt the toe any further, but if the nail ends up a casualty it's getting blamed on my hard-core fitness routine (*cough*) rather than on my equine idiocy, because after five-plus years I should know better.

Thanks a latte

Fun and games with my favorite bendy boy again. Eventually I'll get around to asking Pat to snap some pictures while we're working together, despite past evidence that seeing those kinds of pictures sends me into insta-despond at how gawky I look on a horse. I've taken some quick shots of Cappi while he's been on cross-ties, but they're never very good: He's always peering around to see whether I've manifested treats, or he's squinching up his face at something, or he's just glaring, ears back and mouth wrinkled, because I am taking pictures rather than FEEDING HIM or GROOMING HIM or otherwise making his life as he wants it to be NOW RIGHT NOW. He's kind of an enormous whiny toddler about the whole cross-ties and photos thing. Which is a pity, because whenever I see him being ridden I'm struck again by how cute he is, all glossy roundy black Morgany body and long thick show-pony tail, and I would like to share the adorableness. One of these days.

Cappi had been nicely warmed up at a jumping class, so as soon as I was in the saddle he moved out with a fine swinging walk, barrel rolling from side to side and helping loosen up my hips and back. He resisted some of the moves once he figured out that I wasn't going to let him just run around (in fairness be it spoken, he will do all the moves at speed), and at one point he thought about spooking at the wind, but overall we did pretty well. We even did some cantering, although to keep him from bolting we limited it to three strides of canter and about thirty of trot, repeatedly. He grumbled but obeyed. At one point Pat called for me to reset my inside leg, which had drifted forward, so that Cappi would bend more smoothly into the canter. "I can't just flail around and hope for the best?" She said no. "Well, hell, that's my whole philosophy of riding; now what'm I sposed to do?" The best part of the lesson was watching another student try to canter the new Halflinger pony, who runs with all the grace and coordination of a crate of beer falling down a flight of stairs. You don't want to laugh, because someday it could be you on that horse, but wow does it look as though cantering is something Max was not designed by God to do.

My reward after class is to spend a few minutes with QC, Pat's big pinto mare. QC greets me with a nuzzle and immediately stretches out her neck, suggesting that I might scratch along her crest and down her shoulders. In return she rests her head on my shoulder or arm and nibbles the seams of my jacket. When I turn to go she looks despondent. Pat is certainly her person, but QC has enough love to go around.

Hello Cappi my old friend

Moohahaha, now you'll have that song stuck in your head for a week.

We're suffering the revenge of February, as a batch of nadger-freezing air direct from Canada keeps us all from enjoying the extra hours of sun. I went to dressage last night all y-bundled up, silk tights and fleece breeches and three sweaters under a fleece jacket and down vest, gloves on my icy claws and a pair of chemical packs tucked into my boots (in vain, because when the mercury drops too far, my lamesauce corpuscles won't be tempted past the knee line for anything short of booze-induced capillary dilation). The indoor ring isn't heated, but it blocks the wind and is generally bearable for the riders if not the instructor.

After my long hiatus from dressage, it was a nervous joy to be back with Cappi. Joy because he's fun, nervous because who knows what he'd been up to while I was off. Smoking! Drinking! Lascivious conversation and crim con! Needless worries, as it turned out. He didn't display any bad habits, even when horse A spooked at invisible tigers, causing horse B to ditch his rider in sympathy, causing the horse C to flee the commotion, thereby convincing horse D that he was next on the bogeyman's menu. But Cappi, who had been trotting along, flicked an ear at the noise, slowed to a walk on my cue, and then sighed. Sighed. This is the same horse who three months ago would climb trees if a deer walked within a mile of the gate? The horse who would panic and flee if asked to work away from the other horses? The horse who to this day gives his Western riders fits? I do not pretend to understand. I am only grateful. I confess that I truly love getting him to bend and flex and show off. Pat's trying to make things more difficult for us so that he has to listen and can't assume he knows what he's supposed to do, so the class is never dull, but Cappi seems to have found his groove in dressage.

Apart from the cold fingers, what I really don't like about lessons in the winter is dealing with the blankets, which cannot be laundered every day and inevitably smell of urine (reason one, there are straps under the belly and the horse can't exactly hold them out of the way when nature calls; reason two, the horses lie down in their stalls, wherein they've usually relieved themselves). The blankets are big and bulky, so you have to sort of heave them up and wrestle them into place, and then you have to reach under the horse's belly to get at the surcingles, and what with one thing and another it's nearly impossible not to end up smelling of horse wee. That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

Time counts and keeps countin'

I came home from my week of ranchy self-indulgence (ah, the difference a single letter makes) to find a message from the barn letting me know that my lease with Doc is being suspended, effective immediately, for the foreseeable future on account of he needed more time off. Let's see, what's the word...peeved? miffed? ah yes: pissed. I was pissed.

But I took a couple of days and calmed down and didn't ask for details until I was sure that I could do it without flying off the handle, and now I've got an explanation that makes me sad but that I can't argue: Doc is getting old and stiff. Like most horses, he can't talk, so he expresses discomfort by misbehaving. The staff are readjusting his meds so that he'll be more comfortable, and he has a new pair of purple bell boots to help him not step on his own hooves (dignity be damned, though—he looks silly in sparkly violet), but I hope like hell that they're also looking for a comfortable retirement situation. Previous retirees have ended up with some pretty cushy billets; irascible but good-hearted Battle, f'rinstance, is living out his days as a practice pony for an equine massage therapist. We should all have it so good. In the meantime, Doc will have less work, and more of it will be slow. Fortunately, apples are not contraindicated.

At Western this week I got Heza, a cute but grouchy quarter horse who is infamous for ignoring any cues not filed exactly as per spec. Despite his pedantic tendencies, I like him; he's flexible and I've learned the hard way to respect his memory. A few months ago I tried him on a barrels course, doing a simple cloverleaf pattern. Sure, he's a former barrels pony, but how much would he really recall? Yes, the hominid, ostensibly the brains of the operation, somehow forgot that prey animals tend to have extremely precise long-term memories.

Teacherwoman sent us out to practice the pattern slowly at first. Heza's got a jackhammer trot, steady and a bit uncomfortable, so I was focusing mostly on my seat and looking for the line as he clopped steadily around the first barrel. Then the second. Then halfway around the third. And just as I was looking toward the gate, he dropped his inside shoulder almost far enough to pitch me sideways into the rusty oil barrel, bucked hard twice, and bolted for the imaginary chute. I got him back in hand (okay, so the fence did most of the work), swallowed my heart, and squeaked, "What was that? Did something bite him?"

"Ah," said Teacherwoman carefully. "He wants his head on the return, and you were still holding his mouth when he got around there, so he tried to ditch you. Try him again, still at the jog, but let him go on the third barrel. And, er, don't forget to pivot out your inside leg and grab that horn. Grabbing is fine in barrels." Which I did, and when we clopped steadily up to that third point he went around it like an oiled silk scarf and pelted home as I clung on and whooped. Arthritic and punctilious he may be, but he hasn't forgotten a damn thing.

He's good times. I vote we rent a cow and let him learn to cut.

Please to donning the bad idea jeans

Off the top of my head, there are about three brazilian reasons not to go beyond the usual "four gaits and maybe a little jumping" rides I've been doing for the last few years. After all, I have yet to fall off, sustain serious injury, or damage any horse during the course of those trips. The smart money says that keeping that record is the way to go. If I got to feeling bored, I could switch it up by taking out an Icelandic pony and learning the tolt, making it five gaits and maybe a little jumping.

But certain things run in the blood. Il Padre boasts a bit of Georgian and Cossack heritage, and his father kept a brace of Orlov trotters back in the motherland; La Mère, although the child of generally peaceful Anglo-Saxon farmers, lusts for edged weapons (I got her a knife in Junín and she almost wept), practices tai chi sword for hours at a go, and once spent a weekend studying kyudo. Mix those chromosomes and perhaps it's no surprise that you end up with someone who thinks that spending a vacation learning horseback archery in New Zealand from a Magyar bowmaker would be the ne plus ultra in the history of esoteric leisure-time baddassery.

I mean, the hell with always having the last word; I could learn to always have the Parthian shot.

Back in the...wait

Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here, to the castle beyond the...damn, that's not right either. Back in DC, though, which in certain lights could be considered a goblin city, although so far nobody has reported sightings of David Bowie in a mulleted fright wig. The Hill Country Equestrian Lodge offered good horsey times (Diane, the hostess: "So what would you like to do tomorrow?" me: "Er, ride a lot some more?" Diane: "I think we can arrange that"), along with some moments of humility in the form of not being able to get a trained reining horse to do my will in the ring until Diane came over and shouted instructions at us both. Downsides included a drive to the airport on a guaranteed traffic-free route that is almost certainly so on the weekends but not on Friday at noon, forcing me to make up time by taking the back roads at highly illegal speed ("WHEEE! Fucking hell, town limits, reduce speed to...55?!? Are you fucking KIDDING ME?"—fo' reals, Texas highways are kind of the autobahn with added pickups); having my flights into and from Dallas delayed; and taking a divot out of the runway at National. But them's just minor kvetching.

The HCEL seemed to focus more on clinics in the ring than on pure trail. The only other guests were doing a clinic program, so they spent mornings in the ring and then went out on trail to practice what they were learning. The clinics would be wonderful training for beginners interested in long rides (as indeed this couple were), and even a more advanced rider could learn a lot, but on balance I was happier taking ponies out on the trails morning and afternoon. I'm lazy that way, and after surviving two Equitours adventures have some sense of what to expect in terms of pain and fatigue (vacation, am I doin it rong?). If I were to consider competition in reining and somehow miraculously acquired a good horse and the money-time continuum to ship it down, Diane would be high on my list of trainers, but that's not the case at the moment. Still, it was a good way to see the park and try a different pile of gear and get all virtuously sore from the exercise. Pikshahs to come soon, whenever I can get Flickr to cooperate with my computer, which it was not doing this weekend. Perhaps the site was observing the holiday sensation that's sweeping the nation: Darwin Day!

[ETA: Photohraffies.]

Shouldn't I have this, shouldn't I have this...

...shouldn't I have all of this and
PASSIONATE SNORGLES
From you.

State of the Union

The last official ovations-mandatory pompous gasbag speech from a man memorably described as looking tremendously pleased just to pronounce all the words in a given sentence correctly, tonight on every single channel! Because lord forbid we miss even a moment of the set-piece applause. At no other point in the year do I regret the lack of a back-bencher tradition so much as at this annual ritual of windbaggerie. In past years the Goo has rhapsodized about the fun to be had at SOTU watch parties, as well as her disappointment that the dangers posed by chimeras ("Walk on two legs, eat no flesh, drink black coffee, ARE WE NOT MEN?") aren't discussed every year.

In the interests of mental health, however, I will be spending my evening with my special four-footed feller instead of in front of a TV. Hello, me little Tick-Tock, shall we dance?

(Thanks to Iosif for the pic and for keeping Doc's interest with a handy bag of apples.)

[ETA: We did a lot of transition and backing work, with a break to watch giant QC get the vapors about our tiny new Shetland pony, then I put him on cross-ties, brushed him down, picked out his feet, buckled on his blanket, and turned him back into his stall. He looked at me expectantly as I gathered up the bridle and brushes, then he sighed and went into his grain bucket. When I came back a few minutes later, making the little "no alarm, just pay attention" clicking sound, his head came up and I would swear that he was thinking, "Ah, RIGHT." Granny Smiths this time. He likes what he is used to.]

Speaking softly

To my sorrow, I haven't gotten to try out the new dressage crops (thanks, Santa, ya perv) on Grayson. I don't cherish hopes of flogging him into good behavior, but the crops are long enough to allow the tip to rest just behind your leg, allowing you clarify your leg cues by touching the horse's side. Paraplegics and amputees can perform dressage using just two whips rather than leg pressure; it's neat to watch. So I have high hopes of seeing work with Grayson go forward beautifully, at least once I figure out how to negotiate getting into the saddle while holding one without being kicked into next week.

But for ineffable reasons related to the horse list being blatantly manipulated to favor a teacher who always rubs me the wrong way, I got yet another partner this week, one who is such a nervous squirrel that I couldn't even consider using a crop. Roosevelt is completely adorable, a tiny chestnut Arab pony who looks like he was made by Gund or some other mass manufacturer of the huggable, and there's not a malicious bone in him. But like most Arabs, he's highly strung and tends to jitter. He's got the softest bit in the barn, a simple snaffle covered with rubbery plastic, because he'll stop on a dime if he thinks that something's about to hit his mouth. Nother words, you've got to ride him with perfect balance and featherlight hands, ideally with a zen level of calm and steady alpha waves and a clean conscience and pure of word and deed. Don't get me wrong, I like Roo well enough, because he's trying, but at this point, erm, I could use a slightly broader margin of error. After a couple of months working with my regular boys, riding Roo is like switching from a Civic into a jury-rigged jalopy with supersensitive brakes and acceleration and really woggly steering. He does have a lovely canter, and in the brief interludes between dead stops, he has a floating trot, unusually smooth for the breed, so if he could just be trained into a steadier frame of mind, he might be lovely.The woman who feels about Roo the way I feel about Doc watched the class and confirmed that the problems I had were the ones she has, so at least I didn't damage his fragile psyche further. Yay?

In other news, Restaurant Week, she ees feeneeshed. The highlight was Restaurant K by Alison Swope, where the arugula salad with gorgonzola, beets, and shaved fennel, venison pot roast with roasted root vegetables, and cornbread pudding were perfect comfort foods on a sleety night. Lowest marks to Taberna del Alabardero, which offered a binary choice for each chintzy course, ignored our table most of the evening, and tried to double-charge me for my glass of Molinet 2006 (which, to be fair, was a great recommendation). And now I plan to live on carrots and lentils for a month or two, or at least until it's time to go to Seattle. Shit, that's next week.