Our horses have several “rolling” spots in their pasture. Generally they eschew the clean, dry grass for a mud pit or at least a lot of dirt.
Freedom rolls several times a day, as far as I can tell — immediately before I want to ride (that’s in the muddy spot), immediately after I’ve hosed him down (that’s in the dry spot) and any other time he thinks that it would be better to be dirty!
Who says draft horses can’t run? Check out this race — and it’s exciting finish — of Shire horses in England. Certainly the thundering of the hooves coming down to the finish line must have been impressive in person as these horses stood between 17.3 and 18.2 hands and weighed about a ton.
Zelda has settled into her new home. New England? No problem!
Zelda thinks she might want to be a foxhunter when she grows up so she has come to stay with me for the summer and fall to test the theory. For me, it was like Christmas in June! How lucky am I to get a beautiful horse to ride while Freedom is in recovery?
She arrived this morning from North Carolina and settled right into her new abode. I’m very excited to ride her — she’s a beautiful horse who seems very level headed. After 13 hours on the trailer, though, I thought she’d enjoy a day off!
So far Zelda has been the epitome of laid back. She trotted around her paddock a few times, had a roll and then proceeded to eat. She touched noses with Curly and
Zelda and Curly meet.
likes to know that Curly and Fortune are close by, but has not shown any anxiety. I’ve checked on her a few times throughout the day and she acts like she’s lived here for months. Nice to see her settle in so quickly.
“So where’s Sheldon?” you might ask. Sheldon is summering on Cape Cod where he has his own working student to focus just on him. He is still available for adoption through CANTER NE.
Freedom continues to recover nicely. My greatest challenge now is keeping him calm. I’m trotting him for up six minutes during a ride (a minute at a time) but we’ve had some impromptu cantering in place and a few spectacular spooks. I can’t wait until I can take him out and just let him roll . . . but that’s a ways off still.
Happy Father’s Day to all those horse show dads and to the ones who give less visible, no less important, support. My father never watched me ride, but I couldn’t have done it without him.
Can you imagine his scope if he were 16.2″?
This morning our paddocks are soggy, dreary and slippery as all get out. I face planted into the mud earlier this week after slipping (very graceful!) and am trying to keep Freedom quiet so he doesn’t re-injure himself. This is not what June in New England is supposed to look like.
IF—-you always jump little jumps, say, lower than three feet, and always have little jumps scattered around the place where you ride, it may be that both your sense of what constitutes “normal” and the scope of your comfort zone will shrink to coincide with THAT version of reality.
IF, however, you keep stretching your comfort zone, your courage will grow right along with the size of the jumps. In other words, I think courage is like a balloon, you can expand it or shrink it by your actions and perceptions.In other words, I think courage is like a balloon, you can expand it or shrink it by your actions and perceptions.
I read this on Denny Emerson’s Facebook feed and it really struck a chord. I know exactly how this happens. It’s like scope creep in reverse. Small things become big. Your comfort zone shrinks and before you know it, you are talking about the “good old days” when you were younger and braver. It’s certainly happened to me. The cross country jumps on our hunts are pretty much all the same size — small to medium — and when I set up jumps in the ring, I don’t push myself if I’m not in a lesson. Although some people might think that I’m brave because I foxhunt, I’ve actually become quite a conservative rider. Fences look bigger to me now, even when I know they are only 2’6″ or 2’9″ they give me pause.
I was watching a lesson today and my friend was jumping a triple bar that was about 3’3″ and I wondered whether I would canter down to it with as little angst as she did. I used to do it without a second thought. I know Freedom can do it, but when did I get to be such a chicken? Is it a function of getting older? Or do I need to inflate my balloon and push my personal envelope a little more this summer?
How about all of you? Is your balloon full? Or does it need some more air?
Great story in the NYT Racing Blog. Click on the photo to read the whole story.
Great article yesterday on the New York Times Racing Blog about Philotimo, an OTTB who was rescued from a neglect situation. Glad to see the good news stories featured — a soft landing for the gelding and responsible former racing owners who stepped up to the plate and helped fund his rehab.
Of course, there’s also the sad part . . . that a successful racehorse like Timo could fall through the cracks and end up in such dire circumstances.
