Author: Amanda

equestrian history

Movie Review: Justin Morgan Had a Horse (1972)

Amanda3 Comments

Justin Morgan Had a Horse (1972)
(Available to watch instantly on Amazon and iTunes, or to buy on DVD on Amazon)

Let me be very explicitly up front and very clear before I delve into a review: this movie has little to nothing to do with either the actual historical events surrounding Justin Morgan and his horse Figure OR with the Marguerite Henry book of the same name.

If you want the historical review of the movie, I’ll be posting one on Figuring History in the next few days, so keep an eye there.

In the meantime, let’s do the horse-centric review of the movie. To that end, let me summarize the plot.

Justin Morgan is a schoolteacher and musician who travels to Massachusetts to settle a debt owed to him by his cousin. Said cousin died penniless, and the only things Justin receives are two horses and a cart. The younger of the horses is a small animal that Justin has named Figure.

The voiceover tells us that Justin Morgan Has a Dream: he wants to do something that will live on after him, something that really means something. Simultaneously, he wants to show the world a new way to train a horse. (Though at no point is there any explanation whatsoever of how his way of training a horse is different from any other way of training a horse, though at one point someone mentions that Justin wants to create an “all-around” horse that will do many different things…which is apparently a novel idea?)

Justin goes deep into debt to raise and train Figure, which is a problem because as a schoolteacher he doesn’t make much money to begin with. He borrows that money from Squire Fiske, who is a rich farmer and horse breeder who looks down on Figure and thinks he’ll never amount to anything. Justin also happens to be in love with Kathleen, who is an indentured servant who owes Squire Fiske five more years of work. Thus, the central tension of the movie is basically a love triangle between Justin, Kathleen, and Figure.

(Please note that the character of Kathleen is entirely invented for the movie, and Joel Goss, Marguerite Henry’s boy narrator, never appears.)

As Figure grows, he proves himself to be good at everything: hauling logs, racing in harness at the trot, and then racing under saddle at the gallop. Kids love him, and he’s fearless. There’s one particularly insane scene in which Figure hauls a log that no other horse could move, and then carries Justin Morgan and Robert Evans bareback down a quarry in a Man From Snowy River style scene in order to beat all the other loggers back to town.

Things finally come to a head, and Squire Fiske demands Figure in payment for Justin Morgan’s debts. Justin sulks and decides to leave town, but then Fiske receives a challenge to race Figure against two New York horses. Justin agrees to stay and train Figure for the big race. If he wins, he gets Fiske to agree to let Kathleen out of the rest of her contract so they can get married.

The big race happens, and Figure wins! Surprise! Not only that, but Squire Fiske is so moved by Figure’s devotion to Justin that he agrees to give the horse back to Justin in addition to letting Kathleen out of her contract. The epilogue scene of the movie shows that Justin, Kathleen, and Squire Fiske have all joined forces to create a new breed of horse.

So that’s the summary. What about from a horse point of view?

Here’s the central problem with this movie. It’s not about the horse. It’s about Justin. Justin’s dreams, Justin’s problems, and Justin’s decisions. The movie even waffles back and forth on what exactly makes Figure so special. Is he just a miracle wonder horse who was born great, and Justin got lucky? Does Justin get credit for recognizing the diamond in the rough and polishing it up? Or could Justin have created a wonder horse out of any old horse he found by the roadside, and the fact that Figure was such a scrawny little thing is only more of a testament to Justin’s skills as a horseman? Different lines of dialogue and scene setups all imply different things, and the movie has no central statement. Played well, that could be a subtle mystery; in this movie, it just comes across as sloppy.

With that in mind, a lot of other things are kind of weird. The way the horse is used in defiance of common sense. (That quarry scene comes to mind, holy crap.) For example, the log-pulling scene, which is a pivotal part of Figure’s legend and Marguerite Henry’s book, has been changed from a simple show of strength on Figure’s part to a show of cleverness on Justin’s – who has men sit on it so the front is lifted off the ground, and who has Figure move to unstick the log before pulling it.

Figure’s pivotal race is also played up as Justin’s cleverness. Figure is training well, but they need to make him faster, so Justin suggests that Robert Evans get up out of the saddle in a jockey crouch to stay off his back. (Duh?) He forges special ultra-light shoes himself. He trains the horse in all weather to be a stoic runner.

The really emotional moments of the movie are all centered on Justin, with Figure occasionally as a feature of those moments, but it’s not about him. It’s about Justin doubting himself, wanting to make a name for himself, trying to overcome odds. Justin doesn’t so much believe in Figure as he believes in himself and the way he’s trained Figure. Losing Figure is just one more setback in his life. He sulks a lot, but he’s not truly devastated.

Training scenes are a bit bizarre. There’s a training montage during which Justin longes Figure from yearling colt on up to two year old…and the horse improves not at all. He’s a brat on the longe line through the whole montage. He just gets bigger and older. That big race that’s the climax of the movie, that Justin trains Figure for? They have a week to train him. A. Week. Granted, the horse is fit already, but…really?

There’s zero attempt to make tack even vaguely period – I’m pretty sure half the horses are just ridden in off-the-rack 1970s hunt saddles and flat bridles. The riding is piss-poor and there are some super-awkward scenes during the race when they try to get close-ups for tension. Buying oats for Figure is a central piece of Justin’s debt to Squire Fiske, when the horse is on lush pasture 24/7.

That said, there’s one thing they got very, very right. The horse they use for close-ups of Figure is a GORGEOUS example of a throwback, foundation Morgan. Just lovely. Many of the scenes with him really show that off. As best as I can tell, they use the same horse pretty much right through. Some of the action scenes it seems like they swapped in another random bay, but otherwise it’s that same beautiful Morgan.

In final summation, this wasn’t a terrible movie. It was perfectly engaging to watch, and at 91 minutes, relatively short. If you turn off the part of your brain that might know anything about history or Marguerite Henry’s book, you’ll probably enjoy it a fair bit. It doesn’t have any glaring flaws, nor any glaring strengths. It’s a perfectly enjoyable, somewhat bland little film.

product review

Product Review: Ariat Terrain

Amanda4 Comments

Ariat Terrains
$94.95 through Smartpak

I bought my first pair of these shoes in taupe, exactly as you see above, at a local tack shop in the clearance section about six years ago. I paid $30; they were the only pair on clearance and they were exactly my size. Win-win!

I loved them almost immediately, and wore them everywhere. They are built much lighter than the average sneaker (the website says 14oz), and they had a substantial heel and a shank through the bottom of the shoe that meant they were sturdier than sneakers – though not quite as much so as a hiking boot.

I wore them to and from the barn; basically anytime I wasn’t on a horse around the barn, I was wearing these. The taupe pair I had were flecked with bloodstains from Tristan’s first colic, when I held his head to and he fought the vet who was tubing him. I was perhaps more emotionally attached to the shoes than I should’ve been after that.

I lost them through no fault of my own, but rather to an over-eager puppy who chewed the uppers to shreds one day. I actually continued to wear them for a little while, but the way the puppy had chewed them meant that they rubbed badly on my ankles.

Enter my second pair, which I paid full price for and have owned for about 4 years now. If you need a strong recommendation, know that I hardly ever pay full price for anything. I love these things that much. I got my second pair in the cordovan color, which is a smooth leather instead of the roughed out look of the taupe.

I waterproofed them new out of the box, and proceeded to wear the everloving shit out of them. So what do they look like 4 years later, and do I still love them as much?

Well, the things I loved before I love just as much. They’re light, comfortable, and a really terrific solution for hanging out around the barn and even for riding with half chaps. The waterproofing has mostly kept them looking ok, though they have a couple of wear points. I have once or twice rubbed some saddle leather conditioner into them, and that always perks them right up.

What do I like less? Well, the uppers have clearly not worn terribly well. If you look at the black edging on the top part in my current photo, you’ll see that it’s worn almost away, and that’s simply from wearing them with jeans. Movement from walking alone has rubbed most of that away. The uppers are also pretty broken down, and I found that I have to use the loop at the back to tug them on now. They don’t slide on smoothly.

They never had much tread to begin with, and that’s now gone to the point of occasionally being slippery on wet surfaces. While the waterproofing held on the surface of the boots, they are NOT waterproof. (Ariat has apparently come out with a newer version of these that is, though.) When I do course walks or jump judging or really any sort of walking through grass in the morning dew, these soak through almost immediately. I went through a phrase of packing multiple pairs of socks per day when eventing, and even then often ended up with nasty swamp foot. Now, I only wear waterproof muck boots for that purpose. These just can’t handle getting wet. For that same reason, these are not for doing chores. They just won’t hold up.

That being said: I still love them. I still wear them all the time, most often now to trail ride. I basically use them when most people would use paddock boots – and find them far, far more comfortable for that purpose than any paddock boot I’ve ever worn. I would buy them again, though I would probably invest in the waterproof version.

diy

DIY Project: Custom Quarter Sheet

Amanda13 Comments

Last winter, I started riding Tristan in a quarter sheet on especially cold days. I borrowed one from the barn’s stash, and really liked it: it kept me warm, and he seemed a bit more comfortable. I started shopping for my own, looking at a bunch of different websites. I didn’t like any of the ones I found: whether the style, color, or price.

Wouldn’t it be just as easy to make my own, I thought? So I bought fabric, ribbon for edging, and when my mother came to visit, she brought her sewing machine. We based the pattern off the one at the barn I liked most – I don’t know what brand or even what size it was.

It was a bit of a rough first attempt, but the cat thought it was the best day ever.
Finished cutting:
We sewed a 1.5″ ribbon doubled over around the edge, which I would probably not do again. I think I’m going to want a blaze orange one for hunting season (coming up soon), and I’m already thinking about new edging material.
Here’s the finished product. I LOVE IT, and have gotten a ton of compliments every time I ride in it. I think it looks so much better than any of the ones you can buy. It ended up being less expensive in terms of materials (which I picked carefully to be on sale), though perhaps not when you factor in the labor cost of figuring out how to do it and then the sewing itself.

I think the only thing I’d change is the bump you can see just above the point of his hip there – we didn’t figure the cut quite right to lay flat. Purely aesthetic.

Have you ever made something from scratch for your horse?

adventures with the vet

My horse never does anything halfway

AmandaLeave a comment

As promised, an update.

I scrubbed away at his cheek with betadine + hot water, and got the scabs off pretty easily. To me, it looks like a cluster of bug bites, like something got stuck under his fly mask and nailed him a couple of times, then he rubbed it hard while itching. Barn manager thinks scrapes. We are both agreed that it looks ugly but not serious. He got Alushield on it and the BM will keep an eye on him.
Before

After
adventures with the vet · endomondo

Never ever dull

AmandaLeave a comment

When I stopped at the barn to check on Tristan last night, the barn manager checked in with me and said she’s more worried about the scab on his cheek than I am – she pointed out that if he’s gotten a burdock stem or something in there it won’t heal. She made a good point, so I agreed to meet her first thing the following morning to scrub it down, pull the scab off, and take a good close look.

I put the puppy in the car, slathered Tris’s cheek with Corona, and then returned to find the puppy had freaked out and puked over every inch of the driver’s side of my shiny new car. Every. Goddamn. Inch. Cue 45 minutes of shampooing, scrubbing, and vacuuming.
So here I am this morning, waiting for the barn manager. I’ve got a bucket of hot water + betadine, gauze, and Alushield. Just waiting and futzing around online.
Oh, and I realized I never shared the Endomondo record of the ride on Sunday. So here you go. Will report back this afternoon on my idiot horse.

trail riding · trailering

Fall Trail Ride at Groton State Forest

Amanda7 Comments

First things first: as I alluded to yesterday, late on Saturday, I started getting a niggling worry about my original Sunday plans to bring Tristan down to the GMHA Fall Foliage Ride. I mean, I always worry, and last week was not exactly ideal preparation, but now I had some concrete reasons.

(Second things: in an attempt to break up the wordiness of this, I’ll insert pictures throughout the text.)

In a nutshell, even the staid, conservative, reliable weather sources were predicting record-breaking high temperatures, up even into the mid-80s. Tristan has more than half of his winter coat grown in already, has not been drinking great this week (though I added in electrolytes and soaked beet pulp to help counteract this) and the really unknown factor: Cushings affects a horse’s ability to regulate its own body temperature. We already knew that Tristan did not cope well with an unseasonable cold snap; how would he do with an unseasonable high? GMHA would be 8.5 miles of terrain about 1.5 hours south of where we lived, so potentially even hotter, with more exertion. (Yes, I know those of you who do 10 miles on a light day are laughing at me right now…sorry!)

I started texting the friend who was planning on going with me, and she responded immediately saying she’d had the same concerns. She also has an older, not in full work horse with a solid start on his winter coat. WHEW. I headed to the barn Saturday night to prep the trailer with everything jumbled in my head, and then talked to the trainer’s barn manager/assistant trainer, M. I laid out the facts and she knew instantly why I was concerned. A few minutes of conversation and she said in our place, she’d fall back on plan B.

Plan B: Groton State Forest. Run by the VT State Parks people, it’s a massive, MASSIVE preserved tract of land – big enough to have seven different state parks within its borders. It’s 26,000 acres, and according to the state park website, the second largest contiguous land holding in the state of Vermont. It’s also about 25 minutes away from the barn, and I’d heard the name tossed about a few times by people when they discussed good places to trail ride around here.

I texted my friend back, and as she pointed out, M. is always right. We scratched from GMHA (even when my horse is healthy, I always seem to be losing money on entries…HORSES…) and re-oriented for Groton. We planned on leaving the same time so as to get the horses home before the heat really hit. I prepped the trailer and looked at the trail map when I got home.

The next morning, after an 80 hour workweek, I got up at 5am and walked the puppy, then headed to the barn. The fog was absolutely unreal – no more than 20 feet visibility. I missed a turn I take every day, sometimes twice a day! Then, when I stopped at the top of the hill to hitch up the trailer, the truck’s wheels slipped and slid in the dewy grass. I backed up and turned and wriggled out of the field, but not without digging the grass up a little bit and then getting myself pointed the wrong way out the field, which necessitated three-pointing the entire rig in some stranger’s driveway so I could get pointed back toward the barn. At 6:30 am. Good thing I’m a confident trailer driver?

We got everything loaded, then loaded both horses. Tris was his usual self, but got on in a minute or two. It was chilly – low 50s – and my trailer gets a lot of air flow, so I put his new Smartpak cooler on for the ride. Then we set out for an extremely pleasant drive: little traffic, all local roads, and once we got back out to the main road from the farm (about 5 minutes) only one turn.

We pulled first into New Discovery State Park, because from our online research it looked like the biggest and most accessible, and therefore the most likely to have plenty of trailer parking. HA. NOPE. It was entirely narrow dirt roads that led to campsites, and the park office wasn’t yet open. (There was a sign saying, “Pick a site and come back after 9am.” Hmmmmmm. Not helpful.) So I three pointed for the second time that morning, and headed back out. We parked by the park office and jumped out to see if there were any maps or any better indications of parking lots at other sites in the state forest. We discovered that while we could in fact park the trailer in a camping spot – and there were some specific horse camping spots – we were both kind of meh on the trails we saw out of the campground, so we moved on.

We settled on Kettle Pond State Park, a few miles down the road, because it looked like it had both a decent parking lot and access to the rail trail through the park that was a piece of the Cross Vermont Trail. Back down the road we went, and about 2 miles later I pulled over and we were right! Though the parking lot was not huge, it was plenty big enough to pull the rig over into the shade, and a short hack back along the (not-busy) road a few hundred feet would put us right on the rail trail.

We pulled the horses off, and Tris was his usual self in a new place: dancing and pacing a bit but nothing seriously bad. I had parked the rig in such a way that meant I couldn’t tie him on my side (whoops) but I rarely tie him anyway when we’re out, unless we’re going to stand for a while. I folded his cooler and put on his saddle, and then left the cooler over his saddle while bridling, just to be extra-cautious. He seemed not too warm at all under the cooler, which was exactly my hope. The only bad moment: Tris stomped on my foot HARD while dancing around, and I was wearing sneakers. We had a spirited conversation, and he regretted it, but wow, my foot hurt like a bitch.

(One other small aside: when I pulled off Tristan’s fly mask – I hauled him with it to keep protecting that funky eye – he had some kind of charming pussy scab on his cheek that looked like a bug bite. He wasn’t terribly bothered by it, so I wasn’t either, and back at the barn later that day I cleaned it up and slathered it with Corona; I think it was a small initial bug bite that he rubbed through the fly mask and made quite a bit more irritated. Idiot.)

We mounted up and set off. Our stated goal was to do nothing more than expose them to a new place and see beautiful foliage, and I have to say, though I know H. decently well after seeing her around the barn and hacking out in the fields there, I was thrilled with how well we both communicated and were on the same page that day.

There’s not too much to report about the trail, other than WOW. Tristan was eager and happy and gave me an absolutely beautiful forward walk on the buckle for nearly the entire ride, until the last mile or so when he was clearly getting tired. We ended up doing about four and a half miles in an hour and a half, on footing that was quite good – not good enough to gallop, but easily good for trotting, especially if a horse were booted. We walked only, and turned around when the horses first indicated they were a little tired.

And I just have to say: I have lived in the northeast my entire life, and have now lived in 8 Vermont falls, and I have never – NEVER – seen foliage like this. It was unreal, almost painful to look at the colors were so riotous. The pictures don’t even capture a quarter of intensity of it. We could not stop talking about how amazing it was, and we’re both pretty jaded about foliage!

Tristan was a little warm and a little sweaty when we got back to the trailer, but nothing terribly serious. I had brought an irish knit with me, and stripped his saddle immediately, then threw the knit on and rubbed his back and chest with it a bit to rough up the winter fur. He was cool and mostly dry by the time I put him back on the trailer without a sheet. He spurned water, of course, but was happy to attack the hay on the trailer and seemed in great spirits.

We got back to the barn without incident, and both horses looked and felt great off the trailer. We tossed them into the dry lot paddocks with the extra hay from the hay net and they both had good long rolls and stood in the shade. By this time, the heat was really cranking up, and I was hot and exhausted and the foot that Tristan had stepped on was finally starting to throb.

We cleaned out the trailer, hauled everything inside, and hit the only major snag of the day: the trailer ramp would not close. What the HELL? Problem: the mat on the trailer ramp has to slide snugly inside the wall of the trailer, and it was catching, bumping against the left-hand side of the trailer. Which made zero sense. I heaved, slammed it, cussed, and finally examined the entire thing inch by inch and discovered the problem.

The ramp was connected to the trailer itself by three large hinges. Somehow, when we took the ramp down and/or when the horses came off. the ramp shifted less than 1/4″ on the hinges. I could see the bare, unpainted part of the hinges exposed to metal underneath. Somehow, we needed to shift the (incredibly heavy, not spring-loaded, all-steel) ramp back 1/4″ to the right so that it would line up again with the trailer. Cue a hunt for WD-40 through two tack rooms, an equipment room, and a garage. We lubricated the hinges and the ramp would not budge.

Finally, I looked around and realized that the way the hill up and out of the barn turned, it would mean the trailer would tip to the right, and gravity would be on our side. I inched the rig up, and put it a foot or so off the road so the right wheels of the trailer were off-road and the whole thing was substantially tipped – not so much that it would’ve rolled, but definitely diagonal. We then lifted the ramp halfway and rocked and rocked and rocked – AND IT WORKED!

Just at the moment it slid in and we latched the door, the trainer came running out of the barn to warn us that if we drove into the drainage ditch we would ruin some carefully constructed rainwater draining systems. EEK. I swore we were not really in the ditch (we weren’t) and promised to back it out precisely the way I’d gone in, which I then did, inch by inch. WHEW.

I parked the trailer, drove back to the barn, and fed Tristan some beet pulp with electrolytes, watched as he took a big long drink, and then headed home and proceeded not to move for several hours while I watched The Roosevelts and crocheted.

Uncategorized

Trail Ride Preview

Amanda2 Comments

Spoiler alert: we did NOT end up going on the GMHA Fall Foliage Ride, for a lot of last minute reasons that were all sound and good. Instead, we hauled out to a state park nearby and had an awesome morning there. Recap coming soon, and in the meantime I am lying on my couch, crocheting, watching The Roosevelts, and icing the big toe that my asshole horse stomped hard on while coming off the trailer.

Owwwwwwww.

blog roundup

Horse Blogging Roundup

Amanda2 Comments

As I mentioned, I’m going to round up some great posts from the horse blog world each week. Have I missed a great post? Comment and let me know!

This is a beautifully written exploration of something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Our horses make us better riders and better horsekeepers, and I don’t know about you, but I’m always wishing I’d had this or that revelation just a few years earlier, when I could really use it. We can only keep moving forward.

Experiment from Wait for the Jump
I love me a good gear post, and this is a great one. Nobody tests their stuff like endurance riders, and nobody does a good long training ride post like Saiph. If you’re counting that’s the intersection of three different awesome things in one post.

Holy Horseshoes from Streets of Salem
So this is not a horse blog – it’s a history/architecture blog – but this is a great horsey post with an old story about how horseshoes keep the devil away, complete with cool vintage illustrations. And if you’re into old New England architecture and history, check it out.

stupid human tricks

How Not To Prepare For Off Property Schooling

Amanda1 Comment

I have worked past midnight every single day this week. I have not ridden my horse since Tuesday, when he bolted on me. For those keeping track at home (though why would you…?), that means he has been ridden once in the last 10 days.

I am still working as I’m writing this, at 9pm on Friday night. I have a massive, all-day work thing on Saturday that I’m in charge of, hence why I’m queuing this.

Jury’s out on whether I’ll get saddle time on Saturday night; it would mean bringing puppy to the barn and leaving her in my shiny new car while I prep the trailer and THEN ride. Not the best of my options.

We leave at 7am on Sunday for the Fall Foliage Ride. Best prep ever!

STAY TUNED. This could get exciting.

blanketing

5 Reasons I’m Happy Tristan Wears Blankets Now

Amanda2 Comments

It occurred to me last night that Tristan has, in the last two years, reversed the natural horse progression. He went from being an easy keeper, barefoot, tough as nails horse to one that had surgery, wears shoes, needs grain to keep weight, is on daily medication, and starts wearing a blanket when it goes below 40. When I lay it all out like that it sounds awful, but I’ve always said that he gets whatever he needs, and nothing has been done frivolously.

I started thinking, though, about finding a silver lining and to my surprise I kept thinking of good things, so I thought I’d share a little list with you.
1. He just looks so stinking cute in his jammies.

Seriously, I can’t even.

2. When he gets his extra layer at night check, someone lays hands on him.
That’s his stable sheet, out to tell the night check person to put it on him. That means that someone has their hands directly on him for a few minutes every night. It just makes me feel that much more secure that someone’s not just looking in the stall at him but is actually interacting with him.
3. True friendship

The day after Tristan had his colicky episode, a good friend of mine had arrived to give him a massage and had brought with her two of her old horse’s blankets. They fit him beautifully, and they were just what I had been about to take a deep breath and order from Smartpak. Some stitching, some new waterproofing, and they are not shiny new but they are practical and they are loved.


4. Matchy matchy

Okay, so I did buy one blanket. Tristan’s old fleece cooler was the long kind, without any straps on it whatsoever. It was less than ideal as a base layer: it moved around quite a bit when he laid down. So I did order this Smartpak fleece cooler, and I got to order it in Tristan’s barn colors of black, gray, and white. (I know, not exciting, but have you SEEN my horse? He clashes with everything!)
5. He’s going to be okay.

It’s not my favorite progression, and in an ideal world he’d still be that tough as nails easy keeper. He’s not. That’s okay. We have a plan, and that plan is feasible, and I have good people helping me out. He needs blankets. He gets blankets. He feels better. The rest is just gravy.