I am seriously torn about this commercial, which has started stalking me around Hulu Plus. (Surely their metrics can’t be that good, right?)
Tristan is halfway through the loading dose of Pentosan, and Saturday night was my first chance to get on him in a proper dressage school to test his new stage.
I’m thrilled to report that I noticed a HUGE difference.
Incremental changes are always the hardest to keep an eye on: over the years, Tristan has been ageing, and getting less fluid and supple, even with long warmups and all the exercise I could do for him. His long layup before and after surgery didn’t help. It was hard for me to confront the fact that he’s ageing: not that I ignored it, but more that I redoubled efforts to help him work through it, not quite acknowledging why.
Saturday night I got on, and we walked at a good clip for 15 minutes on a long rein, our usual. I picked up the reins and started in some basic lateral work to loosen him up behind the saddle: again, usual.
ZOOM.
I put my leg on and I had a fluid, through horse. His leg yield was so fast and so scopey I completely forgot to manage it and I’m afraid it wasn’t very pretty, but whooooosh we went across the entire diagonal. Then we went back. Then we zigged and zagged back and forth. Then we did shoulder-in and haunches in and he was stepping waaaaaaaay over in the back.
Then we went for the trot and immediately he felt straight, through, and springy through his hind end. Same thing laterally: zooooooom across the diagonal in the leg-yield, stepping under through shoulder-in and haunches in.
Then canter: up and down instead of that flattish gait we’d been working to improve. Near-immediate hints of softening through the topline to the right.
To say I was ecstatic would be putting it mildly!
Let me be clear: it wasn’t a great ride. I was so taken aback by the horse I had underneath me that I flubbed many things. There were suddenly many more things to gather up and different ways to ride. I played a bit with some of our cornering exercises, controlling the outside shoulder, and we made some progress.
But after 35 minutes, I stopped. He had gone farther in his warmup than he has after a full hour in recent weeks. I had been adding leg-yield responsiveness in slowly over the last few weeks, hoping to work up to going across the diagonal, but he just wasn’t crossing over sharply enough even after warmup. Saturday? ZOOM. Right away.
We finished by going outside to the outdoor ring and doing our first long lazy trotting and cantering around, nothing much, just to say we were outside. The footing is still a bit deep but nothing terrible, and it is drying out beautifully.
We’ll take it a bit slowly, because with such dramatically increased flexibility and range of motion comes new torque on his muscles. New ways of going, new building that needs to be done.
And we’re only halfway through – who knows how much better he’ll get?!
In 95% of first-time conversations in the state of Vermont, one person asks the other: “Are you a native Vermonter?” or some variation on that question. Migration is a huge issue throughout the state’s history; all that coming and going, especially in the last few decades, means that it’s rare for a person to have more than one or two generations in the state. Those with longer genealogies wear them as a badge of pride.
The right answer to the question is that you are from Vermont; the next-best-thing is to prove, somehow, that you wish you were. I tend to equivocate, and say that I came up for college, and lived here for a few years; then I left; now I’m back.
Today, someone asked me the question and I said firmly and proudly, “No. I’m from Boston.”
One year ago today, I was frantically flipping from channel to channel, listening to NPR, refreshing Boston.com, refreshing Facebook, refreshing Twitter. I had friends running the Marathon. I had friends watching from the sidelines. I had been a spectator myself, many times.
Everyone I knew was okay, but I remember the feeling of desperate heartbreak, and distance, and deeply personal grief like it was yesterday. It still is yesterday, in a way.
It turns out not everyone I knew was okay, after all. Two days later, a man I had known as a boy – in passing – in the hallway – in the cafeteria – never too well but well enough to picture his face immediately when I heard – was killed. His name was Sean Collier.
Thank you to the helpers, and may Boston continue to stay strong.
I can’t get over how amazing and weird and amazing this short story is. Did I mention it’s weird?
Basic premise: Presidents of the United states are reincarnated as horses.
It’s a fascinating, weird read if you just know horses and a smattering of American history. It gains satiric brilliance if you have a more thorough knowledge.
The Barn at The End of Our Term
Selected paragraph:
‘Well, I for one have great faith in Fitzgibbons. I think he is a just and merciful Lord.’ James Buchanan can only deduce, given his administration’s many accomplishments, that this Barn must be heaven. Buchanan has been reborn as a fastidious bay, a gelding sired by that racing great Caspian Rickleberry. ‘Do you know that I have an entry in the Royal Ledger of Equine Bloodlines, Rutherford? It’s true.’ His nostrils flare with self-regard. ‘I am being rewarded,’ Buchanan insists, ‘for annexing Oregon.
What did you think?
I swear, someday I will do something other than complain about the weather. I wish I knew when that someday will come. It’s not today, that’s for sure.
Dreaming of…
One of my favorite Pandora stations is my Great Big Sea mix, which I have carefully cultivated to be mostly rousing songs that I can sing along to, even if they’re more sad than not. It’s a good cleaning channel.
Tonight I turned it on and up came a song called Tickle Cove Pond, which I hadn’t heard before. It’s about an accident with a draft horse on an icy pond. Don’t worry, it has a happy ending!
(um, also ignore the awful videographer commentary, I couldn’t find a clean version of this on YouTube.)
Hullo to everyone who has come over from She Moved to Texas!
Thanks everyone for commiserating with me yesterday. I threw myself into more cleaning, folding clothes, etc. and when the boyfriend got home he dug my car out and I headed to the barn.
I ended up free longeing Tristan in the indoor for about 40 minutes, walk-trot-canter. He behaved beautifully. Our control and focus while free longeing is a bit of a work in progress, and sometimes he doesn’t cooperate – gallops to a corner bucking away and then refuses to come out, or heads to the gate and hangs his head over looking for someone to take him back to his stall.
Last night we worked through some stiffness (horses are on limited turnout with all the snow, and even when turned out he’s not doing much beyond stuffing his face with a round bale) and he ended up with a nice smooth forward walk and trot, stretching down of his own volition in the trot. Canter was a little wonky; he was throwing his hips inside during the transition, and without a longe line I couldn’t correct it, so I didn’t want to work too much on an incorrect gait.
Hand continues to heal, and hopefully we’ll continue to free longe this week and then next week I can ride again.
beljoeor.com 