On this Thanksgiving day, I am profoundly, desperately thankful for Tristan.

I am thankful that he is my best friend and that he carries my heart with him.

I am thankful that the incredibly stupid gamble I took eight years ago, of adopting a horse on a minimum wage salary, has paid off and while I am not and never will be rich, I can give him everything he needs.

I am thankful that his shoulder is the perfect height to cry on.

I am thankful for the soft, fuzzy absurdity of his winter coat, that I can sink my hand into it and lose my fingers.

I am thankful for the thick tangle of his mane, in which I can twist my fingers and make a fist and just hold on.

I am thankful for the soft sweet grass scent of his nose.

I am thankful for the moment of fear and joy combined that rises in me when he finds another gear in his gallop as we head up the hill.

I am thankful for his expressive eyes, which so often look at me dubiously, and tell me that I really should just chill out and go for a hack instead.

I am most of all thankful that one year ago I didn’t know if I would ever ride him again – and it has been such a long year – but last night I pressed my knuckles down into his neck and stood in the stirrups while he bucked and cavorted underneath me for a few seconds in the canter.

White Mane (1953)
(available on Netflix streaming, or for purchase on Amazon.com)

This has been on my Netflix to-watch list for sometime, if only because at some point I did a search for “horse” and added everything I could.

At only 40 minutes, White Mane is a really sweet, lovely movie about a boy who befriends one of the wild horses of the Camargue in southern France. It is 95% without dialogue, and filmed in black and white in a more documentary style. In fact, the only sound at all is a light soundtrack and some sound effects that are more for imaginary effect than realism (a horse galloping through the water does not make the same noises as a person walking through a puddle, I’m just saying.)

It’s very, very French, and filled with “don’t try this at home, kids” moments – lots of scary, dangerous things done by everyone involved, from horses to kid to wranglers. It’s somewhat nonsensical in its portrayal of the main character, the wild stallion White Mane, who is imbued with all the Black Stallion qualities you could hope for.

In the end, though, it is almost compulsively watchable, incredibly gorgeous, and overall has a dreamy, fairy tale feel to it, even through the long chase scenes. I put it on as background while I caught up on some work at home, and couldn’t stop watching.

The ending is…ambiguous and somewhat difficult and somewhat sad. If it tells you anything, this film is by the same director as The Red Balloon. You can choose to elevate the entire story to a fairy tale, and believe the narrator about the fate of the boy and his horse; that’s what I’d recommend. The whole movie builds toward a more fantastical interpretation of its own events rather than a realistic one, so it works.

Definitely recommended. In fact, if I’d discovered this as a kid it would’ve been a top 10 for sure.

As I sort of glossed over before I went away: Tristan has developed what can only be a white saddle sore on his withers. Jen at Cob Jockey’s post about a possible sore on her horse pushed me to ‘fess up more completely about this.

At first, I didn’t notice it because he is so roany, and the white growing in looked like an extension of the white in his mane.

Then, each time I worried about whether it was in fact a saddle problem, I investigated. He showed zero tenderness or reactivity when I palpated the spot. When I put the saddle on his bare back there was zero interference. I would even reach down while riding and could still fit several fingers between the pommel and his withers. But after a few weeks I had to admit that there was definitely something wrong.

So what was the problem?

Two things. First and most egregiously, his lack of muscling behind his shoulders/below his withers means that saddle pads tip forward and slide down almost as soon as I start riding. The front of the saddle pad works its way down and puts pressure on his withers – directly in the worry spot.

Second, his jump saddle is no longer a good fit, also due to the lack of muscling. I have ridden in it perhaps a half dozen times in the last two months, and always for hacking out, but the pommel does bump the wither a bit when I sit in it. So while I doubt that flat-out caused the problem, it certainly did not help.

Solution, in two parts.

– Better fitness program, to include longeing and work on building his topline.

– Sheepskin half pad, in which he looks very dashing.

I’m going to start doing weekly topline photos, and we’ll see if there’s a visual difference.

I’m away this week at a professional conference in lovely Newport, RI. Tristan is being used a handful of times with some advanced students. He’s not really a lesson horse at heart: while he has patience, and is bombproof safe, he doesn’t like the kind of work that regular lessons make him do. He tunes out too easily and gets sour. But a handful of lessons from time to time to keep him in work are just fine.

The barn manager sat on him for the first time last week to get a sense of how to have her students ride him, which was neat to see. He was less than pleased, but she got some nice work out of him.

In the meantime, I’ve scheduled a number of posts about other things for this week, and I’ll be gathering horsey tidbits from Newport to bring back!

Joan Davis is one of Area 1’s preeminent equine photographers, and she’s a near-constant presence at Area 1 events. If you’ve evented in New England, Joan has taken a picture of you at some point. Along with her husband, Tom Davis, Joan runs Flatlands Equestrian Center in Rehoboth, MA. She calls her photography business Flatlands Foto.

She’s begun blogging, and it’s a pleasure to read her insights into equine photography and see more of her beautiful work.

Go, follow her and enjoy!

Heads up!

Flying Changes, by Sara Gruen, is on sale for Kindle today for $2.99.

It’s the story of a woman who was an eventing superstar as a young woman until her horse died tragically. As an older woman, she has the opportunity to ride again when her daughter falls in love with horses.

I’m not sure I could qualify this as a good read, but it is highly entertaining and worth the price at $2.99.

I’ll have to dig out my paper copy soon and do a review for the blog. In the meantime, go check it out and let me know how you like it! If you’ve already read it, what did you think?

I didn’t take this picture, but I was standing at this exact spot.

It’s funny how some famous horses work their way into your heart. Some, I’ve watched go live; some, I’ve only seen on video or from photos. I’ve met a few famous ones but never laid hands on them and certainly never ridden them.

I saw Karen O’Connor ride Theodore O’Connor around the Rolex cross-country course in 2007. I watched them leave the start box, I saw them fly around the course, and I saw them come home across the finish line. I’d always liked Teddy in the abstract, Karen O’Connor has long been one my favorite riders, but that day I fell completely utterly, head over heels in love with that pony.

I can still remember her jumping off him and into David O’Connor’s arms, cheering and crying and oh, I cried like a baby watching. I tear up now just thinking about it.

I can also still remember where I was when I heard that he had been put down, and how utterly gutted I felt. I cried and cried again. I’d never even officially met him, and I was devastated.

That was five years ago, believe it or not, and even today, a passing reference to Theodore O’Connor in this Eventing Nation blog post has me fighting back tears.

Horses. How do they do that?

As I predicted, Tris was 100% sound on Friday, both to my eyes and to a few more experienced people. I saddled up and we did about 20 minutes of forward and supple work, ending with some nice moments in the canter. Nothing like the sustained work we get during lessons, but I felt good about the way I planned out and then executed the work.

I did have some back-and-forth with the vet, and she’ll do a Legend shot next time she’s at the barn. We’ll see what impact that makes, if any. (I hope for some, at least.)

Sunday, Tris met my brother & his fiancee’s dog, a very large German Shepherd who doesn’t always have the best social skills. Thankfully, Tris is wonderful with dogs, and grazed happily and calmly while the dog’s brain caved in and he crawled forward on his belly several times to say hi and sniff Tristan’s face or leg. Tris didn’t budge or react one bit to the crawling and the sniffing, but the dog escalated a bit to trying to play bitey-face and Tris yanked his face out of the way for that, though didn’t retaliate one bit. He’s the best. We followed that up with a longer bareback hack.

Monday, I had an early staff meeting on my day off, followed by several hours of work at the barn doing stalls, fixing fence, and bringing horses in and out. The main field we fixed held mom & baby and if there’s anything more uplifting or adorable than having a 5 month old filly cavorting around you and nosing your pockets and picking up your tools and buckets, I don’t know what it is. (She is very clever and very brave, though also very appropriate and learned what she wasn’t allowed to do very quickly.)

Unfortunately, I was so tired and had so much else to do after that that I went straight home without riding to get my afternoon chores accomplished – and was still so late in getting dinner ready that we didn’t eat until 8pm. Domestic fail.

I’ve been feeling lately like I can’t get any momentum with my riding or my horsemanship in general. Maybe this is just how my life will be right now. Maybe I need to scale back and accept that riding semi-competitively is not going to happen for me, with this horse, at this time in my life. My job is busy, stressful, and time-consuming. My horse is aging and not always eager.

Last night, after two days off due to working late, I pulled him out of the stall, tacked him up, and two minutes into our walk warmup he took a funny step and went immediately lame. I tried walking him out of it for a bit under saddle but he felt awful. I felt every single inch of both hind legs multiple times, palpated, walked and trotted him off in hand, and determined that he was off in his right hind: toe-dragging, swinging the leg to the outside, not wild about moving out, and resting it when standing.

Tried for a few minutes to walk him through it but he was uninterested, so I untacked and put him back. He was standing square-ish in his stall again and still no signs of heat or swelling or anything.

He did something like this once before, a few months ago. He worked out of it fine the next day. But after two days off, feeling the energy from my lessons with the trainer recently, I was ready to get some work done, to do a conditioning ride and build some topline and some fitness. Not to be.

I was borderline hysterical for a little while, actually, chasing my thoughts down into rabbit holes: was this something serious? is this the beginning of the end? should I retire him to be a trail horse? should I straight up retire him?

I got by with a little help from my friends, and a multigrain roll and wedge of sheep cheese from the coop, and today I am feeling resigned. Barn manager is aware and did not report that he was falling down lame out of his stall, so tonight I will go with the possibility of longeing, then hacking him out. We’ll see.

But I still can’t shake the thought that it might be time – if not to retire him, then to re-evaluate what I want to get out of riding him – and what would make and keep HIM happy and healthy.

While I’ve never quite bought into the “having a dog is like having a baby!” fallacy, I do often think that horses can be compared to toddlers. This recent blog post, listing the ways in which dogs are not babies, seems to underline that theory.

The author lists these reasons that dogs are easier than babies:

•    You can keep them in the car by themselves on a brisk fall day when running errands.
•    You don’t have to worry about them when you’re at work.
•    You don’t have to entertain them or worry whether they’re keeping up with their peer groups.
•    They produce practically zero laundry.
•    You don’t have to keep your phone on vibrate in case daycare calls with an emergency.

Yeah, all of those things are false for horses. Worrying, check. Keeping up, check. Laundry, check. Cell phone on vibrate, so very check. (Is there anything worse than a call from the barn in the middle of the day? Do any barn managers NOT start every conversation with “Your horse is okay! Here’s another thing I needed to ask you about”?)

The major advantage to horses, of course, is that when you work late you don’t have to check on them, or go pick them up from daycare. If you’re me, you feel massively guilty and lazy, but 9 times out of 10 Tristan is much happier if I don’t come out to ride.