Great Old Men
A friend of mine lost her horse recently. He was older, and he died in the way we all dream for those we love—out in the field with his friends on a beautiful day, healthy and sound and full of life. And then gone, in an instant.
That doesn’t make it much better, of course; just because it’s a far cry from the slow decline and the tough choice doesn’t make it easy, just ever so slightly easier.
This horse had had an excellent competition career, but you’d probably never heard of him, or at least not heard much about him. But that wasn’t the thing that made him extraordinary. He’d brought countless young people up the levels. He gave his riders the big horse feeling for the first time. He taught them. He humbled them, often rather a lot. He made them.
Read the rest at The Chronicle of the Horse!
It’s a weird year for me. I’m teaching a ton of clinics, which I love, but it means I’m away from home a lot of weekends. And with only Puck to ride at the moment, who will be showing first level next month (woo) but not with any illusions of grandeur, my focus is on my students and on their competitive and personal goals.
I tell my students it takes a year to get to know a new horse. Some behave differently in response to the weather, so taking all four seasons to get to know them is important, plus it just takes a year to accumulate enough experiences on and off the property to learn who they are and how they think. But I’m learning a bit about Puck already.
I can sit and watch any horse sport done well. I love horses (news flash!), but more than that, I love dressage. And because I’m a huge nerd, I love seeing how dressage plays a role in all the other sports, that the basic tenants of training that I preach to my students apply to other disciplines.
A while back I had a client enter a show at a big level, her debut at that level, and her first show after a long competitive gap. Her horse is an amazing creature, a phenomenal athlete with an equally incredible mind, who’s also had a long history of health issues, including trying very hard to die on her twice, fortunately to no avail. She’s done the lion’s share of the training herself, and he’d spent a month with me to finish up one last piece of the test. Was she ready to do this level? Mostly. Was it going to be incredible? Certainly not.
Years ago when he was a wee thing, Midge learned the flying changes fairly quickly, and rapidly got comfortable with the fours, threes and twos. But the ones eluded us for almost a year. Midge, with his combination of crazy Dutch Harness Horse knees and boundless enthusiasm, could get through a few, but soon enough he’d be launching himself with reckless abandon in about 37 directions at once, and strong and brave and long-legged thing that I am, I couldn’t hold him together.
After a whirlwind last week in Florida, an exciting trip home involving—you guessed it!—two flat tires, and 2 1/2 days to move into my new house in nearby Warrenton, my Floridian team and I are safely back in Virginia, reunited with the home team, and back up and running. I’ve got a few relatively quiet weeks at home until we start the usual spring chaos of constant horse shows and clinics; I’m home one weekend between the end of April and the 4th of July.
Third Level, Test 3. Ring 2 at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival.
As I’ve said many times before, Danny is the most talented horse I’ve ever had. He just thinks like a Grand Prix horse, partially because I’ve been diligent in training him to think that way, but partially just from nature, the beauty of the successful purpose-bred animal.