The War Mare Excels
Oct. 2nd, 2004 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancinghorseAhhh, back to a better reality at last--still some nasty deadlines but some of the worst garbage is gone, yes I tell you, gone. Still low on emotional and/or e-mailing energy as well, but that's starting to trickle back.
Writing-type stuff is waking up. I've been doing some fairly standard post-novel-blitz things: plotting new projects, reviewing the ones I need to tackle next, and diving into second draft of hopefully kickass collaboration. A new blitz is setting itself up: must finish Song of Unmaking by Thanksgiving. This is the deep breath before the next plunge.
Horse schedule is sorting itself out, with some changes as the season changes. If I ride in the evening, I'm having to go out an hour and a half to two hours earlier than it seems as if I just finished doing--winter hours instead of summer hours--and the sun is setting an hour and a half earlier that it did in the heyday of June and July. Days are still pretty warm (high 80s/low 90sF), so it's a good idea for morning rides to be done well before noon, though that will only last another couple of weeks. Then we'll be into winter mode, when we can ride any time and it's lovely.
Fall and winter, you will note, have a different affect here--summer is our flinch-and-endure season. We welcome the shorter days and lower temperatures, and look forward eagerly to the Big Cooldown, that point in October when we switch quite abruptly from summer to winter, from cool nights and hot afternoons to mild days and chilly nights.
This week is a pair of anniversaries: 10 years yesterday since I moved into this house. And 12 years today since Capria came down from Flagstaff in a huge van with a load of eventers--my little dappled-grey mare in with all the big red and brown guys. She really was little then, with a pencil neck and a cinderblock head and a pointy croup, but she was Mine and I didn't care how homely she was. Of course she grew and transformed, and a couple of years later she turned into a swan, and she's now my beautiful white schoolmaster horse--my first Lipizzan, who changed the world for a lot more than just me.
I celebrated her today with a trail ride--ponying keed, and enjoying the lovely mild morning. We had to stop at one point on the narrow twisty and sometimes very steep roads to let a lady in a truck go by--I pulled the whole cavalcade over, and the lady leaned out to say, "Your horses are so well trained!" Capria preened all the way home.
Da Pook has had his own trail success: took him out last night and he was Mr. Mellow, swinging along with happy ears on. About all that ever flaps him is meeting another horse, and nobody happened to be out, so dogs, humans, and vehicles of various sorts didn't faze him in the slightest. We're working on the other-horse thing. Unlike keed who at that stage would want to either runlikehell or kill it, Pook wants to assimilate it, which involves dancing, snorting, and going Boingity--not so bad and he's very clear on the concept of Listen To Mom. He's been teaching me lightness of aids. Mind you Capria is like a feather and keed wants you to whisper, but Pook is a whole level beyond that. He's especially insistent on perfect contact at all times--which means the lightest possible touch but I'd better be there, and no pulling, cranking, or hand-fussing allowed. If I want to get anything done, it had better start with a seat aid, supported by leg, with hand a distant third.
Or, Where the SRS brand of classical dressage really comes from. If you've got a very spirited young stallion and he won't listen to harsh or (in his highly educated view) wrongheaded aids, you learn to ride his way or else. Quite literally My Way or the Highway (and you're walking home).
Today's big event however was Camilla-the-War-Mare's foray into the big world. The plan had been to take her for short walkies out back, down into the wash and back out, which is good practice in negotiating steep, safely scary terrain. She's been advancing by tiny increments, since she's so very Worried and so very Stubborn, and the goal is for her to learn to Think Forward, which does not come naturally to her. She came out quite fast for her, hardly stopped at all until we got to the edge of the property, then she had to take about ten minutes to think things through. When she does this, putting pressure on her or trying to force her forward is a bad idea. She'll just grow roots, and you'll be there for days. So we stand there, with me at the other end of the leadrope in the direction I want to go, and she stands for a long time, checking out the scenery, stopping to grind her teeth a bit, wiggling to see if I'll let her head elsewhere, then going through some rapid thought processes--grind-grind-grind. And finally she makes her decision and comes truckin' on through. She can truck quite fast and be a bit of a bulldozer, but any hard pressure or tension from me gets her wound up right out of her curly little skull, so I have to be moving along beside this juggernaut on a soft lead. She has so much power (all 14.2 1/2 hands of her)that she sets up a slipstream--I sort of skim alongside. And then we have to work on focus, obedience, and Safety First.
The plan quickly mutated when she stopped for a while to consider the wash and suffer anxiety about leaving the herd, then decided we were going Forward--down, up, and out the other side, then down the road. She was very bold and forward but she passed the Focus Test--stopped and started in synch with me--so I decided to keep on going. We ended up making one of our more favored road-ride loops, somewhat over a mile all told, with only one ramp-and-snort--young guy in punk black messing with gate--but she was more looky than alarmed. Totally unfazed by the truck that went rattling by--huzzahs, she has no vehicle-shyness--and strongly interested but not horrified by various sights and sounds. She's a real War Mare, and I think, once she's more used to being Out, she'll be as bombproof as her brother Pooka. She certainly can move on out once she makes up her mind to, and she seems to be past her early trample-the-human propensities. When she does lose it, she spins around me but doesn't try to knock me down or kick my skull in. Good developments, those.
We can do more of this. Yes.
Writing-type stuff is waking up. I've been doing some fairly standard post-novel-blitz things: plotting new projects, reviewing the ones I need to tackle next, and diving into second draft of hopefully kickass collaboration. A new blitz is setting itself up: must finish Song of Unmaking by Thanksgiving. This is the deep breath before the next plunge.
Horse schedule is sorting itself out, with some changes as the season changes. If I ride in the evening, I'm having to go out an hour and a half to two hours earlier than it seems as if I just finished doing--winter hours instead of summer hours--and the sun is setting an hour and a half earlier that it did in the heyday of June and July. Days are still pretty warm (high 80s/low 90sF), so it's a good idea for morning rides to be done well before noon, though that will only last another couple of weeks. Then we'll be into winter mode, when we can ride any time and it's lovely.
Fall and winter, you will note, have a different affect here--summer is our flinch-and-endure season. We welcome the shorter days and lower temperatures, and look forward eagerly to the Big Cooldown, that point in October when we switch quite abruptly from summer to winter, from cool nights and hot afternoons to mild days and chilly nights.
This week is a pair of anniversaries: 10 years yesterday since I moved into this house. And 12 years today since Capria came down from Flagstaff in a huge van with a load of eventers--my little dappled-grey mare in with all the big red and brown guys. She really was little then, with a pencil neck and a cinderblock head and a pointy croup, but she was Mine and I didn't care how homely she was. Of course she grew and transformed, and a couple of years later she turned into a swan, and she's now my beautiful white schoolmaster horse--my first Lipizzan, who changed the world for a lot more than just me.
I celebrated her today with a trail ride--ponying keed, and enjoying the lovely mild morning. We had to stop at one point on the narrow twisty and sometimes very steep roads to let a lady in a truck go by--I pulled the whole cavalcade over, and the lady leaned out to say, "Your horses are so well trained!" Capria preened all the way home.
Da Pook has had his own trail success: took him out last night and he was Mr. Mellow, swinging along with happy ears on. About all that ever flaps him is meeting another horse, and nobody happened to be out, so dogs, humans, and vehicles of various sorts didn't faze him in the slightest. We're working on the other-horse thing. Unlike keed who at that stage would want to either runlikehell or kill it, Pook wants to assimilate it, which involves dancing, snorting, and going Boingity--not so bad and he's very clear on the concept of Listen To Mom. He's been teaching me lightness of aids. Mind you Capria is like a feather and keed wants you to whisper, but Pook is a whole level beyond that. He's especially insistent on perfect contact at all times--which means the lightest possible touch but I'd better be there, and no pulling, cranking, or hand-fussing allowed. If I want to get anything done, it had better start with a seat aid, supported by leg, with hand a distant third.
Or, Where the SRS brand of classical dressage really comes from. If you've got a very spirited young stallion and he won't listen to harsh or (in his highly educated view) wrongheaded aids, you learn to ride his way or else. Quite literally My Way or the Highway (and you're walking home).
Today's big event however was Camilla-the-War-Mare's foray into the big world. The plan had been to take her for short walkies out back, down into the wash and back out, which is good practice in negotiating steep, safely scary terrain. She's been advancing by tiny increments, since she's so very Worried and so very Stubborn, and the goal is for her to learn to Think Forward, which does not come naturally to her. She came out quite fast for her, hardly stopped at all until we got to the edge of the property, then she had to take about ten minutes to think things through. When she does this, putting pressure on her or trying to force her forward is a bad idea. She'll just grow roots, and you'll be there for days. So we stand there, with me at the other end of the leadrope in the direction I want to go, and she stands for a long time, checking out the scenery, stopping to grind her teeth a bit, wiggling to see if I'll let her head elsewhere, then going through some rapid thought processes--grind-grind-grind. And finally she makes her decision and comes truckin' on through. She can truck quite fast and be a bit of a bulldozer, but any hard pressure or tension from me gets her wound up right out of her curly little skull, so I have to be moving along beside this juggernaut on a soft lead. She has so much power (all 14.2 1/2 hands of her)that she sets up a slipstream--I sort of skim alongside. And then we have to work on focus, obedience, and Safety First.
The plan quickly mutated when she stopped for a while to consider the wash and suffer anxiety about leaving the herd, then decided we were going Forward--down, up, and out the other side, then down the road. She was very bold and forward but she passed the Focus Test--stopped and started in synch with me--so I decided to keep on going. We ended up making one of our more favored road-ride loops, somewhat over a mile all told, with only one ramp-and-snort--young guy in punk black messing with gate--but she was more looky than alarmed. Totally unfazed by the truck that went rattling by--huzzahs, she has no vehicle-shyness--and strongly interested but not horrified by various sights and sounds. She's a real War Mare, and I think, once she's more used to being Out, she'll be as bombproof as her brother Pooka. She certainly can move on out once she makes up her mind to, and she seems to be past her early trample-the-human propensities. When she does lose it, she spins around me but doesn't try to knock me down or kick my skull in. Good developments, those.
We can do more of this. Yes.
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Date: 2004-10-03 01:50 am (UTC)Are you coming to WFC?
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