Random horsey-ness

[ht_murray]

Hmm, so a couple people mentioned a certain J's girlfriend watched golf for him. GOLF! And I was like, yeah. That's sweet. Which reminded me that my hubby watches Dressage for me. I get on these kicks where I watch dressage vids all day long sometimes, and he never tells me to turn them off. He even tries to comment. Though, after 12 years he still doesn't know a piaffe from a passage, which is too cute.

Anyway, this is dressage. And this is the good stuff. Now tell me, if you were not a horse person, would you sit through this for hours on end?

*hums* "The Things We Do For Love."

Comments

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

Fellow wannabes unite! I can sit and watch tests all day long, but go to a clinic and listen to all the technical stuff for hours on end, I cannot do. I imagine it must be the same for someone who has absolutely no horse knowledge to watch a test. I always think of that movie Sylvester with Melissa Gilbert when then one dude asked what dressage was, and the other said, "It's kinda like watching paint dry."

I love that icon! I need some horsey icons, but alas, I hardly ever make horsey posts since most of my friends are really not interested.

[larienelengasse.livejournal.com]

The horsey in my icon is my 16.3HH TB pony named TJ. (Same for this one too) He's the man... Fabulous horse to learn Dressage on.

I actually love to watch clinics. I used to work for a trainer in CA, so I usually get the lingo - though sometimes the clinician makes no sense whatsoever.

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I can't find any pics of my Winchester. He's around 17 h.h., but I don't know. That's just what my friend told me when she sold him to me. I just know he's way bigger than my two fourteen hand Arabians. I know I had pics of my horses in my journal somewhere, but all I could find was this one link to a vid I took last fall.

http://tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com/118522.html#cutid1

And I could probably ride a clinic, but not watch. I get so antsy, especially when they spend half an hour just doing shoulder-in in preparation for the half-pass and then don't ever actually do half-pass. I guess I'm more of a hands-on girl. LOL.

[larienelengasse.livejournal.com]

That's the thing about Dressage, it requires so much patience. I went to a clinic in AZ to watch Walter Zettl and this gal was trying to do flying lead changes and her horse kept bucking. He told her to stop with the changes because the horse wasn't ready - she was pushing him too hard too fast. Dressage requires so much patience - I swear I've had more days than not where I was happy to get a good, solid ride even when I made no progress at all. Just maintaining can be difficult sometimes - of course TJ's tough to ride because he's long backed and truck loads of suspension. He can bounce you right out of the saddle at the working trot. On the other hand, he's light as a feather and can practically bend in half, so at least I'm not riding a heavy horse.

Winchester is cute - nice neck.

[tru-faith-lost.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I totally get that. Most days I'm happy just getting on and cantering around the pasture, willy nilly. Every horse I had growing up was a speed demon that you just basically held on to for dear life. (Well, obviously that was NOT how to do it, but when you're ten and you just want to ride...) And now that I train my own horses, I love just being able to put them on a loose rein and not have to worry about flying like a kite.

Patience is one thing when you're on the horse, but when you're just watching, you always get the feeling like you could have done it better, ya know? LOL. Totally untrue, but it feels that way. Which is why I like videos.

And Winchester is a giant dork. He was supposely a second level dressage horse. I basically just spent the last year or so feeding him since he was almost skeletal when I got him. And now my work schedule has been all rearrange. But he's definitely got some energy to burn. If only I hadn't sold all my good saddles. *is a dork*

[larienelengasse.livejournal.com]

I usually have some empathy for the student at a clinic because it's been a long road for me to learn, and I can usually find away to learn something for myself - so I don't mind. I spent an entire hour trying to do shoulder in, once. Seriously. So friggin hard. Dressage is the hardest thing I've ever done on a horse - of course, short of balance, I'm not the most naturally inclined to do this either.

I like to mix things up - Dressage work one day, trail the next, playing ground games another. All Dressage all the time is no good for the horse - they'll learn to hate the work. That's why riding more than one horse is good - you can do Dressage everyday without the horse having to do the same. I'm not in that position anymore, sadly.