Payday! (And other business)
Day before yesterday was another bitter one for thefirst two hours, but it warmed up for the second half. I can't recall what day I last posted, but since then my most memorable event with regard to morning work has been that I had a wipe-out on the far turn, (another good example of equipment failure).
The horse I had was a strapping sprinter- one of the ones that looks like a cattle horse, with a short, thick neck placed on a stocky body. If you try to steer, the rear end doesn't follow in a path behind the nose, but instead tracks in a parallel path behind the front end -- like strafing sideways several lanes, rather then turning. It's another signature of poor management of a horse's talent and physical development. Most of these horses have no flexibility because if it cannot happen in the course of conditioning, no-one has the time, energy or money to make a special effort.
The bad thing about it though, is that it winds up costing more in the long run. A horse that carries itself poorly will not develop as well as a horse that balances itself and learns to use all the tiny muscles that support that balance. Just like the human "core workout", horses benefit from the same, and will suffer less injury, both acute and chronic, as well as have reserves of stamina that other horses lack. But hey, what do I know? I'm just the exercise girl. I don't have to do the work- I just have to get the horse around there.
I'll call the horse in question Holiday. I leave the barn on this barrel-shaped beast decked out in a newfangled bit made to depress it's tongue. I know the horse absolutely hates this equipment, as he has demonstrated before by being an asshole; running off, lugging out, trying to pull up and so on - things he doesn't do when wearing a regular ring bit or D-bit.
The track had thawed considerably, and we had had some wet snow the night before. The dogs* were up. I was supposed to jog two miles. I can't steer or stop this horse in this equipment; and actually can't in any equipment, but at least if I had a set of rings I could get his head to the rail and possibly keep him from running off the wrong way (remember he hasn't been out for several days.) Whatever; I backed up a sixteenth, and decided I had to turn and gallop.
As I began to turn him, the asshole took off. I had positioned him in the middle of the track, but the wind was blowing so hard that I couldn't keep my eyes open. Tiny needles of sleet were hitting me in the face, and I never got him fully turned before he cut, so he was headed toward the inside rail. When he almost ran into one of the dogs, he spooked and leaped over it. My right foot slipped out of the iron, but I was able to replace it, though all I could do other than that was hang on.
We steamed on down the stretch to the clubhouse turn. Denny, another rider, was galloping in the same lane I was using, and I didn't dare pass on the inside on account of the dogs. Only thing was, the horse always tries to pull up if you let him go to the outside, at least when he has to wear that contraption. But at that point I would have preferred him to pull up over hurling us over another cone, so outside I requested of him.
He was more than happy to oblige, but not to pull up; after all, four days in a 12' x 12' cubicle are hard on a human, let alone a fit and healthy animal whose main tool of self-preservation is running away, (which every time he wore that bit he tried to do, without exception....so out we kept on going, and the harder I tried to steer him, the faster he tried to go.
We passed the elbow where the six-furlong chute sits and were headed toward the ouside fence with me basically just hanging on the inside rein to no effect, and suddenly looking for a place to land. Good old Holiday chose the chute over my attempt to steer him around the turn and hooked a sharp right.
I've never waterski'd, but if you can imagine for a moment, that's probably what I looked like out there, surfing on one rein. I lost my right iron again, and although I hated the fact that my left leg was bearing my weight, I tried to bail without causing it any trauma.
I still have a little filling in it, but not enough to keep me away from work. It was barely sore at all yesterday. I'm also getting better at falling; I rolled without attempting to break the fall with a limb- that's how people break their limbs.
Later that morning I saw Kendra, who also gallops for my new outfit (as well as helping on the ground) and she said "we can't understand how or why he would have dumped you; a little girl galloped him all summer long at Fort Erie in a D-bit."
Add that's probably true; in a D-bit.
*In the old days, live dogs were placed in the infield of the track when the surface was sloppy. Their barking and runnung around in there kept the horses from using the inside portion, thereby saving it for the main event later in the day. Nowadays dogs are not allowed anywhere on a racetrack, so they use highway cones, placing them several horse breadths off of the inside rail, and they call them "dogs"
The horse I had was a strapping sprinter- one of the ones that looks like a cattle horse, with a short, thick neck placed on a stocky body. If you try to steer, the rear end doesn't follow in a path behind the nose, but instead tracks in a parallel path behind the front end -- like strafing sideways several lanes, rather then turning. It's another signature of poor management of a horse's talent and physical development. Most of these horses have no flexibility because if it cannot happen in the course of conditioning, no-one has the time, energy or money to make a special effort.
The bad thing about it though, is that it winds up costing more in the long run. A horse that carries itself poorly will not develop as well as a horse that balances itself and learns to use all the tiny muscles that support that balance. Just like the human "core workout", horses benefit from the same, and will suffer less injury, both acute and chronic, as well as have reserves of stamina that other horses lack. But hey, what do I know? I'm just the exercise girl. I don't have to do the work- I just have to get the horse around there.
I'll call the horse in question Holiday. I leave the barn on this barrel-shaped beast decked out in a newfangled bit made to depress it's tongue. I know the horse absolutely hates this equipment, as he has demonstrated before by being an asshole; running off, lugging out, trying to pull up and so on - things he doesn't do when wearing a regular ring bit or D-bit.
The track had thawed considerably, and we had had some wet snow the night before. The dogs* were up. I was supposed to jog two miles. I can't steer or stop this horse in this equipment; and actually can't in any equipment, but at least if I had a set of rings I could get his head to the rail and possibly keep him from running off the wrong way (remember he hasn't been out for several days.) Whatever; I backed up a sixteenth, and decided I had to turn and gallop.
As I began to turn him, the asshole took off. I had positioned him in the middle of the track, but the wind was blowing so hard that I couldn't keep my eyes open. Tiny needles of sleet were hitting me in the face, and I never got him fully turned before he cut, so he was headed toward the inside rail. When he almost ran into one of the dogs, he spooked and leaped over it. My right foot slipped out of the iron, but I was able to replace it, though all I could do other than that was hang on.
We steamed on down the stretch to the clubhouse turn. Denny, another rider, was galloping in the same lane I was using, and I didn't dare pass on the inside on account of the dogs. Only thing was, the horse always tries to pull up if you let him go to the outside, at least when he has to wear that contraption. But at that point I would have preferred him to pull up over hurling us over another cone, so outside I requested of him.
He was more than happy to oblige, but not to pull up; after all, four days in a 12' x 12' cubicle are hard on a human, let alone a fit and healthy animal whose main tool of self-preservation is running away, (which every time he wore that bit he tried to do, without exception....so out we kept on going, and the harder I tried to steer him, the faster he tried to go.
We passed the elbow where the six-furlong chute sits and were headed toward the ouside fence with me basically just hanging on the inside rein to no effect, and suddenly looking for a place to land. Good old Holiday chose the chute over my attempt to steer him around the turn and hooked a sharp right.
I've never waterski'd, but if you can imagine for a moment, that's probably what I looked like out there, surfing on one rein. I lost my right iron again, and although I hated the fact that my left leg was bearing my weight, I tried to bail without causing it any trauma.
I still have a little filling in it, but not enough to keep me away from work. It was barely sore at all yesterday. I'm also getting better at falling; I rolled without attempting to break the fall with a limb- that's how people break their limbs.
Later that morning I saw Kendra, who also gallops for my new outfit (as well as helping on the ground) and she said "we can't understand how or why he would have dumped you; a little girl galloped him all summer long at Fort Erie in a D-bit."
Add that's probably true; in a D-bit.
*In the old days, live dogs were placed in the infield of the track when the surface was sloppy. Their barking and runnung around in there kept the horses from using the inside portion, thereby saving it for the main event later in the day. Nowadays dogs are not allowed anywhere on a racetrack, so they use highway cones, placing them several horse breadths off of the inside rail, and they call them "dogs"
posted by hoofstep at
2:08 AM
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