The Post That the Post About the Post Was About..
It's two days later....
I can always tell when I am stressed beyond normal; I don’t sleep much but I don’t feel tired (good) an dI have a host of other physical symptoms. I’ve noticed this since I was a kid. I just have too much going on. There’s a lot of noise in my head.
Money is #1 right now. The hardest thing to handle (at least for me) is not being able to keep my clients aware of how badly I need every spare second.
This is the story of free-lance galloping in a nutshell, so any novices might want to listen up – because you’ll be facing this as surely as you will face serious injury or death once in a while, and a lot more often.
The track opens at 7 a.m.
But if you are there, it opens at 6:54 or 6:55. That’s five minutes earlier than 7. If you get there in time to set foot on the surface at the actual opening time, that puts you returning from your gallop at ten past, or quarter past if you are higher up on the hill (farther from the gap). If you get your second horse ate quarter past, you can be on your third at 7:30. It’s not hard at all to finish four horses within the space of an hour. Seven before the break is easy; hell, I’ve gotten seven AFTER the break. That’s seven in an hour and twenty minutes. Surely I could get seven before the break.
But the way tings are currently going is; my first two horses are two-mile joggers; or my first horse goes with the pony and can’t go any faster than the pony. Thankfully this only slows the walking to and from part of the gallop. I’m not one to race my horse to and from the track; still, if I have the opportunity to walk the horse freely I can encourage it move purposefully, so for the most part, at least in my mind, the pony is a costly accommodation
It’s good for the horse to have a pony if the horse is in an unfamiliar place, if it’s balky or nervous or any number of reasons. But personally I’m familiar with the Mountaineer routine of getting thrown up, turned loose and tie on while on the move, so I don’t treasure the pony by any means. I tell myself I do when I have one, but unless the horse is bad I’m always lying to myself. On the one hand, you’re safe, but on the other hand, you’d better be because he won’t help you pay for your workman’s compensation. It’s an expensive trade-off with no guarantee.
It’s great for the trainer. With a pony they have a ride to the track and more control over the expensive investment they are charged with protecting and conditioning, so I know why a trainer would like a pony. Then again, most trainers who have ponies and use them daily also have expensive gallop people and offer workers comp. What I’m working under is slow ponies, no expensive salary and no workers comp.
That’s the great bonus about West Virginia; they have this great new Workers’ Compensation system that has matched the other states in comparable premiums, but they don’t require employers to actually have a policy. If you ask me they cut their own throats. Because if they had left things the way they were, with the low premiums they used to have, they’d have more people actually obtaining it. I had to let it go after I had been injured and earned nothing, and my premiums doubled. I gotta remember to send the Governor a video of me explaining this.
The bottom premium rate is based on twice as much as I earn, and four times as much as it used to be: Instead of 7-8K, the rate is based on a minimum payroll of $32K. And here’s the part that makes the wealthy laugh and the un-wealthy cry: my wage compensation is not based on a payroll of 32K; it’s based on my actual payroll of 15-25 K (15 when I get injured, 25 if I work all year without taking any time off for anything.) I’ve been priced right out of my range of affordability. Religious symbolist will love what I got every two weeks during my most recent disability period; $666.66.
And the pony isn’t helping me. Since everything moves slower when we factor in the pony and/ or the two mile joggers, and/or the not yet mentioned “we need to throw the same tack on the next horse”, “we’re waiting for the smaller girth – it’s on the one that the jockey is breezing”, “we need to clean the poultice off the legs yet”, “we gotta switch tack – this one has a loose shoe, and so on, and so forth, we’re talking about losing three fo the five minues we gained when we got to the track at 6:55.
What’s three minures, you might ask? Nothing. Three minutes is nothing. Six minutes is something; the track closes at 9 to be renovated (re-harrowed), but the reality is, it’s 8:55 when they stop allowing people through th egap. Anytime you create a cut-off; anytime you draw the final line and say noboy else can cross now, then six seconds is too late; never mind six minutes.
Here’s a word problem for math lovers:
On a normal day six horses go to the track in two hours. The first two take twenty minutes each, and the third has to jog two miles so it takes twenty-seven minutes. The first horse goes on at 6:55. The last one is finished at 8:02. The fourth horse is in another barn and it takes three minutes to get to that barn and get on the horse, and twenty minutes for the horse. That one is returned to the barn at 8:25. Same for the fifth horse (are you counting with me?). We’re on the sixth and last horse at 8:48, seven minutes before the cutoff. Plenty of time to get to the track and gallop around without holding up the harrows.
If we have to fuzzle around for three minutes with just two of these horses, we’ve shut down our window of opportunity for getting the sixth horse out. We’d only have one minute of grace to beat the clock.
Theoretically we make it, but in practice it’s a bit messy.
Three minutes becomes four minutes, five minutes and so on. Sometimes I’m waiting for a second rider so we can take a set (go together). Sometimes the horse has to go two miles the wrong direction at a jog and doesn’t want to jog, so I have to keep pulling it down from a nervous, hobbyhorse canter back into a proper trot. Most of the horses need some kind of warm-up whether the trainer says so or not. Sometimes the horse hasn’t been out for a number of days and I jog a mile before taking up a faster pace. I may or may not be asked, but I will do it simply because in my judgment (for any one of several reasons) it’s best.
Sometimes I have to pee. If I have time for the real bathroom I might go (cuz they have toilet paper) but if I’m short on time I find an empty stall and do like the men, only squatting. But most of all I find the things that stall me are those that happen within an outfit. The girth is too long and needs to be changed; the horse needs rundown bandages. Some other rider came and took the tack that was gonna go on my horse and we’re waiting for it to come back; one of the grooms or hotwalkers didn’t show up and now there aren’t enough people to do the work so I have to tack my own horse.
“We gotta get the poultice off before we send him out”
“She spread a shoe so we’re changin’ the tack to Bubba and you can get her later” (later WHEN?)
“I just have to get this horse in the (ice) tub and I’ll be right with you…”
I try not to get excited because it casts a pall on an outfit and everyone becomes either frantic when they see me or resentful of having been spoken to with a raised voice as in; ”hurry the fuck up! I got four more to get before the break!”
I’m not done with this post by any stretch of the imagination, and as soon as I get time again (like when it rains) I’ll finish it. But I was going to end it with:
You can bet that if I charged by the hour, it would be 40 bucks per hour. And I’ll give you ten-to-one that suddenly all my problems are solved.
But nothing’s that simple.
I have to try to get some work done on my house before Monday or Tuesday when it rains, so I might not write again till after.
I can always tell when I am stressed beyond normal; I don’t sleep much but I don’t feel tired (good) an dI have a host of other physical symptoms. I’ve noticed this since I was a kid. I just have too much going on. There’s a lot of noise in my head.
Money is #1 right now. The hardest thing to handle (at least for me) is not being able to keep my clients aware of how badly I need every spare second.
This is the story of free-lance galloping in a nutshell, so any novices might want to listen up – because you’ll be facing this as surely as you will face serious injury or death once in a while, and a lot more often.
The track opens at 7 a.m.
But if you are there, it opens at 6:54 or 6:55. That’s five minutes earlier than 7. If you get there in time to set foot on the surface at the actual opening time, that puts you returning from your gallop at ten past, or quarter past if you are higher up on the hill (farther from the gap). If you get your second horse ate quarter past, you can be on your third at 7:30. It’s not hard at all to finish four horses within the space of an hour. Seven before the break is easy; hell, I’ve gotten seven AFTER the break. That’s seven in an hour and twenty minutes. Surely I could get seven before the break.
But the way tings are currently going is; my first two horses are two-mile joggers; or my first horse goes with the pony and can’t go any faster than the pony. Thankfully this only slows the walking to and from part of the gallop. I’m not one to race my horse to and from the track; still, if I have the opportunity to walk the horse freely I can encourage it move purposefully, so for the most part, at least in my mind, the pony is a costly accommodation
It’s good for the horse to have a pony if the horse is in an unfamiliar place, if it’s balky or nervous or any number of reasons. But personally I’m familiar with the Mountaineer routine of getting thrown up, turned loose and tie on while on the move, so I don’t treasure the pony by any means. I tell myself I do when I have one, but unless the horse is bad I’m always lying to myself. On the one hand, you’re safe, but on the other hand, you’d better be because he won’t help you pay for your workman’s compensation. It’s an expensive trade-off with no guarantee.
It’s great for the trainer. With a pony they have a ride to the track and more control over the expensive investment they are charged with protecting and conditioning, so I know why a trainer would like a pony. Then again, most trainers who have ponies and use them daily also have expensive gallop people and offer workers comp. What I’m working under is slow ponies, no expensive salary and no workers comp.
That’s the great bonus about West Virginia; they have this great new Workers’ Compensation system that has matched the other states in comparable premiums, but they don’t require employers to actually have a policy. If you ask me they cut their own throats. Because if they had left things the way they were, with the low premiums they used to have, they’d have more people actually obtaining it. I had to let it go after I had been injured and earned nothing, and my premiums doubled. I gotta remember to send the Governor a video of me explaining this.
The bottom premium rate is based on twice as much as I earn, and four times as much as it used to be: Instead of 7-8K, the rate is based on a minimum payroll of $32K. And here’s the part that makes the wealthy laugh and the un-wealthy cry: my wage compensation is not based on a payroll of 32K; it’s based on my actual payroll of 15-25 K (15 when I get injured, 25 if I work all year without taking any time off for anything.) I’ve been priced right out of my range of affordability. Religious symbolist will love what I got every two weeks during my most recent disability period; $666.66.
And the pony isn’t helping me. Since everything moves slower when we factor in the pony and/ or the two mile joggers, and/or the not yet mentioned “we need to throw the same tack on the next horse”, “we’re waiting for the smaller girth – it’s on the one that the jockey is breezing”, “we need to clean the poultice off the legs yet”, “we gotta switch tack – this one has a loose shoe, and so on, and so forth, we’re talking about losing three fo the five minues we gained when we got to the track at 6:55.
What’s three minures, you might ask? Nothing. Three minutes is nothing. Six minutes is something; the track closes at 9 to be renovated (re-harrowed), but the reality is, it’s 8:55 when they stop allowing people through th egap. Anytime you create a cut-off; anytime you draw the final line and say noboy else can cross now, then six seconds is too late; never mind six minutes.
Here’s a word problem for math lovers:
On a normal day six horses go to the track in two hours. The first two take twenty minutes each, and the third has to jog two miles so it takes twenty-seven minutes. The first horse goes on at 6:55. The last one is finished at 8:02. The fourth horse is in another barn and it takes three minutes to get to that barn and get on the horse, and twenty minutes for the horse. That one is returned to the barn at 8:25. Same for the fifth horse (are you counting with me?). We’re on the sixth and last horse at 8:48, seven minutes before the cutoff. Plenty of time to get to the track and gallop around without holding up the harrows.
If we have to fuzzle around for three minutes with just two of these horses, we’ve shut down our window of opportunity for getting the sixth horse out. We’d only have one minute of grace to beat the clock.
Theoretically we make it, but in practice it’s a bit messy.
Three minutes becomes four minutes, five minutes and so on. Sometimes I’m waiting for a second rider so we can take a set (go together). Sometimes the horse has to go two miles the wrong direction at a jog and doesn’t want to jog, so I have to keep pulling it down from a nervous, hobbyhorse canter back into a proper trot. Most of the horses need some kind of warm-up whether the trainer says so or not. Sometimes the horse hasn’t been out for a number of days and I jog a mile before taking up a faster pace. I may or may not be asked, but I will do it simply because in my judgment (for any one of several reasons) it’s best.
Sometimes I have to pee. If I have time for the real bathroom I might go (cuz they have toilet paper) but if I’m short on time I find an empty stall and do like the men, only squatting. But most of all I find the things that stall me are those that happen within an outfit. The girth is too long and needs to be changed; the horse needs rundown bandages. Some other rider came and took the tack that was gonna go on my horse and we’re waiting for it to come back; one of the grooms or hotwalkers didn’t show up and now there aren’t enough people to do the work so I have to tack my own horse.
“We gotta get the poultice off before we send him out”
“She spread a shoe so we’re changin’ the tack to Bubba and you can get her later” (later WHEN?)
“I just have to get this horse in the (ice) tub and I’ll be right with you…”
I try not to get excited because it casts a pall on an outfit and everyone becomes either frantic when they see me or resentful of having been spoken to with a raised voice as in; ”hurry the fuck up! I got four more to get before the break!”
I’m not done with this post by any stretch of the imagination, and as soon as I get time again (like when it rains) I’ll finish it. But I was going to end it with:
You can bet that if I charged by the hour, it would be 40 bucks per hour. And I’ll give you ten-to-one that suddenly all my problems are solved.
But nothing’s that simple.
I have to try to get some work done on my house before Monday or Tuesday when it rains, so I might not write again till after.
posted by hoofstep at
3:27 AM
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