This took place yesterday, but required too much editing to post right away:
Last night was to be the second start for the red filly (the angry one- nicknamed "Mercy"). Buththe races were cancelled. Lat week I believe we made it through the whole four days without missing. Unfortunaltely for Mercy our luck could not hold out.
Everyone is so broke this time of year, and even more so for all the missed days. What usually happens is that as we go back to five days, as we do now becauase it's march, they add a race to the card, and although we normally wouldn't run ten races until later in the year, we'll begin now to make up the number of races. I don't know how anybody makes it through this time of year as a trainer. At least not without money coming in from a different job or a good- paying owner.
And for my part, I am so busy on any number of projects I can barely get to this screen to write. Aside from my little forays into other sources of income, there is the house and its demands. I will probebly have to rent it just to pay off all I'll be borrowing to remodel it.
During the past week or so a disturbing trend has surfaced: I am getting tossed, dumped, dropped, thrown, sacked, ejected or whatever you want to call it an average of three times a week. Since I got back from the wrist injury I have been unwillingly separated from my saddle more times than everybody else has so far this year combined.
That’s a lotta loose horses, baby!
I am sure my old instructor Ron would tell me that the problem is all in my head, and he’s probably right, because here’s what I think; winter sucks; snow sucks, cold sucks, layers suck, working outdoors sucks, being obligated to help when it’s ten degrees sucks, wetness sucks, cold rain sucks, sweating inside your outfit and getting chilled sucks, getting sick sucks, getting chapped sucks, having your hands freeze inside your gloves sucks, not being able to feel the reins sucks, and in general having to work early in the morning when it’s cold sucks!
When I don’t feel like working, and I usually don’t in the winter, I have a hard time keeping focused on the horses. When you are younger you don’t really notice the littlest things, but as many times as I have thrown a leg over, I have come to realize that exercise is for many horses just like a walk is for a dog. Even a bad racehorse likes to stretch their legs once in a while, and it helps to have a playmate. That playmate would be me. The one categorical necessity for insuring my ass stays in the saddle is that I must show up as a playmate.
If I just sit there in the saddle, minding my own business, returning from a gallop, say; thinking about how much so and so owes me or how I am going to get brackets for the gutter today, suddenly Goober will sling his head and buck. I'll shorten the reins and tell him what a rude asshole he is, but that's what he was just telling me! What he just said was; “what a rude asshole you are!” What do you suppose makes me say that?
You can’t notice it until you’ve been through it a million times- enough to learn by repetition - stupid humans - that you as the rider exist in an ongoing conversation with the animal from the moment you plop yourself in the saddle. And it’s like being in a video game; if you stop concentrating for just one moment to eat some chips or something your little man could get whacked.
The difference is you can pause the game; you cannot pause the horse.
To illustrate the dynamic, let's turn it around to the horse's perspective:
Someone greets you by throwing an itchy scratchy nylon harness on your head and a cold belt around your belly. Then they hand you off to someone else who jumps up on your back and kicks you. Not as if you don’t know the routine, though; a long time ago you learned that it’s not about being attacked. It’s uncomfortable and maybe even a little unfair from your point of view, but it beats having to stand in a cubicle for the whole day.
As you shuffle around the shedrow on your way out, one of your neighbors thrusts a curious muzzle out and your head turns to meet it nostril to nostril. “Oh, NO” you hear from above, and the steel cheek of the bit jerks you away from the interaction. Sure keeps things from getting interesting, doesn’t it?
Most of the next 20 minutes is pretty much the same. You go down the same path to the same place and do the same thing you did yesterday. You get a kick when you stop to smell the air and when you pause to watch the other horses out there doing their thing. And most of them are all by themselves, too, with just their riders.
Within all of this restriction and regimentation, the one variable that actually has an interactive element is the rider. You can’t talk or do anything with anybody else, after all, so how you gonna have fun? The only evidence that you are even alive is the rider kicking you, so if they think they’re gonna forget you're there as soon as you what they want, espeically when it’s your one hour out of the whole day to actually do a little showing off, you’re not gonna let them get away with it!
After all, isn’t it rude to completely ignore another human because you suddenly remembered that you left your socks on the woodstove at home? Of course it happens, and your human friend will normally ask you; “hey, you there? Something wrong?” Even more insistent they will be if you are the one who initiated the interaction. “Hey, you invited me; if your gonna ignore me I’m leaving.”
And so will Goober; he might shake his head and neck, or pull the reins out of your hands as if to say, “hey, you there?” or he’ll throw his head between his knees, pull you forward and then kick his ass in the air and blast you right out of the saddle, meaning “YOU INVITED ME; IF YOU’RE GONNA IGNORE ME I’M LEAVING!!”
So who’s calling who rude?
Anyway this has been happening a lot more than usual lately.
About half way through this composition Doc called to tell me the track was closed. I don’t think we’ll run tonite.
I’ve been told that blog readers don’t like long posts. So that’s all for now.
