Tag: horses

Mud Mask

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This shit started when this friend I’ll call W was coming to visit with their new SO. The last time we saw W, they were at the end of a relationship, and it was rocky and bad;  words were exchanged, disappointments voiced, phone calls avoided and emails unreturned. Breakups are ugly, I get it, but seriously, people, you know the rest of us can see you? 

So ok W was coming and bringing the new SO and we were getting floors vacuumed and the sheets changed when W texted me to say the new SO was sick and they weren’t coming after all. Which meant we could stop vacuuming. Which was, despite the disappointment, sorta ok. We had agreed to take care of The Graduate’s GF’s fuzzy little dog for the weekend. He’d be our houseguest. Something else to do.

GqFHGW58TSu0aDUz2z34uAI was out in the yard with all the dogs when I got a text from my brother asking about an article that the Search Engine Monopoly suggested to him, written by J, one of my internet friends. My brother was like don’t you know this person and I was all sure that’s J. Is that a real friend my brother asked and I did not hesitate to say yes. 

I never like set out to have internet friends. I had them before I realized, really. When I moved from Seattle I felt disconnected from most of the people I saw every day. It was like we were dead to them. Of course, no one warned me. I just set off on my adventure with all my family, pets, and possessions, and no one wondered whatever happened to us. And that first year, we lived in North Dreadful, which had its downs and downers. And then we lived in the city, and there was a hurricane. But somewhere in there I made a Twitter for my cat, and ended up with some pocket friends.

J was one of the first people I talked to regularly on Twitter. Back in 2012, he caught me at peak cussing-on-the-internet, and RTed me as @HamsterRelish “what kind of twat says “va-jay-jay?” it’s VAGINA.” We go way back. 

I talk to J on three platforms, I told my brother. I’m looking forward to having lunch with him. (Not because we had plans to have lunch, but because I always imagined I would have a reason to go to J-ville and we would have lunch. Maybe get a mani-pedi. You know, friend things.)

But then standing in the yard watching three dogs run around I got to thinking about J and wondered why I hadn’t seen a post in about a week, which was unusual given that we were connected on three platforms.

And it was a Facebook post, to J’s wall, from J’s longtime SO, that said something about J being gone and that sure as shit didn’t make any sense.

So I looked up J’s mother. And she had a post saying that J’s last words were “Just love each other.” 

J could tell me which peanut butter cookie recipe to use and follow it up with a hilarious 80s song reference. J wrote beautifully about being a therapist, and had a plush vagina pillow on the couch at work. J encouraged my revolting and fanciful ideas about cat-milk-cheese. J tried on all the funny hats at Target. J could take down a Twitter troll and make them cry uncle. J called bullshit on homophobia, on racism, on sexism. J knew what Bundt cakes to make. J had names and numbers for mental health specialists. J took selfies with a mud mask on his face. J knew more about suicide than anyone I know. J knew when people’s husband’s employers were in the news and that not all news that seemed good actually is good. J knew how to DM me on three platforms, and did.

Your internet friends are pocket friends. They live in your phone. They know your pet peeves and your enthusiasms. They are real friends you see all the time. They go everywhere with you.

So where the fuck was J.

I checked all three platforms.

It didn’t make any sense. He was just there the other day, when the truck full of axe body spray exploded in Texas. When he walked his dog. 

I’ve had other friends disappear on social media. Sometimes they come back with another name. Sometimes they don’t. I’ve even had an acquaintance in Australia die. But this.

I hearted the posts from his SO and his mother.

And within minutes the algorithm was showing the posts to our mutual friends. And by the end of the day I was juggling DMs from mutual friends on three platforms. 

What happened.

Are you ok.

I am ok. Are you ok. I am gutted. I don’t understand. No, me either.

Luckily, in my weird little privileged world, there are always dogs to walk and horses to ride, and I kept going. Horses demanded my attention. Dogs, dogs, dogs. I was a little out of it, and had to tell my horse trainer, but we got to work, because I had regionals to prepare for. My new horse and I qualified for the championships, ok sure only at training level but it was coming up. An important horse show seems stupid and strange when you’re upset about someone who died, but also good and simple and true. We worked to get there. We were ready.

But then right after I’d left the barn my mare spooked and got a big cut on her hip. The barn manager texted me right away. She called for the vet and sent me a photo. It looked like a clean slice. Not too deep.

We got home and headed out to walk the dogs. Eggi was too excited for words and kept licking my face and bumping into Captain. The Houseguest looked fuzzily nonplussed, but I fitted him with his little blue collar and leash. I handed the Houseguest’s leash to the Bacon Provider, and took our two dogs myself. We were doing the short loop, through the woods. We were about a half-mile from home when I heard the Bacon Provider make a sort of hiccuping noise. I turned around to see him holding a leash, attached to a little blue  collar, buckled into a neat round loop with no fuzzy dog in it. The Houseguest was booking it back down the trail towards our house. Now the Bacon Provider is not accustomed to fuck-ups, and takes things v seriously, and he took off running after the fuzzy little punk, despite my attempts to explain that he really should not chase the dog. DON’T I shouted CHASE HIM to the empty woods.

Then I was alone in the woods with my two dogs, and my phone rang and it was the vet. She had sewn up the hole in the horse. I asked about the upcoming show. “Well,” said the vet, “if it were on her leg, I’d say no. and if it were on her face I’d say no problem. You should stick to light work for the next few days and we’ll see.”

Sticking to light work.

What happened. 

Horses are stupid.

But what happened.

There was a guy, fixing a thing, with a power tool. It made a noise. The horse scooted.

Is she ok.

She’ll be ok. 

Don’t you have a show coming up.

Back at the house, the Bacon Provider and the Houseguest looked like nothing had happened. I thought about posting something about how naughty the Houseguest was on one or three platforms but thought his owner might be sad to learn he was being a pain while she was away.  

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A couple days passed and the Bacon Provider left for a business trip. My horse and I stuck to light work. By Tuesday it was clear the stitches were holding nicely. But the stitches are right on her hip, and if she stood the wrong way on the trailer ride she might open it again. I made the decision to keep my horse home from the show. Even though it was the championships. Even though we worked so hard to get there. Even though.

I got a text from my husband sitting on his plane where he saw W’s ex who boarded after he did. Had W and the new SO made it for the weekend, they would have very likely all run into each other at the airport. JFC people the rest of us can see you. Be good to each other, even if you have to let someone go.

I walked all three dogs by myself.

I got in bed early and put a mud mask on my stupid sad face.

I got a text around 10 from my neighbor. She was away and the person who was supposed to do barn check hadn’t. Could I go over and throw the horses a flake of hay? Of course I could. I washed off the mud mask. Real life friends and neighbors are important. I went in my pajamas. Her horses were fine.

But

Dammit 

I miss you, J.

Thursday Schooling

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I arrive at the horse show in Vermont just before the horses do. It is raining vigorously. There are just two client horses coming with the commercial shipper, and I watch from inside the barn as they are unloaded. I lend a hand stretching a tarp over our hay. I step in to help carry a big box of tack.  I unwrap my horse’s legs.  The show groom tells me where I can find scissors to cut the twine that holds a bale of hay and asks me to give a couple of horses a flake each. She also confides that this is her last show with our barn because she is giving notice on Monday and moving to a new job. I don’t want it to be true, so I quickly decide I must have misunderstood her. I want to wait for my trainer to show up with his horses before I get on, but I can lunge. Gidget stands quietly for a quick grooming and I walk her to the lungeing ring.  

She reacts to the new place, giving the rain-gorged creek her most crooked parrot-eye, answering the whinny of another horse, letting a passing tractor blow the wind up her skirt. The show facility has a new lungeing area, shaped like a rectangle on three sides and curved like a bean on the fourth. I’m clumsy with the gate latch. I walk Gidget into the center of the lungeing ring, into the bend in the bean, and stop her to adjust the side reins, which are new, so I’m guessing at what hole they should be on. I remember to walk with her in a large circle, showing her the situation counterclockwise and then clockwise. Gidget settles into working on a circle, trotting and then cantering, with me in the center. A big truck blasts by on Route 106, and my mare celebrates with a buck and a fart and a surge of galloping with her tail straight up. I hold on. I get her back to trotting, and then ask her to walk. I stop her and adjust the side reins again and take Gidget over to the other side of the ring shaped like a rectangle on three sides and a bean on the fourth,  making room for our trainer who has arrived with his horse.

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Didn’t it rain?

A friendly staff member of the facility comes and asks how the new footing is. We tell him it’s good. He explains how the lungeing area ended up shaped like a rectangle on three sides and curved like a bean on the fourth. We both finish and go back to our barn to take off the side reins. 

We get on and ride into one of the show rings, because this is what everyone does on arrival day at a show. The same friendly staff member comes, shouting and shaking his fist at us, saying that the ring isn’t open, and we’re gonna ruin the footing, what with the rain. I go tour the property instead, letting my horse see everything I can. She snorts like a crocodile at the dairy cows at the farm across the street. When it’s time to put the horses away, I think about when the friendly staff member had almost finished the new lungeing ring and had three straight sides of fencing up and someone came along and told him that people want a curved shape for lungeing. I wish I could picture him farting and running or snorting like a crocodile, but I can only see him raising his eyebrows or shaking his fist.

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I think Vermont is still one of those places that we’re supposed to write poems about. You’ve got time to, if you live there, because mobile phone coverage is spotty at best, and high speed internet is a rare and prized luxury.  I lived there in the eighties, before I cared about the internet and I still wrote poems regularly. My poems were about the biting black flies in the mountains and the crabby yankees who were my neighbors in the city and no one ever read them. Then I got a paying job, and threw myself at adulthood, and (mostly) stopped writing (but especially poems).

Gidget marched around the show ring six times over the next few days, and by the last trip had mostly gotten over the creek, and the tractors, and the too-fast trucks. The cows will still be there next year. I did not misunderstand the show groom, and I will miss her.

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I found something I could ride

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Something I ate: when, back in April, my husband and I took our trainer to dinner and asked about his ideas for getting a new horse, I think I ordered the fish.  Horse shopping wasn’t a new topic of conversation, as this is something most equestrians have opinions about, so we weren’t surprised to hear him suggest going to Germany. “The main thing,” he said this night, and not for the last time, “Is find something you can ride.”

How do you find a horse to try: while I was able to use my personal connections to find someone to look for a horse for me in Germany, looking closer to home was still easier. And where are the closer-to-home horses advertised? On Facebook, in a large, open group. Facebook has gotten some tough press lately, for its role in interfering with democracy and in facilitating genocide, but until we overthrow our social media overlords, cast off the shackles of our Amazon Prime memberships, and find a way to circumvent the authoritarian monopoly on online search, it’s what there is beyond word of mouth.

What I did beforehand: a day before my flight to Florida, I got a message from the agent who was supposed to show me the horse. She wanted to check if I was still coming. I said I was. She said the horse I had first contacted her about was no longer available, but she had a number of others to show me. There are a lot of reasons I can think of that would make a horse be no longer available, like injury or illness, or if it was already sold, or if the owner changed her mind about selling it. But to be honest I was annoyed. Peeved, even. I thought about cancelling my trip.

Why I went anyway: when I somewhat testily pressed the sales agent, she cheerfully provided me details about four other horses, all theoretically suitable for my purposes. I got over my peeved self.

Things that were not funny: at the sales barn, the fellow showing the horse had a German first name, and everyone knew him by his German first name, and no one said his last name because apparently no one felt they could pronounce it. This feels terribly American to me, as does most mispronunciation of names. Put this on our list of things we should do to be better, America. Let’s all learn to pronounce each other’s names. Starting with me. I can’t pronounce the German guy’s last name.

What I saw: the first horse the fellow with the German name showed me was a little chestnut mare, darker than a penny but a shade brighter than liver chestnut. When I saw her in the cross-ties, I noticed she had an unusual pattern of white on the side of her face, and wasn’t sure I liked it. But there is no such thing as a good horse in a bad color, so I set aside this impression.

She seemed like a quality horse with a professional rider sitting on her, but the reason professional riders exist is because they can ride anything and make it look like a quality horse.

What I wore: riding clothes, but no spurs.

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What it is: riding is expensive and time consuming. Horses are simultaneously fragile and dangerous. I know of nothing more magical than the feeling of riding well, and also nothing more elusive.

Things that were funny: over the course of four trips to barns, I rode about 10 different horses, and it wasn’t until I sat on the little chestnut mare that I felt that I’d found something I could ride. My trainer’s advice, which had seemed at first to be so obvious as to not be important, turned out to be the best signal that I’d found what I was looking for. I tried to suppress the huge grin, but I felt right away that I had found what I was looking for. I just didn’t want to tell anyone yet. I didn’t even know the horse’s name. In fact, we left the barn without me finding out her name. I knew she was six, and what she was like to ride that day, but not much else.

Who went with me: the sales agent who did all the work finding horses for me to try in Florida, who was polite when I abruptly got off another horse I didn’t like, who laughed at my jokes, and who even got me the chance to try the horse I had originally wanted to see.

Why I bought this horse: other than being the one horse I tried that I really felt I could ride, she was the one that was fun without feeling inexplicably intimidating. Sure, they weigh 1300 lbs., but, as my trainer says, either you’re in charge or they’re in charge. And her face? Once I’d ridden her it seemed extraordinarily adorable.

Things that were sad: that other horse, the one I’d wanted to see in the first place? She was really nice, too.

I held the elevator door

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What I saw: two guys, Broseph and Chad. Broseph filled the opening of the elevator door like a tank-top-wearing storm cloud, blocking the light from the sun. Chad blew in behind him, dressed in an American flag-striped polo, almost as big but pinker, because of the acne he was too old for.

What I did beforehand: flew to Florida, had dinner alone, wandered the forlorn aisles of the next-door liquor store, ducked a clerk watching a telenovela set in ancient plastic Egypt who called out to me repeatedly asking if I needed help finding anything. It wasn’t until I was driving home that it occurred to me I might have asked her about finding an amateur-friendly horse, under ten years old, nice enough to show in the dressage ring. Or better, why are we here, any of us? I should have asked her that.

IMG_2162What I wore: black suede Pumas, capri-length jeans, black tee shirt, scowl

Where I sat: the exit row

Who went with me: pocket friends

How I got tickets: a couple of weeks ago I saw an ad for a horse and contacted the sales agent about it. Within hours of my booking a trip to try it, I got two messages from friends saying, “Ooh! Look at this one!” and suggesting I go try it. It seemed fortuitous.

What it is: dressage horse shopping these days has become like an obscure subculture of internet dating, and is facilitated by an open Facebook group. You read ads, look at videos, show them to your trainer and friends, saying, “Ooh! Look at this one!” You talk to people on the phone, and sometimes even fly to other cities on the chance that they’ve got the horse you’re looking for. You wonder if you’re crazy. You hope you’re going to be safe. I tried horses on one previous trip that I couldn’t really steer and on another trip, a horse that wouldn’t stop. The people I’ve met doing this have been extremely pleasant and nice and as open to the weirdness of some random, unknown person showing up to ride their horse as I have had to be to the weirdness of riding some random, unknown horse.

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Things that were not funny: a group of construction workers crossed my path as they passed from the pool deck to the interior of the hotel. I was dressed in riding clothes, and more than one of them felt it would be ok to make “appreciative” hissing noises about me.

Things that were sad: dinner alone next to the mating turtle salt-and-pepper shakers at a strip mall Thai restaurant.

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Things that were funny: trying to convince the owner of the Thai restaurant to make my food spicy enough.

Something I ate: massaman curry that was actually spicy enough

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What about the horse: that story is to come.

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What happened on the elevator: when Broseph and Chad stepped onto the elevator with me, they thought I was holding the door open for them. Really I was pressing the button for my floor. So they thanked me, and I said, “Sure.”

Then the door closed, revealing a big ad for the hotel chain we were in, with the word “selfie” and a dog wearing sunglasses. I said, “You know, a dog can’t really take a selfie. No thumbs.”

Chad agreed. “I know, right?” said he, adding, “It’s like anything can be anything these days.”

As I stepped off the elevator, I threw in, “I mean….Look who’s president.”

I rode the Robo-Pony

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What I did: rode the Robo-Pony (not its trademarked name), a mechanical horse with computerized controls and feedback, available for one-on-one lessons with a professional instructor. 


Who went with me: S. and K., my barn friends. We took turns. 

What I did beforehand: watched the FEI Grand Prix CDI 5* at the AGDF Wellington, Florida 

What I wore: new running bra and breeches, purchased for the experience.  

How I got tickets: we just, like, you know, walked up to this vendor’s tent, and saw a woman having a lesson on the Robo-Pony, stuck our heads in and started asking questions.

Why I tried it: it looked like fun.

Where I sat: slightly left, as I do, according to the sensors, and spent at least five minutes getting used to the terribly uneven feeling of sitting symmetrically in the saddle.  

Things that were sad: someone had yanked the left rein and broken the sensor, so the Robo-Pony was completely dull on the left side of its mouth. Also, I forget its name. Also, we had to pay the full amount, even though the Robo-Pony was kind of busted.


Things that were funny: I clucked at the Robo-Pony to get it to go. K. patted it. 

Things that were not funny: we were not supposed to kick the Robo-Pony to make it go. K. struggled because her long legs were below the sensors on its sides. Both S. and I kicked the Robo-Pony to make it go.

Something I bought: new Pikeur breeches in a lovely shade of French blue

What it is: an opportunity to ride an equine simulator and see on seven sensor screens some feedback about your position when riding, but probably not a substitute for real riding. The Robo-Pony revealed many of my known positional flaws, including my tendency to drop contact with the bit when I ask the horse to go forward; dropping the reins made the Robo-Pony stretch out and down and the computer screens filled with red bars of failure signals. Of the three of us, I am the least experienced dressage rider, and probably the only one interested in trying it again. I thought it was fun.


Who should see it: bored and curious visitors to the 2017 Adequan® Global Dressage Festival 

What I saw after: 2016 Rio Olympic Games bronze medalist Laura Graves riding her 2002 Dutch Warmblood gelding Verdades, in the “Friday Night Stars” FEI Grand Prix Freestyle CDI-W, with the winning score of 80.728%.

I lied

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What I did: lied at the dentist’s office.

What I did beforehand: took the train to Grand Central. 

What I wore: jeans and sneakers.

Who went with me: 19.

Why I was there: 19 cracked a filling.

Where I sat: the lobby, watching one of those game shows where they ask people harder and harder multiple choice questions.

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How I learned to lie: I was born honest, not knowing how to lie. Forbidden to touch my mother’s sewing machine, I sewed through my finger when I was 4, breaking the needle off and requiring stitches. Twice. 

When I was 5, I stole a decorative cardinal from my mother’s craft supples and inserted the wire on its foot into the hole of an electrical wall socket; I found out what getting shocked feels like. My mother discovered me trying to wash away the terrible burning feeling, and I refused to tell her what happened. 


When I was 9, I was friends with the popular girls in my elementary school class, and my mother pointedly instructed me that if any of them ever ask me to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with, I could say that my mother wouldn’t let me.

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Things that were sad: when I was 12, I was sent to a summer camp in Colorado where I went horse camping and did not learn to cinch my girth tight enough and the other girls were extravagantly mean to all newcomers, and if I had known enough to be a malingerer, I would have invented stomachaches. Conveniently, I did not have to invent stomachaches, for I spent days on end in the infirmary with diarrhea.

When I was 13, my family went to a friend’s cabin on a lake in Missouri and my brother and I exaggerated our experience with horses and talked the wranglers into giving us a string of sour trail horses to go ride unsupervised. One horse bolts back to the barn with the youngest of us. Mine bucked me off onto a gravel road. I got stitches but will always have rocks in my head.


When I was 15, my best friend B— who taught me all the right details about wearing preppy clothes– took real English riding lessons and wore a black velvet helmet and tan jodhpurs and I was so jealous I avoided speaking to her for seven years. 


Things that were funny: When I was 17, I was late for French class several times a week because Excusez-moi, Monsieur Masson! Je suis tres désolée parce que je suis en retard. J’ai aidé mon amie Aimee à monter les escaliers. Or even, I am so sorry Mr. Masson, I have terrible cramps today. No matter what my excuse, he reddened, shook his jowly, understanding face and allowed it.

When I was 20, I talked my way into a summer job waiting tables at the Rosebud, promising that I would definitely, positively stay on through the next school year. I was terrible at waiting tables, forgetting orders, dropping huge trays of food, and crying. I made big tips and quit in August. 

When I was 21, I wrote a fake-serious letter to a small brewery in Pennsylvania describing in hyperbolic terms a nearly-disastrous power outage saved only by a six-pack of their delicious cold beer. They sent me two cases, via their distributor, but upon arrival they almost did not give it to me because I did not appear to be of a legal age to drink. 


Things that were not funny: when I was 10, I breathlessly took strangers into my false confidences on a chair lift in Breckenridge, Colorado and said I was an accomplished gymnast hoping to make the U.S. Olympic team and almost never allowed to ski. 

When I was 18, I worked for a family in Wellesley, Massachusetts doing light housework and caring for their young children in the afternoons. The more days they asked me to come, the more I grew to hate them; they gave me migraines. I quit abruptly, concocting a story I no longer remember.

Something I ate: when I was 11, I made decent money babysitting, passing the hours snooping in peoples’ drawers and tasting their food. I spent it on plastic model horses.

What it is: one of the receptionists at the dentist asked after my middle child. I might have had time to be honest if we hadn’t been walking out the door, but it was so awkward to tell the truth. “He’s fine,” said I, invisibly cringing at my laziness.

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Who should lie: I got out of the practice of lying when I got married, though once we had kids I pretended to be both the tooth fairy and Santa. 

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What I saw on the way home: more rain.

Actually, this is a train bound for Grand Central

I went for a walk

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What I saw: the woods of the Kitchawan Preserve, Ossining, New York

What I wore: tall black custom Vogel field boots, Prince of Wales spurs, light brown Pikeur full-seat breeches, lilac 3/4-sleeve L.L.Bean polo shirt, Charles Owen Ayr8 helmet, prescription sunglasses, black SSG® Soft Touch™ Riding Gloves. 

What I did beforehand: overslept



Who went with me: Remonta Hado, aged 15, also sometimes known as Hado or Brown or, even, Big Brown.

How I got here: a set of random, impulsive decisions that might be impossible to replicate.

Why I went for a walk: we have been working very hard and needed a break. It was a perfectly clear, bright, dry sunny day.

Where I sat: Devouxcoux mono-flap dressage saddle.

Things that were sad: you, my readers, won’t look at my last blog post. 

Things that were funny: there are signs posted in this park stating that dogs must be on leash, and also further stipulating that dogs must be on a leash up to six feet long. I do occasionally see people walking a dog on a leash here, but almost always see people with their dogs off leash. Walking a dog off-leash is a great pleasure, of course, for both the dog, that gets to explore its freedom, and the walker, who walks and indulges in the sight of their dog moving at liberty. But it all depends on an owner’s ability to call the loose dog and leash it up again. I saw three dogs on this walk. The first was a black lab mix named Lola. Lola’s owners shouted “come” about eleven or twelve or eighty-one times before it occurred to them to turn around and walk the other way. Their apology was, “Oh, she’s never seen a horse before.”

Things that were not funny: the next dogs I saw were a pair of merle Australian shepherds. Their owners were calling shrilly but fruitlessly, as well, perhaps unaware of the deer their dogs were presumably pursuing, when suddenly the dogs exploded from the dense brush, charged me and my quiet, motionless horse who retained all of his composure while the marauding, barking fluff-balls were re-captured. These owners shouted at me accusingly about how they hadn’t any place to move off the trail (a statement so incomprehensible I am still mulling it over, days later), and flexed their muscles dragging off the canine ruffians by the neck and making no apology at all as we paraded sedately past them. 


What it is: the Kitchawan Preserve is a 208-acre natural area bordered by New York City reservoirs. It features reasonably well-maintained, wooded trails and a few open fields. It is lovely in all four seasons, though it can be very muddy after strong rains, and is heavily used by dog-walkers, particularly on weekends in fine weather. It was once a research facility of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. There are two horse farms abutting the preserve, though I rarely see other riders in the woods. 

Who should see it: didn’t Thoreau say, “Not till we are lost in the woods on horseback, out of the earshot of people and their dogs, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations?” 

What I saw on the way home: when we emerged from the woods and stepped back onto the mowed, grassy paths of the farm where Hado lives, we were again among Hado’s folk, the herd. Horses stood in paddocks alone and in pairs, heads bowed in worship of one of their gods, the late summer grass, and another of their gods, the sunshine.  Hado glanced in the direction of two of his equine brethren and compelled them to dance in his direction. He celebrated their greeting with a sequence of bounces, tossing his head and shoulders and laughing in his throaty bass-baritone. I gave him a kick, and directed him back to the barn.

I went to a Horse Show

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Where I went: Centerline Events Dressage Show I at HITS, in Saugerties, New York

Dressage Hair

What I wore: Charles Owen helmet, heavy-duty hairnet under a rhinestone-decorated black crocheted net to cover the hair in back that doesn’t fit up under the helmet, white performance fabric show shirt, stock-tie, pin in the shape of a riding crop and horse, black Pikeur show jacket, white full-seat Pikeur breeches, custom Vogel dress boots, Prince of Wales spurs. 
White breeches, tall dress boots, and spurs
What I did beforehand: put my suitcase, bootbag, and hanging bag in the car, threw my purse in the car, broke my favorite glasses with my purse, filled a five gallon water container, drove to get gas, heard glugging noise, discovered two gallons of water had spilled into the back of my car; went home to get towels, left late, drove to Saugerties without a functioning radio or GPS, hit a piece of rebar on a freeway ramp. 

They were my favorite glasses
Who went with me: my horse Hado, and he’s really my husband’s horse, and his show name is Remonta Hado which is a name that means he is a “remount,” or, calvary horse. Hado came from the military breeding program in Argentina; “hado” is a Spanish word, and means, “fate.”
Hado, napping at the show
Why I went to this show: when you learn to ride, you spend a lot of time in a ring, going around in a circle or down the long side at the walk, trot, and canter. Not every horse and rider will go to shows, but many horses seem to enjoy it, and it is a very different experience to leave your barn and go someplace new, even if all you’re doing is walk, trot, and canter. You get nervous. Your horse gets nervous. When it goes well, it makes the months of work feel worth it. When it doesn’t go well, you know what you need to work on at home. 

Show horses get a lot of baths
Where I sat: everyone going to shows from our barn got these chairs with our names on them so we have someplace to sit in the barn area at the show. The chairs have pockets and a little table, and I will keep saying that they’re for the quiz until someone actually laughs.

Hado getting braided

Things that were sad: when I left the barn on Saturday, I dropped an antique pin that had been a gift from my mother. When I arrived on Sunday, someone had found the pin and put it on a table, so I decided I needed to wear it. One of the grooms noticed that it made a tiny, rattling noise and thought it might be annoying to ride in. It was somewhat annoying when I was in the ring, doing the tests, but the rest of the time I didn’t notice. When I got home I noticed that I lost the other pin–the one shaped like a riding crop and horse. It, too, had been a gift from my mother (this was the sad part). 

Hay twine on the ground at the show
Things that were funny, or real things I heard trainers say in the warm-up area:
“Generate some magic.”
“More electric! More electric!”
(Shouting) “Don’t overreact! Stick! stick! GOOD!!”
“Kill it, ok? You ride. You deserve to be here.”
“Now! Kick him now! And trot! And trot!!”
“Go get busy! Thaaaaaat’s better.”
“Inner leg! Inner leg! Inner leg! Inner leg! Inner leg! Inner leg! Inner leg!”

Tractor waiting to drag the warm-up ring
Things that were not funny: over two days, I did the same two tests, and something went wrong each time. My first test I had learned incorrectly, and on my last test (when I did it a second time), the judge rang the bell to let me know I’d made an error; I was very confused because I had done the test the first day and that judge hadn’t let me know about my error. The other test was slightly more interesting and exciting to Hado, so the first day I rode him tentatively because he felt like he might explode. The second day I rode him forward, and he bounced with excitement in several corners.
What I ate: bacon-egger, coffee, and juice
What it is: dressage is a French word, that means “training.” It is a separate discipline from other English riding competitions like showjumping, though it is one phase of eventing, but the basic techniques underlie all riding. At the high levels, riders and horses perform freestyle programs to music, so some people call it Olympic horse dancing and think it’s silly.  

Hado and Me
Who should see it: like other equestrian sports, it is hard for non-horsey people to know what they’re watching at a dressage show. If you do want to go watch, don’t bring your dogs, don’t make a lot of noise, and do sit down next to someone who seems to know what they’re looking at, and ask them to tell you what you’re seeing.

Graduation party: I sat on the floor

What I saw on the way home: after my last class on Sunday, I hopped off my horse, handed him to the grooms with a hearty, “Thank you!”, grabbed my bags and jumped in my car without even taking off my helmet. I took off my spurs and helmet in the parking lot, but couldn’t unfasten the antique pin, so I left it on, with the tie, and made a detour from Saugerties through central Connecticut to go hug my niece who just graduated with high honors from Wesleyan University. My brother was there, and his ex-wife, and five of their college friends from their Wesleyan days, and my sister-in-law’s best friend, and both of her parents, and one of her brothers, and my niece’s boyfriend and his father and sister, and one other woman who I met but I have no idea who she was. I was still in my tie and white breeches and tall boots, and probably looked like George Washington.

Out of the Woods

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One of the horses, a gelding, settled in to the new barn right away, making himself popular with the staff for his calm demeanor and habit of grazing quietly in turnout. The other, a mare, has seemed tense and worried, though still willing enough to get out every day. It was a relief when finally she dropped her head and relaxed for the first time on a trail ride in the woods last Friday.
At 18, the mare Nacari is no longer sound for much more than trail rides. A suspensory ligament tear almost a decade ago never healed properly, or was reinjured.  Back in Seattle my trainer encouraged me to retire her in 2009, and though I had my misgivings, I complied, and sent her to a facility in Sacramento. The reports were never encouraging; she lived alone in a 20 by 20 pipe stall and they hadn’t been able to find her a friend to live with. In the summer of 2011, we were leaving the west coast and I wouldn’t leave Nacari in California. We shipped her east to join our other horse at the new barn in New York.
She arrived with a long mane, strong bare feet, with a wild defiance in her eye and none of the ground manners she had known when she left. We started her on some light work on the walker, to see if she was sound, and she was. Over the next four years we found that real ring work was always too much for her, but she had a great attitude about riding outside, especially with another horse. She was a serviceably sound horse for that job.
It brought me tremendous joy to be able to spend many good days with this horse whose show career had ended much too soon. On reflection, retiring her at a barn far away and not seeing her for a whole year, she must have felt abandoned. I saw her look of recognition when she greeted my youngest son in New York. She groomed his hair in just the way she always had when she towered over him because he was four and so was she; we are her people as much as she is our horse. Retirement far away was truly a mistake. My mistake.
She had but two days of ill health over our four years at the last barn in New York; one when she got anaplasmosis from a tick bite. An alert staff member  noticed that she was especially quiet in turnout and thought to take her temperature: it was dangerously high. The other was on a December day two years ago. I finished riding her and she seemed agitated and unsettled. When I put her in her stall she turned and looked at her belly. She pooped, and curled her lip, and tensed her belly muscles, looking for just like anyone with bad stomach cramps. We called the vet.
Colic is unarguably the leading medical cause of death in horses. It refers to a range of gut-related conditions, and can be caused by horses not drinking enough water, or consuming sand, or bad hay, or weather, or change of feed, or you know, Tuesday. Some barns keep a supply of banamine and administer it when a horse looks seriously colicky, right around the some moment that they send someone to call the vet.
In this case, Nacari pooped and pooped until it was liquid diarrhea, and the vet pronounced it colitis and not colic. She responded to meds, recovered, and we pretty much forgot about it.
But when you change barns, you watch, because changes in weather or feed can upset a horse, and anything that upsets a horse can make it colic.
Saturday we were on our way to the new barn when I got the call from the manager, saying that Nacari was looking colicky, they’d given her banamine, and they had called the vet. It speaks highly of staff that they took the time to call me even though they already knew I was on my way over, and only minutes away; many barns would have waited for an owner to arrive.


The horse was visibly distressed. Her groom F. was walking her outside on the grass. Nacari was curling her lip and pausing to kick at her stomach; sometimes the cramps in her belly were so strong her hind legs would buckle under her. The vet was an hour away.


I stood with the barn manager and told her that though I love this horse and I have owned her fifteen years, she is not a candidate for an expensive belly surgery. This is my decision. I have other horses. I have a great emotional attachment to the horse, but the recovery from a big colic operation requires many months of careful rehab, and it seems unfair to ask it of a horse that’s not in great shape to begin with. Perhaps another owner would make a different decision. Perhaps even my husband, who has authorized, watched, and paid for a belly surgery on a mare of a similar age. I told this to the barn manager because in a crisis, a real crisis, where the vet has come and I have to choose between putting my horse on a trailer to go to the hospital or putting that animal to sleep, I might need some help sticking to the right decision.
The vet on call was on her way. She suggested another, stronger drug than banamine, but only if the horse seemed not to be responding. She was not responding. The other drug was tried. F. continued to walk her, back and forth on the grass. The mare flung herself onto the grass a couple of times.
F. brought the horse inside in anticipation of the vet coming. We took the hay out of her stall. The vet on the phone said that if she’d lie quietly and not thrash that it would be okay to let Nacari lie down in her stall. They let her lay down in her stall. She looked exhausted. Were the drugs starting to work, I wondered. Was the light in her eye returning, and the panic leaving?


People die. Cats die. Tiny mice die. Dogs die. Hamsters die. Giant whales die. Horses also die.
When you get a horse, you don’t think of it ever being sick or injured or dying. You imagine the happy times you’ll spend together. The riding in the sun, the ribbons in the show ring, the quiet moments brushing in the crossties or grazing on a grassy hill. You don’t imagine the clammy hours you’ll spend holding your horse for the vet while she puts in an IV. You fail to picture the thousand-plus vet bills for sutures when they get kicked by a pasture pal. You pretend you won’t ever have to tell a vet, “This horse is not a candidate for surgery.”
When you get a horse you don’t think about it ever being lame or sick or having to decide about its quality of life issues.
People don’t talk about their horses being lame or sick. Especially do not talk about their horses’ injuries on social media, where it’s all birthdays, graduations, new babies, and political outrage filling your timeline. Horses go lame and they do get sick. Maybe it’s superstition, or decorum. Few talk about it.
Certainly, the health records of performance horses are a closely guarded secret, because if an animal is ever for sale, it will be presented to the world as never having had an off day. Nacari is no longer a performance horse. She was bred to be a performance horse, sold to us at a premium price, and we put what we felt was all the best training into her that money could buy.
Many performance horses trickle down through a series of owners, as their physical capabilities diminish they are sold for less money to less and less experienced riders, ending their days teaching beginners to walk and trot, going around in a big oval in a lesson program. Older horses are great to learn on. We are stuck holding the bag with Nacari, being her first and last owners.
By the time the vet arrived, Nacari was finally showing some relief from the drugs. Her vitals were good, and the vet put on a long glove, lubed up, and performed a rectal exam; she didn’t find anything. 
The facilities manager was called in to put some hardware in the ceiling, and he brought a ladder and a drill, and drilled the pilot hole and put a screw eye in the ceiling. Nacari looked slightly alarmed but did nothing more than raise her head. Next they put a long tube up her nose and down into her gut and pumped about a liter of mineral oil in. “This’ll be through in about 18-20 hours,” said the vet, interrupted by the horse’s coughing and farting. When the oil was in, she pulled out the long tube as quickly as she could. The barn manager went to get a clipboard to write down the vet’s instructions.
The vet prepared to put an IV catheter in Nacari’s neck while I held her. First she shaved a square patch where the big jugular vein runs under the skin. Then she injected two spots with a topical antiseptic, one the square patch for the catheter and another anchor point a few inches away. She made two braids in the horse’s mane securing it with adhesive tape.

The vet injected the long IV needle and secured the catheter in several places with a needle and strong black thread. Then, her phone rang. The vet was on call until Tuesday. The first call was from the office. There were people buying a horse in Kentucky with an urgent question for her. She said she’d call back when she could. She hung up, started the next stitch. The phone rang again. It was someone else from the office, with the same message. She said that she would call back when she was finished. She tied off the stitch.
Her phone rang two more times, regarding the same emergency, 900 miles away. I’m not sure what sort of veterinary emergency requires a person to call a vet who is already handling another emergency in another state. I wondered aloud, and with a full coating of sarcasm, if they have veterinarians in Kentucky. The vet seemed to appreciate my query.


The catheter was attached to a pair of bags of fluid hanging from the ceiling, one with calcium and one without. I stood holding my horse long past the time when I was free to let her go. Someone had to tell me I could leave her. She wandered to the corner where her hay had been before, and ate whatever scraps she could find. I hung up her halter and lead rope. She gave me an angry look.


The vet cleaned up. The barn manager took notes on flushing the catheter and swapping one of the empty bags of fluid for the third full one. We took turns holding that bag; at 12 pounds it felt like a baby, just a few weeks old. Or a floppy cat maybe. The mare would get half sized portions of food, twice as often for the next 24 hours.
She looked like she was feeling better already.


I checked on her the next day. The catheter was out. She’d spent the morning eating grass, safely rolling in mud, tossing her head and enjoying the drop in temperature. Her groom was cleaning her legs in the wash stall. I had to cajole her into an ears-forward photo, playing peek-a-boo until I got the one I wanted. But I can see she is feeling better, and she can see that so am I.


Spooked

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Sometimes, our horse Hado pretends there is a bear in the woods, and he looks into the bushes with one eye and tosses his head and bounces around but doesn’t really spook. Mars, on the other hand, is six, and he does spook.
At our last show, there was a sizable pile of jumps and artificial flowers stacked in the corner of the ring where we were showing. I had Mars address it as we trotted around, after the horse before us finished and just ahead of the judge ringing the bell for us to begin. But walking past the very scary pile of artificial flowers and turning near it to get a good look was not enough to make it ok, or maybe it was just enough to fuel Mars’ imagination, so after the initial halt and salute, Mars trotted a few steps, snorted, threw his head up, went extravagantly sideways, and, then, tucked his butt under him, spun around, and tried to run out of the ring. I stopped him, put him back on the centerline, and made him do the whole test. The pictures tell the story. I look like I didn’t exhale for the full 6 minutes. My shoulders are elevated, my face getting pinker and pinker as the photos progress, and I’m sort of astonished we didn’t get a terrible score. With an entrance like that you’re in the judge’s hands. It could have been marked as an error. As it was, we were penalized for the movement, but not much else.
Mars, spooking in the show ring

I have seen different horses spook at lots of different things, like a particular pole on the ground (when there are lots of poles on the ground), or the depression in the dirt where a pole had been. Or a sunbeam. Or, a bird that appeared suddenly, or, a bird that had been sitting nearby for a while. Or, a sleeping dog that stood up. Or, a cat that leapt into the ring. Or, a jacket draped over a fence, or, an empty pallet in an unexpected place, or, a broken tree limb, or, some turkeys, or, no turkeys, or, another horse where he didn’t expect to see one. Or, a horse where he sees one all the time. Or, a flapping tarp, or, a motionless tarp, or, the jump pile, or, the bushes, or, and perhaps, most especially, that special end of the riding arena known as “the spooky end of the ring.”
Mars, moments later, with his mind on his work again

My first horse was named Della. She was a liver-chestnut, with a big, long head, big, long ears, white diamond on her forehead (called a star in horse parlance), and a short white stripe on the end of her nose (called a snip). She had sturdy, powerful legs with short white socks behind and extra-big feet. She was a warmblood, with the Dutch seal of the prancing lion in silhouette branded on her left hip; you could really only see it in the brightest sunlight. She liked sour apple flavored lollipops and orange rinds and sometimes would have a self-indulgent roll in her poo on a Saturday night.
Mares are different from geldings. Mares have their hormones, for one thing, and they have far more opinions about the world for another. Good mares can be exceptional, opinions or no. When I think about the imaginary dream horse, the one that I buy next year or the year after, that has secret talent and takes me to the highest level of competition, it’s always a mare.
One of the many joys of owning your own horse is being able to get out on trails. Lessons are important, of course, even if you have no goal to compete. You need to work on the basics, and you need regular feedback from experienced eyes on the ground. But there is nothing like time out on the trails. You see things differently from horseback. Turkeys don’t run away as fast from a person on a horse as they will from a person on foot. Deer sometimes look a horse straight in the eye. Yes, sometimes, if you are the first person on a trail in the morning you can end up with a spider web wrapped around your helmet and face like a veil. Or you can take a low hanging branch to the face if you don’t watch where you’re going.
Like many mares, my first horse, Della, had a good spook in her. The word I think of is “vigilant.” She’d not miss a new banner or suspicious traffic cone, giving it a thorough examination with one eye, head cocked, body tense, ready to run. They call this the “parrot eye.” I now know that horses are more confident with a confident rider sitting on them; but beginning riders have to start somewhere, and time in the saddle is the only way to learn to ride a spooking, bucking, or shying horse. 
I liked to take her in the woods alone. Though it never seemed like I was alone, even though this was before everyone carried mobile phones all the time. Anyway, when you’re on a horse you’re not alone. But still. We used to go try to get lost in Bridle Trails State Park, wandering the square mile of densely wooded trails. We learned to ride in the early 2000s, at a barn adjacent to the park, and being about 15 minutes from Seattle it was a real equestrian treasure: miles of groomed trails, set aside for riding. If Della felt like snorting on a particular day, I would sing her the songs my kids sang at pre-school:
Where’s Della? Where, where? 
Where’s Della? Where, where? 
Is she up on the mountain? No, no.
Is she down at the fountain? No, no!
Has she gone out to play? No, no.
I see that Della is here today.
I have a young horse now, Mars, another chestnut, and sometimes when he’s spooky I sing him this song. I sing it with Della’s name because it sounds better.
There were folks who’d walk their dogs or run in Bridle Trails Park, certainly, and because Della was a little spooky I’d always try to engage the person in conversation. A talking person is not nearly as scary as a silent one, to a horse. Some runners had so little horse sense that they’d duck behind a bush to let my giant horse pass. Della would snort and prance the whole way. Do you blame her?
Cutting through the middle of the park is a set of giant, towering power lines, strung taught between the massive mech robot monsters we’ve covered our planet with, still and silent guardians of the electricity, their fighting stances broad, their shoulders connected by drooping cables, one to the next. With a broad gravel trail beneath, I always felt the power line trail hummed with electricity. Certainly the light was different through this clear-cut swath, and it smelled dry and industrial, exactly like the smell of dormant guardian fighting robots. The footing was large chunks of sharp gravel, so it felt different underfoot and sounded quite different from the worn, quiet earth of the forest trails. Della always entered the power line cut with a slow gasp of alarm, holding her breath for the wolf she always seemed to feel was lurking just behind the corner.
This being the east side suburbs of Seattle, there were coyotes in these woods, and sometimes we would see one trotting ahead of us, up the trail. They were small, pale and scrawny, with poor coats and visible ribs. The coyotes were known stealers of pet rabbits, barn cat killers and even said to be eaters of small fluffy dogs, though the ones I always saw didn’t seem to have eaten much ever. 
One day, on a trail ride alone, Della stepped from the dark, cool, quiet woods onto the power line trail, peering nervously around the corner and there, just past the great tangle of blackberry bushes stood a man and a young German Shepherd. There it was! Della’s wolf, just as she’d always feared. The man and I both gave out a quick exclamation of surprise, but we never spoke, because Della sat back, spun on her haunches and took off at a gallop for home.
I had been taught an emergency maneuver, called a pulley rein, where you set one rein in the horse’s neck, knuckles down and holding mane if possible. With the other hand, you yank as hard as you can, and then let go. It’s not nice, and it’s only for emergencies. If you’ve got a wall or a fence to stop them in front of, it will bring them to a stop. Or it should anyway. I had only the bushes of the wild woods to stop her, and it turned out that a single spindly holly bush, with only a half dozen leaves was enough to bring Della to a halt.
And, then, we walked quietly home.