Unabridged Opinions

I absolutely adore riding Moss (the far-too-nice-for-me horse I have been loaning), but I’ve recently gotten a bad case of the “I wants”. Moss is getting older, and he no longer jumps (nor should he have to, he’s definitely earned his “trot around and have everyone admire me” time), and I miss working with younger horses. Moss has really put on a ton of strength and weight over the eight months I’ve been riding him, and I think he’s getting used more around the riding school, which is excellent.  Hopefully, they’ll start using him as a lead horse on hacks around the farm ride soon, as he is absolutely amazing on hacks (never puts a foot wrong and just enjoys it so much).  But, as usual, once something seems to be going smoothly, I look around for something new to do. So, maybe a youngish TB ex-racer? I’m not going to rush the process, but it feels like the right thing to do, maybe with an eye on picking one up at the end of the summer, doing low-key stuff for the winter, and then being able to really get into it next summer. I would really like to be riding something where jumping was part of my goals, and I would also like to work on the sort of basics and training that you really get into with a young horse.  (Moss, of course, is already perfect and needs nothing. ) Although trying to plan that far ahead makes me twitchy.

Luckily, I can distract myself with books. There are some amazing books out this Fall (the newest Scott Westerfeld, the newest Johannes Cabal, a new Neal Stephenson, plus more Murakami). Seriously, I love summer, but I am super impatient for these books to come out (already read the Johannes Cabal, but it was so good I want to be able to buy and gift a few copies). I also got an amazing set of young adult books over the weekend, including the newest Kat Falls, the sequel to “She’s So Dead to Us” (which is a lot of fun!), and “Haunting Violet”, a gorgeous YA/ghost-story/historical that I read in one sitting. Continue reading

The past month has been busy, stressful, fun, and (thank goodness) sporadically sunny. In getting ready for a talk at a conference in Antwerp, I was really having to work closely with the themes that we have drawn from our study. Every once in awhile, I feel like I gain greater insights while trying to figure out a way to communicate with others than when I purposefully analyse and focus on the data. I’m sure it is a consequence of really having to understand the topic before trying to teach others, but it felt like a real breakthrough to me. The themes (and the metaphors we are using to explain them) are fairly complex and really, really, interwoven, so separating them out in a way that makes sense outside of my own head and instincts has been more difficult than I expected. That said, I feel much better about the presentation, and hopefully most of the bugs will be worked out this week during our practice meeting.

So, yeah, that’s one reason for the happy picture in this post. Another reason, of course, is the horse himself. The barn I ride at has been hosting some fun summer dressage shows. I’ve been entering them as much to force myself to focus on goals as to actually compete. Moss really deserves a rider who is always trying to improve. He’s such a talented guy, and he really enjoys working (and, of course, hacking and galloping), but it is waaaaayyy too easy to just enjoy riding around and around on such a nice horse without really focusing on improving, so hopefully these little shows will help me up my game a bit.  They’ve already convinced me that I should start trying to do more complicated dressage–Moss has really gotten a lot stronger over the past few months, and he feels ready to really start working on more demanding work. My big goals, I guess, are to get us “off campus” for a few tiny (low key!) shows and to work on more collected work (the extended work, we like, but the stuff that requires us to slow down? not so much).  I’ve also signed myself up for the Stage 1 exam for the BHS. Hopefully, I’ll get that, my riding and road safety, and my Stage 2 done this year and then start prepping for my Stage 3 (which I can use to get jobs teaching riding!).

Continue reading

Although I’m sure there have been many, many times where he’s wished I’ve figured things out just a liiiiiiiiiittle bit faster. This is, in fact, the face of one of the horses in the Elgin marble exhibit at the British Museum. Aside from the oddness factor that is a horse head just…sitting there on a pedestal…this one also has one of the more stressed facial expressions I’ve ever seen.

Luckily, when you’re riding, it’s difficult to really see the horse’s face, although Moss likes to make up for this when he gets testy by sticking his tongue out and making it. very. clear. that he disagrees with whatever I might be asking/how I might be asking it/whether or not there really is a monster over in the corner disguised as a pony.

I’ve been taking a series of jumping lessons recently, both because I’m going back to visit everyone in California and want to be at least familiar with what jumping feels like again and because I think it’s important to both mix up the horses I ride and what I focus on.  It’s also become more and more apparent that Moss is a very, very, very nice horse.  The amount of huffing, puffing, and sweating I do in the jumping lessons is just, well, pathetic.  I’m quite out of shape. Continue reading