Author Archives: Katie

Michael Matz’ 51 questions

29 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Inspiration, Racing, Training

≈ 6 Comments

Michael Matz — who trained the famed Barbaro six years ago — may have another Kentucky Derby winner on his hands.

The horse named “Union Rags” is currently the Derby front-runner.  He lost the Breeders’ Cup, in his trainer’s words, by “maybe two feet.”  And last weekend, he won the $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park, with an impressive four-length victory.

You may find it comforting to know that we ordinary riders and trainers have something in common with a superstar trainer of superstar horses.  It turns out that we aren’t the only ones busy questioning ourselves and what we do. Matz, an extraordinary rider and trainer by any measure, does it too.

“You never know after a four-month rest.  Do you have the horse fit enough? Did you do this?  Did you do that?,” he said.  “You ask yourself 51 questions.”

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Make him round

28 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Equitation, Tack, Training

≈ 7 Comments

There are certainly other phrases of three words that I don’t care for, but “make him round” makes my top ten list.

It’s a popular instruction to a rider whose horse has his head above the vertical — horrors! — and who seems stiff or hollow in the back.

Let me preface by saying that I have nothing against helping a horse to relax over his topline and stretch into the contact.  Unfortunately, that’s not usually the meaning of “make him round,” which is the dressage trainer’s answer to the hunter-jumper trainer’s equally misguided “put your horse in a frame.”

The command to “make him round” ignores both the why and the how — why is the horse not round?  And, if you try to make him round, how do you do it? Beyond that, there is an additional why — why would you want the horse to be round?  And beyond that, how round is round?

Let’s look first at why the horse isn’t round.  There’s a reason.  There may be many reasons.

Has anyone checked saddle fit?  Recently?

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Bread to win

27 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by in Horse Care, Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Gervase Markham’s book Cavelarice, or The English Horseman: containing all the Arte of Horse-manship was published in 1607.  For those interested in obtaining a copy, they do come up from time to time.  A first edition of this rare and important work sold under the hammer at Christie’s in London, South Kensington a few years ago for $3107.

The author was the Martha Stewart of his day.  He was a trainer of hunting and racing horses, he enjoyed baking, and he published his recipes in several books on country life.  He had this to say about horse bread:

“First therefore you shall understand that the principal food whereupon a running horse is to be fed most; as the very strength and chief substance of his life must be bread, for it is of all other foods most strong, clean, healthful, of best digesting, and breed the best blood.”

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Daredevils

25 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Do you ever look back on some of the things you did on horseback and think you must have been insane?  Do you wonder how you did them?  Or, if you were crazy enough to want to repeat them today, do you wonder whether you’d be able to?

A friend of mine — my old hunter/jumper trainer, in fact, who’s now retired — reminded me of one of those daredevil things I did, the other day.  It surprised him when I did it, and it surprises me now, looking back on it.

At the time, it made perfect sense.  I was riding my Thoroughbred rogue.  I know some may bristle hearing a horse referred to as a “rogue,” but they do exist.  They are rare.  I had one.  At that time, I’d only had him a few months.

I was schooling walk/canter transitions.  I knew it was no problem for my talented athlete.  He could do it only half-trying.  After all, he could come out of a starting gate, go wide and still win on a sloppy track at Belmont Park.  He could start and stop on a dime.  If he had been an airplane, he would have been the Concorde.

The turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner known as the Concorde

The first time I asked for canter, he sprawled forward lazily into the gait.  Not good enough.  So I asked again.  And that made him mad.

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Inspiration from 1972 and Liselott Linsenhoff

24 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Inspiration

≈ 6 Comments

The first woman to achieve Olympic gold in Dressage, Liselott Linsenhoff is the mother of Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff, who is one of the owners of Totilas and stepmother to his current rider, Matthias Alexander Rath.

Watching this, would you think that Piaff stood just shy of 16 hands?  The performance, which was taped in Vienna in 1972, show the relaxation and maturity of both horse and rider (Piaff was 14 and Linsenhoff was 45 years old at the time).

The daughter of a German industrialist, Linsenhoff never feared financial insecurity if she didn’t make it to the top.  It’s clear she wanted her success to be acknowledged and that brought her to the Olympics.  But she wasn’t after success at any price.  In 1975, after she moved to Switzerland, the German authorities instituted proceedings to recover an unpaid tax liability of 30 million German marks.  Rather than subject herself to being judged on an international stage, she abandoned her plans to compete in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, and retired.

What a shame that her daughter’s stepson doesn’t have the same freedom. After seeing this video, I can only imagine that he, too, thinks about how nice it would be to retire from the world stage, at least while riding Totilas:

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Inspiration from Mrs. Lorna Johnstone

23 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by in Inspiration

≈ 5 Comments

Attention, all you ladies who have abandoned the hunters in favor of dressage because you just don’t want to jump anymore (you know who you are and some of you are my students) — this one’s for you!

Do you recognize the name Mrs. Lorna Johnstone?  I’m not surprised if you don’t but you may, if you’ve read Podhajsky’s “The Riding Teacher.”

Let us now turn the clocks back to 1972.  It is the year of the Munich Olympics (and coincidentally, the founding of the United States Dressage Federation). For show jumpers and eventers, it is the era of the drop noseband, as trendy as today’s flash.  Dressage saddles are unadorned.  Lightness in the horse is admired, as is delicacy and tact in the rider.

Jennie Loriston-Clarke of Great Britain completes an accurate test on her Trakehner-Thoroughbred gelding Kadett.  Liselott Lisenhoff of Germany makes up for the deficit of brilliance on her Swedish stallion Piaff (and wins the gold medal).  Elena Petushkova of the USSR rides the 16-year-old Trakehner stallion Pepel, said to be as light on his feet as eiderdown, despite the cataract in his left eye.

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Saddle saga, part II

22 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Tack

≈ 10 Comments

It takes an embarrassingly long amount of time to find a saddle that fits.  No other proof is needed beyond the time elapsed between this post and the post you’re reading now.

I didn’t just sit on my hay bales in the meantime.  Far from it.  About two hundred feet, in fact, on the chair in front of my computer, emailing saddle fitters and friends for suggestions and advice, and searching for a new saddle through my favorite online sources:  Trumbull Mountain, fineusedsaddles.com, Rick’s Heritage Saddlery, Pelham Saddlery, and, of course, ebay.

Kent & Masters

The local saddle fitter I’ve been using asked me about my budget (answer:  getting smaller by the minute) and, remembering what I like, suggested a new Kent & Masters (“under $2000, all leather, wool flocked, interchangeable gullet system, simple seat, simple saddle”) that I could try.  I replied that I would never, ever again buy a custom (read: “new”) saddle again.

I reached out to one of my friends, who lives nearby and has bought even more saddles than I have during the years.  She sympathized with me, as she spends at least as much time as I do buying them, selling them, and beginning a new search.  As far as I know, the only saddle she has kept all these years is her Billy Cook.

Reactor Panel “Elegance”

She had none of her own to sell me (she may still have that Reactor Panel, but knows I like a close contact fit). A friend of hers, though, has a 17.5″ Sommer mono flap with a wide tree that’s for sale.  I could “keep it” and ride in it for as long as I wanted, because her friend was waiting for a new, custom saddle…of course, she might want the Sommer back, if the new saddle didn’t fit.  I understand.  

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How to spend your money: Epsom salts

21 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in How to Spend Your Money

≈ 6 Comments

For those who’ve been following this series, you know that almost without exception, I recommend that you spend your money on horses (or things for horses).

Epsom salts are one of those things.  You should definitely have some on hand in the event that you need to make a hoof poultice.  Or put some in a bath. Your bath.  Because sometimes you need to spend a little money on yourself. Since you can buy epsom salts for about 75 cents a pound, they fall quite nicely into the “little money” category.

If you’re going to take advantage of this miracle concoction, you need a tub. If you’re a dedicated “shower person,” I’ve probably already lost you.  But if you’re a rider or someone who keeps or cares for horses, I’d like you to consider what epsom salts can do for you.  Admittedly, it’s easier for those of us who are “bath people,” even if we are a bit anomalous on this side of the ocean.

I’ve been lucky to have lived in old houses for the last twenty years, all with cast iron bathtubs that hold the heat and in which I can immerse myself. During those twenty years, I’ve put a lot of stuff in the bathtub.  Essential oils. Non-essential oils.  Mustard powders.  Fragrant fizzes.  Bubble bath.

Now, I buy epsom salts.  Have you ever wondered what they are?  Or don’t you have time for silliness like that?  Well, I’ve not only wondered, I have time for just that kind of silliness…

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Forever boots in the Age of Vulgarity

20 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by in Attire

≈ 4 Comments

February’s issue of Vanity Fair is promoting Vogel boots.  Not just any Vogel boots, but particularly hideous Vogel boots.  (If you want to see them for yourself, pick up a copy of the magazine with George Clooney on the cover, and turn to page 58.)

The first tall boot pictured is black with a stacked wooden heel (which is a contrasting brown and Mistake #1), a toe cap and lacing that stretches from instep to boot top.  Can you spell D-O-M-I-N-A-T-R-I-X?  The second boot is light caramel in color, with a mahogany toe cap, which at best resembles what might happen if you were foolish enough to wear your tan boots and then accidentally stepped in manure.  The heel on this one is hidden behind Mistress Neckstretcher‘s boots, so we can’t see if it’s brown or black (given the trend toward making the more hideous choice, I’m guessing it’s black).

Among the 10 items pictured in Vanity Fair’s February list of shoppers’ “Must Haves,” these two ugly, ugly, ugly boots are highlighted with this phrase (capital letters theirs) encircled in red:  BESPOKE BOOTS THAT YOU’LL HAVE FOREVER.

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