Inspiration from Bryan Clay

11 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Inspiration

≈ 2 Comments

A few days ago, Forbes published “How to Compete and Win in Business – Lessons from the World’s Greatest Athlete.”

I had to check it out…not because I’m interested in competing and winning in business, but because I’m inspired most by those who have achieved something extraordinary.

And who better to inspire than Bryan Clay, who won Olympic gold in 2008 in the decathlon, achieving the title “The World’s Greatest Athlete?”  If you are competing and you want greater success (even if your only competitor is yourself), here’s his advice (and mine):

1.  “It’s all about the process.” According to the article in Forbes, Bryan Clay’s focus is not in being excellent; his focus is in striving.  In other words, it’s not how well you do, it’s how hard you try to do well.

2.  “Execute.”  In other words, doing is more important than thinking about doing.  Baba Ram Dass said, “Be Here Now.”  Nike said, “Just do it.”  Same idea.  Anyone who’s ever overthought while horse training knows that feel is more important than whatever is going on in your mind.  You just have to ride and be present in the moment.

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The Racehorse Song

10 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in Racing

≈ 8 Comments

As we wait to see if I’ll Have Another takes the Triple Crown, let’s revisit Churchill Downs, the old Louisville Jockey Club.  That’s the place where the match race took place between Kentucky horse Ten Broeck and the California horse Mollie McCarty, back in 1878, on the Fourth of July.

They’ve been singing about it since the race happened.  Sometimes called “The Racehorse Song” and sometimes called “Molly and Tenbrooks,” it captures the best and the worst of what happens at Churchill Downs.  I love Bill Monroe’s version, which, like the best of bluegrass, is bittersweet.

Here are the lyrics, in case you can’t make all of them out:

Run oh Molly run, run oh Molly run
Ten-Brooks gonna beat you to the bright and shining sun
To the bright and shining sun oh Lord
To the bright and shining sun

Ten-Brooks was a big bay horse, he wore a shaggy mane
He run all ’round Memphis, and he beat the Memphis train
Beat the Memphis train oh Lord
Beat the Memphis train

Ten-Brooks said to Molly, what makes your head so red
Running in the hot sun with a fever in my head
Fever in my head oh Lord
Fever in my head

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Please don’t call it horse ballet

09 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in Language

≈ 18 Comments

Ever since Ned Martel first described dressage as “a rarefied, ritualized sport often referred to as ‘horse ballet'” in a profile of Ann Romney, the unfortunate analogy has spread.  Contrary to Mr. Martel’s assertion, dressage is not often referred to as horse ballet.  At least until recently.

Now it doesn’t just refer to upper level dressage or freestyles or Cavalia, it refers to any rider asking any horse to do anything under saddle.

Let’s stop.  Everyone.  Please.  Spare me from ever again reading a line like this about a novice rider and her horse: “She uses pressure from her legs, hips and minimal movements of the reins…making him trot and prance and step exactly where she tells him to.”  Prance?  See where this is leading?

Call it riding.  Call it flatwork.  Call it dressage if you must.  But don’t call it horse ballet.  When a horse leg yields under a novice rider it has absolutely no relationship to this:

Nikolai Fadeyechev of the Bolshoi Ballet, Swan Lake, January 1, 1956

It would be nice if it were otherwise — not just for journalists like Ned, but also for everyone who ever sits on a horse.  Unfortunately, it’s not otherwise. Dressage is not horse ballet, any more than your two-year-old running around the kitchen is “toddler steeplechasing.”

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Why I love to teach

08 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Training

≈ 2 Comments

I’ve spent more time in the last week with my hands on the wheel than with my hands on the reins.  I traveled to give an an intensive, multi-day private clinic in a neighboring state…then drove east for a client who’s moved to a new barn just a little further away than I normally travel…and then drove south for a new client, who was willing to cover my extra mileage in order to have a new set of eyes on the ground.

The rewards of my travels are great, and far outweigh the monotony of sitting in a car rather than on a horse.  That’s because I love to teach.  I live for the smile on a rider’s face, the look of enlightenment on a horse’s face, the happiness that comes from a partnership that’s deepened in interest and understanding.

My rewards this week included finding the right bit for a horse that was bracing, in large part because he didn’t really love his bit.  I followed the advice in this post, and instinct, and the first bit we tried was one the horse embraced.  With flexions in hand, mobilization of the jaw came quickly and continued under saddle.

The horse clearly demonstrated that mobilization of the jaw leads to flexion of the poll leads to release of the back.  Now that the horse isn’t bracing, the suppling work will be far more effective.  With a bit that he loves, the horse can also accept more subtle actions from the rider’s hand.

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The Age of Vulgarity hits its stride

07 Monday May 2012

Posted by in Attire

≈ 6 Comments

Boots.  I’ve talked about them before.  But just like some dreadful plague, once it starts, it spreads.  It’s now spread to this, from Petrie:

This boot should come with a complimentary digestive aid, because it is sickening.

The copy reads “Custom Superior Riding Boot with Crystal Buckle.”  Okay, I see the “Custom” part and the “Crystal Buckle” part but I don’t see the “Riding Boot” part and I certainly don’t see the “Superior” part.  Superior to what?  I’m afraid I can’t think of anything.

Bring me my smelling salts!

A small gallery of horse stamps

04 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Faroe Islands, Artist: Anker Eli Petersen, date of issue 4/1/2001

USSR stamp, Soviet Cartoon Films, date of issue 2/18/1998

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The beginning of the end of the Ubersaddle

03 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in Tack

≈ 27 Comments

As shoulder pads are replaced by dolman sleeves only to be replaced again by shoulder pads…and English Country style is replaced by minimalism is replaced by Cottage Chic…as bistro food gives way to nouvelle cuisine gives way to comfort food, what goes around comes around.

And so it is with dressage saddles.  As it reaches its superstructured, overstuffed and over-intellectualized limit, the Ubersaddle may have reached the end of its useful life.  

Passier’s Freemove Dynamic

What makes me think so?  The new, old-fashioned saddle from Passier — The Freemove Dynamic Dressage Saddle, the popularity of the Stubben endorsed by Catherine Haddad, and the louder and ever-louder “buzz” from people discovering or rediscovering the joys of riding in closer contact.

I think every rider wants to be the best rider he or she can be, and an Ubersaddle can make it — or appear to make it — easier.  A superstructured saddle puts a rider’s seat and legs exactly where they’re supposed to be in order to be effective.  Unfortunately, once they’re there, that’s exactly where they’re staying.  Which prevents riders from moving with their horses.  

The problems usually arise at the trot, when you see bobbing heads and rocking torsos and undulating lower backs, because the movement of the horse has to be absorbed somewhere in the riders’ body, and if the legs and seat are blocked, the movement will come out somewhere else.  At canter, an Ubersaddle with too small a sweet spot can make even a good rider bounce her buns up and down in the saddle like a beginner.

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Hands on horses

02 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in Inspiration, Racing

≈ 4 Comments

Lucky Kentucky Derby hopeful I’ll Have Another.  That’s because he’s got a great buddy — Larry “Thumper” Jones, who knows what it’s like to be a star athlete and have aches and pains.

Thumper won the Memorial Cup while playing for the Canadian New Westminster junior hockey team.  And then he broke his back slipping over a broken hockey stick, had surgery and followed it with rehabilitation that didn’t work.  Chiropractic work did.

It was that experience which inspired Thumper to forge a new career marrying two things that meant a lot to him — chiropractic and horses.  For the last 30 years, he’s been bringing his healing hands to horses.

Which is exactly what he’s doing at Churchill Downs this week, helping I’ll Have Another prepare for the big contest this Saturday.  It’s a pretty even contest so far, but if you think that range of motion might be the deciding factor in who gets to wear the blanket of roses, you might want to place your bets on I’ll Have Another.

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