You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September, 2007.
THE LAST MISSED SATURDAY OF 2007 Posting from Dublin Airport, in the shockingly revolting Ryanair wing, bracing myself for the riot to board the plane, off to London for the weekend.
I will, of course, miss the horses tomorrow, but it’s good to take a break, somewhat in the same way I’ve gotten better after each fall. But with less chance of a broken bone.
Oops, shouldn’t talk about breaking anything, should I? Read the rest of this entry »
JUNE 2007 Riding out sucks. It’s boring. Up the road, down the road, up the road, good luck if your mount has the munchies, spending half the time in walk, it is dull, dull, dull—
And it scares me stupid.
My first walk out— and in fairness, I had no business being on the back of a horse— ended in tears and valium. The horse, Silver— Silver? I’m not sure I even knew his name, no clue, well, no wonder it was a disaster, we hadn’t even been properly introduced— the horse decided, after several serious yanks on his mouth by yours truly, the taunting of some wee fecker on a dirt bike, and several abortive attempts to swallow a gorse bush whole, to trot around a puddle.
I wanted to write ‘water hazard’.
It was a puddle.
I, having a stunningly minimal amount of contact with the horse whilst still actually on it, went flying off the back of him, smack on my arse: chipped tailbone = drugs. This was the fitting culmination to a mere twenty minutes of having walked down a (narrow, Irish) road teeming with speeding traffic (not really), and a ride leader who was shouting things for me to do, despite having been told I didn’t know how to do anything. The horse took off at a gallop (he began to step into a trot) and I fell; I got back on, but eventually had to get back off him and lead him down a muddy slope to the barn.
So Nikki says, ‘Ride out’ and I start having flashbacks. Read the rest of this entry »
DECEMBER 2006 ‘Anybody ever jumped before?’
Are you kidding me? Read the rest of this entry »
26 MAY, 2007 I’d had Tango once before, in a small class of only three. I got up, he immediately began stepping backwards. I’m trying to get the length of the leathers right— ‘Tango!’— I keep letting out the reins, kicking him on, he stops, I adjust a stirrup, he dances back.
Bugger.
We get going: he’s a tough one, but he feels good, apart from the backwards-walking thing every time we halt; he jumps like a dream, a star, I yip with joy as we clear the fence at the canter, his whole body collecting and rising and it feels like a proper jump.
So I’m happy enough to try him again, he’s still slow into the gaits, I know my leg isn’t strong enough, I know— but we get a good canter up, I’m passing out the ride, and we’re coming around to the front, and I’m shifting just that bit to shorten up the reins— Read the rest of this entry »
I love Rebel. He’s a lovely dun colour, and he’s feisty, playful, he kicks up a bit, he lets me know when I’m doing something he doesn’t like, but he’s willing, so willing, and he jumps like a dream. His canter—oh, his canter is just perfect, I’ve never felt so centred in the canter, and during the last one we had, I lost my outside stirrup, but he’s so smooth, I just kept going, and it was great. He’s a challenge because he’s so young, just a wee babby, but someone must think I’m up to it, so it’s all very exciting.
It was only a week ago that I loved Delilah— and I still do, I do, really, and I still love Argo, too, definitely! But I love Rebel now.
Hussy. Ah, well, I’ve always had thing for younger men…
GRRRRRRRRRRRRR Last night, my lesson mates and I, during a diatribe by the instructor [unintentionally provoked by yours truly], were implicitly lumped in with ‘some people’, who take up horse riding in order to look pretty.
Pretty? Pretty? What exactly makes one look pretty when one is riding? Is it the dusty hands covered in scurf after some time spent with the horses on the ground, giving them some strokes? Is it the streak of half-chewed-God-knows-what that Rebel smeared on my Tshirt while I was bridling him? Is it the red face that results from thirty minutes straight of flat work? Perhaps it’s my plaits flapping up and down as I rise in the trot, or is it the entire rest of my head plastered with sweat— oh, I forgot, ladies don’t sweat, we glow. No? Surely, then, it’s how hottt I look on the bus ride home, stinking of sweat and horse, face covered in dirt, fingernails black from my stylish riding gloves?
Okay, there’s couple of things going on here. Read the rest of this entry »
WITH ALL DUE REZPECKT TO MR P CRAWLEY It’s all material now, isn’t it? Or, even better, fodder.
Trying to ’schedule me’, review-wise, for the Dublin Theatre Festival, Irish Theatre Magazine’s online emperor Peter Crawley came up against my Hadrian’s Wall of Tuesday Night. [I'm sure he can supply a better metaphor, in the comments, perhaps?]
Tuesday nights are inviolate. It’s not simply the fact that I have paid for thirteen weeks of Tuesdays, in advance, it is very much that I am so much better for having had my ride [snarf]. Saturdays, however, have been somewhat more flexible of late: missed one while at Mikey’s wedding in the States [but still managed to get two rides in at a stable in Jerz] , missed one when meeting a group of friends I only meet once a year, will miss one when I go to London to see Kaz this weekend. Which begs the question: what about your holidays, Sooze? Read the rest of this entry »
INSTALLMENT ONE The thing is, it can seem like bullshit, because I read the books, I’ve read all these books about the transcendence of horsewomanship, of the bond, of the communication, and here’s me, handed a school horse, told to get on, told to ride a twenty meter circle, a serpentine, a figure of eight, to trot, to canter, told to get off, handing over to the next person, never grooming, never tacking— So? So what am I supposed to do? How do I get ‘it’? How can I? I’m reading a brochure while everyone else is gazing in wonder at the pyramids of Egypt. Read the rest of this entry »
CATALOGUE OF FALLS Heidi said a hundred! But Sara was like, noooo— seven. Seven falls make a rider. I seem to remember coming across the number ten, on a horsey board on the internet…
Gooooogle… hmm. Nothing. I’ll check again [I should really be working…]— ack, some nutter on Yahoo! Answers said 1,000! No way!
I’ve posted the question myself. We’ll see.
I like seven.
I’ve fallen six times so far.
UPDATE: Yahoo! Answers apparently is peopled by people who answer questions whether or not they have even the remotest expertise in relation to the query, but I did get an answer that approached the question with the correct amount of humour and an appreciation for the old-wives’-tale vibe of it. And it was the answer I wanted, so of course it was right.
CATALOGUE OF FALLS Thursday night lesson, outdoor arena. Beautiful evening, spring is sprung, golden light. Six are in the lesson. I’m on Delilah, Charlie is first, then Rebel, then us. Emma is making us trot large in jumping position. I’m trying to break the mane-grabbing habit, and we come around F and I’m shortening the reins a bit, holding the reins and only the reins, and I see Charlie’s ears perk up, see him glance left, and Rebel, who has a boy crush on Charlie, looks and— is he slowing down?— and CRASH! And Charlie and Rebel and Delilah all leap right, Delilah has the farthest to go without disappearing entirely up Rebel’s behind, and I have a split-millisecond to recover— Read the rest of this entry »
