THE HORSE AND I
No, this is
not a new musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein II. But we will get to the story in a bit. You will have noted that we have been quiet
for a bit longer than usual. Quite
simple actually: Most things have been
rather routine around here. Just
day-to-day living and the puzzles being worked under the palapa. At least until yesterday when we had a large
storm, especially for this time of year; a couple of inches of rain at least
and the high temperature was barely
70F. We thought we were in Vancouver.
You probably
think of Mrs.T as a woman of a certain age.
But you are wrong. Sure she is
grown up. But I tell her she actually is
about 12 years old, somewhere between a preteen and Doctor Doolittle who talks
to plants as well as animals. Here she
relates a bit about her horse encounters at the equestrian school here in
Mexico. She fails to mention that I zip
up her boots for her. I have made it
quite clear that we are not buying a horse anywhere.
I love
horses. I like the way they smell. I like the way they farrup, the way horses sometimes
talk in little snorts. I like the way
they look at me with their great wise eyes.
I like the way they stick out their tongues when they listen to me. I do that too. When I try to do something hard sometimes I
stick out my tongue while I concentrate.
I like the way they lean against me when they are happy. This is like a horse hug. Sometimes horses nibble on me with their
prehensile lips. Not trying to bite,
more claiming me like a cat who rubs against your ankles. My person, she is mine.
Horses have
their own personalities. Some horses are
happy horses. Some horses are contented
horses. Some horses, alas, are
mean. There are nervous horses and calm
horses. There are horses who are kind of
goofy. And when I am in Mexico I ride
Simon.
Simon - I
could only describe him as a lazy old curmudgeon kind of horse. All the beginning riders start with
Simon. You need not worry about Simon
running away with you; it would take too much effort. He would never bother to buck you off either. In fact if Simon had his way he would do
nothing at all, except possibly eat carrots.
Simon is quite fond of carrots.
When I
started riding at the school one of the other riders told me, “When you start
riding here you have to ride Simon. His
real name is Rocket! If you can keep him
from running away with you they will let you ride here. (!)” This was a joke.
The first
problem with riding Simon is getting on.
Simon is a rather tall horse.
They have no mounting blocks here.
Most riders stand on a little post, swing their left leg up to the
stirrup (which is about at shoulder height) and lightly vault into the
saddle. NOT ME!! I have also seen very small children grab the
stirrup and climb up hand over hand like little monkeys until they are securely
on top in the saddle. I do not use this
method either. I stand on a chair. I lift my left leg and shove it in the
stirrup. If I miss, one of the grooms
takes my foot and gently puts it in the stirrup. The plan is: I stand in the stirrup grab ahold of the
saddle - what there is of it, which is not much - and swing my other leg over
and put it in the other stirrup.
Sometimes this works. Sometimes
my other leg refuses to cooperate and gets stuck on the top of the saddle. Then the groom takes ahold of my leg and
shoves it over. It is at this point that
Simon turns his head and smirks at me.
He leans forward slightly as if he plans to walk out from under me. This is an idle threat as the other groom who
is holding Simon’s head gives it an admonitory jerk. I am up.
The next
problem with riding Simon is getting him to move. “VAS”, I say firmly and give his sides a
little nudge with my legs. Simon
unenthusiastically ambles forward. “VAS
LARGO”, I say and give Simon and give him another little kick. Simon continues his forward motion, just
barely. Marcella, the teacher, rushes
over and gives me a short whip. “Your
FUENTE”, she says emphasizing the last word and glancing meaningfully at
Simon. Simon gives Marcella a dirty
look. He speeds up until he is going at
what would be considered in most horses a very slow walk.
We head to
the training ring. Marcella tells us to
ride around the ring a couple of times.
Simon wants to stop and think about this for a few minutes but I manage
to get him going. Keep in mind Marcella
does not speak any English except for a few words I have taught her. After circling at a walk a couple of times
Marcella asks us for a trot. “TROT!” I
yell at Simon and give him a couple of firm kicks. Taa-ro-ott, taa-ro-ott, Simon set a record
with the slowest trot ever executed by a horse.
Then he tries to slow even more into a walk. I give Simon a serious poke with the fuente.
Trot, trot, trot, trot Simon settles into a slow but respectable
trot. “UP, down; UP, down!” Marcella encourages me to post, rising out of
the saddle on every second step. This is
killing my thighs but I persevere and Simon continues his slow rounds for a
while. “Are you tired? Try sitting a
trot for a while.” I sit down in the
saddle. Simon immediately stops. “Simon, TROT!” Marcella commands. Resentfully, Simon begins a slow trot. “How come the fat lady gets to rest and I
don’t?” he must be thinking.
After a while
Marcella lets Simon walk while she tells me about trotting. Marcella is explaining in Spanish. From the knees up, I get that part, your
thighs are supposed to do the work. The
next sentence eludes me. It is something
about feet. Perhaps she is telling me
not to stick my feet out so much. At
this point I should explain that in English style riding you are supposed to
keep a tight rein. In the north I ride
Western so am used to a loose rein.
Simon has learned that if he casually pushes his nose out I will give
him more rein and soon I have very little control. Marcella is trying to explain about my feet
when trotting. Suddenly she stops. She stares at Simon, clearly appalled. “THAT HORSE IS ASLEEP!” Marcella shouts. Simon, oblivious, continues to wander slowly
around the ring. “Tight rein!” Marcella
commands. “Trot!” Simon still oblivious does not respond. “Hit him HARD!” Marcella knows I am prone to
timid pokes. Simon begins a brisk
trot. Up, down; Up, down - there is no
more rest for anybody that lesson; we are both in disgrace. “You got us into trouble today,” I complain
to Simon as I lead him back. “It’s all
you fault for giving me such a loose rein,” he replies. I am getting ready to give Simon his carrots
when Marcella comes up. “He should not
get any he was a bad horse,” Marcella says.
We both look at her nervously.
“Oh go ahead,” Marcella relented.
The next
week when we rode to the arena I noticed there were little flags sticking out
of the top rail on two sides. Simon
pretended to be afraid of the flags.
Horses can be afraid of odd things.
For example Simon is afraid of cows.
But I am pretty sure he was faking it about the flags. Marcella explained that this exercise was to
test your balance and improve your control of your horse. First you trot up to the flags and bend over
and take one out of the fence. Then you
trot to the opposite fence and stick the flag in it. I thought I understood and this might be
fun. Simon thought he understood and too
much trotting was involved. I trotted
Simon over but he refused to go near the flags.
Five minutes later after much kicking and poking I maneuvered Simon
close enough that I could reach over and grab a flag. I looked up and was amazed to see Simon who
had acted terrified of the flags reach over and calmly take one in his mouth
and drop it on the ground. Marcella who
had missed this called out, “Oh, you dropped one. Don’t worry; I will pick it up. Take the one you have to the other
fence.” “It wasn’t me; it was the darn
horse!” I replied. This was one of the
moments when Marcella had no idea what I said in English. I trotted Simon over to the other fence. Sure enough, as I reached over and stuck the
flag in the hole, Simon reached out and grabbed another flag. “Simon!” Marcella called. Simon immediately dropped the flag and tried
to look innocent. So it goes. But next year I am asking for a different
horse. (Good luck with that. –dt)
Some
pictures: https://www.flickr.com/gp/9151458@N07/888KwJ
Now here we
need to give you a MAJOR NOTE. Many if
not most of you – especially you Canadians – may have received multiple copies
of this newsletter. Window 8 and 10, in
its infinite wisdom, decided to eliminate ‘Groups’ from Hotmail in the latest
version. That meant I would need to pick
each of you out individually to send this email. So I needed to backtrack to Outlook and
recreate the Groups to make mailing easier.
Well, many of you were fitted into more than one Group for this mailing;
I hope to have things simplified by the next time. Also, there are several of you who are
receiving this for the first time. Just
drop me a note if you want to be deleted from our distribution list. Finally, if you received this for different
email addresses just let me know which one you prefer and I will try to fix
that. Thank you for your patience.
