Behind Infinity

A long time ago, back when I was going places with my show horse instead of nursing my lame little nag (who, by the way, we worked at a walk today) my dear friend Shari e-mailed me and said I really need to “explain what this canter lead business is all about” because inquiring minds wanted to know. (The wrong canter lead is an unforgiveable mistake, and it’s what cost me a very possible win in our first class.)

So now, finally, I shall explain, for inquiring minds.

Starting at the very beginning: horses have different gaits. Your average horse has 4: he walks, trots, canters, and gallops. (Fancy ‘gaited’ horses like Tenessee Walkers, Rocky Mountain Horses, Paso Finos, and some Saddlebreds can do other breed-specific gaits like the running walk, rack, slow gait, pace, quartto, and others, but we won’t get into that.) The walk is a 4-beat gait, each foot hitting the ground at intervals. The trot is a 2-beat gait, moving in diagonal pairs. The canter is a 3-beat gait. We’ll use some pictures of darling little Mr. Max to illustrate.

Beat one: the horse strikes off with one hind foot. The other three are elevated.

Beat 2: he hits with a diagonal pair. In this picture you can see the weight shifting from his outside (left) rear leg to that pair of legs that he’s just set down, and he is reaching out with his right foreleg, getting ready for the 3rd beat.

Beat 3: he leaps forward on that final foreleg. He reaches out farther with this foreleg than with the other one. You can more clearly see that reach in the picture of beat 2.

Next he repeats it all over again: hind, diagonal pair, foreleg. People compare the canter to a rocking-chair movement, as the weight and balance is shifted from the rear feet to the front with each stride.

So, about this lead business: The horse can execute a canter one of two ways: left-hind, right-hind/left-fore, right-fore, OR right-hind, left-hind/right-fore, left-fore. And that final foreleg, on the 3rd beat, is your ‘lead’. (yes, ironic that your ‘lead’ beat is actually the last one.)

When you’re showing or working in the ring, you’re always riding in circles. They may be very elongated rectangle-like circles with straight sides, but still circles. When you’re going in a circle, you want the leg on the inside of the circle to be your leading leg. If the leg to the wall is leading, this is called a counter-canter. Counter-cantering a circle is very hard for a horse and generally makes them unbalanced and yucky. So if you’re going clockwise (like Max in the pictures) your right side will be inside, and you’ll want to lead with the right foreleg. If you reverse and go counter-clockwise, your left side is now the inside of your circle, so your left leg will now be the correct lead.

Here’s a video of a saddlebred cantering http://youtube.com/watch?v=CWJ_sRFkFPM

And here’s something fun: This video is of a dressage horse changing leads with every stride, so it looks like he’s sort of ’skipping’. This is a very advanced move, performed at the Grand Prix/Olympic levels. http://youtube.com/watch?v=EXcI4YQTu3A.

And there you have it.

Here’s some photos of the menagerie.

Preston, 11 weeks. He looks so noble. He grows every day, but not all at once. Yesterday his ears were too big for his face, and his legs were too long for the rest of him.

He knows what the good stuff is.

He sleeps in strange positions.

He chews on lots of things. Here he is chewing on something that’s ok. More often than not he chews on things that are not ok.

More chewing.

Now that Max has been gelded, he and Jezebelle can be turned out together again. He annoys her a lot.

Jezebelle’s owie leg. Still swollen.

Max in the roundpen. He grows, too. Some days he’s ribby, some days he’s porky. I think he’s such a handsome little man and I can’t wait to have him grown up and rideable. He has such a nice attitude (most of the time. We do have a little nibbling issue we’re working on.)

I love love LOVE this little white face.

I’d rather have a groom than be one,
but either way it beats staying home.

As it turned out, yesterday wasn’t quite so bad as I thought it would be.

Rachael came through for me in true HuntLaar fashion. (HuntLaar is an amalgamate of our last names that the children recently invented and began using in recognition of or reaction to how the two families down here at the bottom of the driveway often function more like one. I think it’s kind of cute.) She called me up Friday night asking if I could please come along and be a groom for her and Micah and their horses. I was reluctant at first to say yes, but in the end decided it would be better than moping around at home and besides, I owed it to Rachael for all the things she does for me. Nevermind the fact that it would be good for me to just go and experience it all without the pressure of competing.

So we left the farm at 8:45 in the morning in order to make it in time for Micah’s showmanship classes. She won first place in her age division, and fourth place in the championship. Rachael wasn’t too pleased with their performance in the ridden classes: a couple of fourths for Micah, a first and a couple of fourths and a reserve champion for Rachael and Starwing in the Western classes, and no ribbons at all for Rachael and Tsetina in the English classes.

      

But there were good points to the day, too–Starwing made it through the entire day without bucking and he was a lot more settled and consistent than last time. The weather was perfect for a show day, and a lot of the high-rollers and their $20k-$50k horses stayed home. I really benefitted from the chance to watch the classes I would have competed in and analyze the riders and their horses, who I’ll be up against at next month’s show (and next season’s shows too). There was one thing that made me really happy: there is a girl about my age who rides a black half-Arab horse named Shadow, and she won every last one of her classes. I’ve talked to her and she is just the sweetest girl. I remember watching her show last year and just loving her and her horse. Shadow is her first horse, and he isn’t the flashiest horse out there and definitely not the most expensive, and he’s built on the heavier side–in fact, he’s a lot like Jezebelle. But he’s consistent as all get out and there’s such a bond between them. Watching Shadow and his rider last year, (I believe her name is Kimberly) was the thing that made me want to ride saddleseat and go to shows. So it was really great to see them win yesterday.

My sisters worked the out gate all day, handing out ribbons.

I rode Tsetina in the Groom’s class and won first place. Jen accused me of cherry picking. I don’t feel bad because a) I’ve only just recently graduated from groom status and b) all the other people in the class were obviously experienced riders too. So I came home with a blue ribbon after all.

It may seem like in horse showing there’s a lot of emphasis on ribbons. On going out and winning them and how many ribbons you won that day and what color they were and how big your ribbon wall is. It probably seems a little silly at first glance. But it’s about so much more than the ribbons. Going to a show, just like playing in a concert or a playoff soccer game, is the culmination of hours and hours of work in the practice ring, working on position and headset and gait and manners and cues. Going to a show is really a chance to assess what you’ve learned and what you need to work on. And for backyard owners like Rachael and me, it also represents lots of time spent poop shovelling and water carrying and feeding and barn building and nursing damaged animals. The ribbons are just small recognition and commemoration of all that, and that’s what makes them meaningful to me. There’s two ribbons on my wall now–the yellow one reminds me of my very first class, and the lessons I learned that day. Yesterday’s blue ribbon is a reminder of the lesson I was privileged to learn so early on in my showing career: some days there will be disappointments, and some days your horse will come up lame, and you might find yourself faced with a choice: should I stay home and mope, or should I go along so that I can pick lint off an 8-year-old’s hunt coat and mop her horse’s alfalfa slobber off its legs? The reality is that in the show world the alfalfa slobber people are actually really important, and that alfalfa slobber can teach you a lot about your attitude, and everything happens for a reason, and that sometimes, even though it would be nice to be in the ring, it’s also nice to have a chance to take a good look at your competition from the other side of the rail when you’re not distracted by the pressures of competing.

It was good to get back home and see my babies. Jezebelle seems to be doing OK. Her scrapes are healing nicely and there shouldn’t be any scars. Long as I can keep things clean (a formidable task when it concerns an animal that lives in the dirt) so they don’t get infected, we’re good to go. Her leg is still swollen although she’s getting less lame. yesterday there was a window of about a couple of hours when she was moving very freely and I thought we’d be able to show. But then she went gimpy again. She’s not mopey or anything, which is a good sign. The vet said it would take awhile for the swelling to go down, so it’s just a matter of waiting. I worry that there’s something bigger that’s wrong…bone chips, torn ligaments, etc. but it’s not warm and she’s not in obvious pain. I seriously don’t think I could be any more concerned or distraught if this was my human child. Frightening/pathetic? Probably. Per the vet’s instructions I hose it down with cold water 2-4x a day, for 15 minutes at a time. I put antibacterial stuff and liniment (increases circulation) on it morning and evening. We might be able to return her to light work towards the middle or end of next week.

Horse ownership is like motherhood. It’s restrictive, disruptive, time-consuming, sometimes annoying, sometimes painful, sometimes frightening, requires you to have discipline and dish it out, and it’s infinitely rewarding. The only obvious differences are that my children each weigh about 1000 lbs and I can sell them off whenever I want to and nobody will think I’m a bad mommy for doing it. Oh, and I get to whip them.

Yesterday Jezzie and I were working on getting in and out of the trailer. Her trailer. The one I bought for her, and it turns out that she hates. The WMAHA’s 2nd unrated show is this Saturday, so the deed had to be done–she had to learn that when I say get on the trailer, I mean it: she better get on the frickin’ trailer.

We had worked through her temper tantrums and were making great progress. We learned how to approach the trailer without having a hissy fit. Then we got brave and put two feet up. At one point I watched dumbfounded as she got all four up…then quick as you please and very calmly, she turned her big self around in the tiny trailer, and walked out the other door. What a brat.

So anyway. We were making progress. And just I was getting optimistic that we’d be able to load up on Saturday morning in a timely fashion with a minimum of fuss, disaster struck. She slipped and grazed the inside of her left hind cannon bone and fetlock (lower leg and ankle) with her steel-shod right foot.

Dang.

It looks gory but superficial. She scraped off the top layer of hair and skin for about nine inches in a stripe right down her leg. There’s a couple spots where it’s gouged deeper. So we quit with the trailer games, hosed it down, and put Furazone on it. (Furazone is the equine equivalent of say, Neosporin.) She seemed to be moving pretty well and it didn’t swell right away last night. But this morning it was warm to the touch, swollen, and obviously stiff and painful.

So, I was late to work this morning because I spent almost two hours talking on the phone with my trainer and vet and playing doctor for my poor injured baby. First I administered Banamine, which is an anti-inflammatory/pain reducer. Then I cold-hosed her leg again for 15 minutes, put liniment on it and more Furazone, and turned her out in the round pen so that she’ll hopefully walk around on it and get the circulation going down there.

Our chances of making it to the show this weekend are next to none, now. I’m really disappointed. At the moment it’s all I can do not to go off the deep end again and have another Grey’s Anatomy marathon. We were very ready this time and would have dominated…or at least had a very solid ride. So this weekend instead of cleaning tack and bathing and packing the trailer, I’ll be worrying and playing nurse to my sore and ornery mare. Bummeriffic.

In other news, yesterday Max the gelding got his front hooves trimmed for the first time. I had Rachel do it because she absolutely loves working with the young ones, and Aaron is so busy lately that I didn’t want to bother him with it. So Rachel and I had lots of fun with Mr. gelding. He did very well, didn’t put up much fuss or fight. Aaron is going to be grumped out though when he notices how Rachel mustang-rolled Max’s toes. They’ll be fine, especially since he lives like a little mustang right now anyway…

Ah, well. That’s motherhood for you.