August 10 Questions Blog Hop

From Viva Carlos, of course!


1. What is your biggest source of caffeine that gets you through the day? (drink, not just brand)
Tea, with a little bit of sugar. If I'm drinking coffee something has gone seriously awry. I'll usually drink 2-3 cups of strong black tea in a day. If it's a coffee day: iced coffee, mocha, cream, sugar. I really want to be drinking melted coffee ice cream.

SIDE NOTE: a Facebook meme last week suggested that coffee ice cream might only be a New England thing. Is this true, rest of the country? That would be horrible.

2. Do you honestly think your trainer is the best trainer for you?

I'm not particularly riding with anyone right now, but I have a really terrific selection of trainers to choose from if I do want to take a lesson. I dunno. Is there even such a thing as the best trainer for you? Wouldn't that change all the time anyway? I think the head trainer at my current barn is as close as I've ever come to a trainer who could be a good fit for me across multiple phases of my riding life. That's plenty good enough for me.

3. One token of advice a fellow rider/trainer/horse person told you that you still remember to this day.

Forward feels like you have the next gear waiting for you there in your seat. If you have a forward trot, it feels like the canter is there, ready and waiting for you to just tap into it, smooth and easy.

4. If riding meant costing your family so much money that they’d be basically on poverty line, or making your family terribly unhappy (if they were not supportive or understanding, etc.) would you still do it?
sigh. Probably, yes. But I guess I would draw a distinction between "keeping Tristan healthy and happy" and "riding." Say if there were a way to field board him with good care that would cost less, but meant I could not ride, I would take that compromise.

5. (Girls) would you ride while pregnant?

In the extremely unlikely and undesirable event that I found myself pregnant: hell yes.

6. How do you tell when a horse likes someone/has bonded with you or someone else?

Willingness and eagerness, a certain anticipation in its expression. Even for naturally eager horses, there's an extra spark when they really like the person they're with.

7. Are horses capable of loving, in your opinion?

Absolutely. It might not follow the same outlines as human love but there's no doubt in my mind that they experience what we could call love.

8. If you could have one horse from your past come back for 5 minutes, who would it be, why, and what would you do with them in those 5 minutes?

Oh. Sly. 

Probably I'd cry. Like the whole time.

But after that I'd hug him hard and jump on for one last long bareback canter. (We are assuming a scenario in which he is healthy and happy in his body, which was not the case at the end of his life, sadly.)

9. Should a trainer also be a friend, or should it be a student/teacher relationship?

I've done it both ways. I prefer friendship, but not over-involved friendship. But I totally get why some people prefer a strictly professional relationship.

10. One piece of advice/training you were given by a trainer or mentor that you look back on now and view it as incorrect?

Yeah. A previous trainer told me to sell Tristan and get the horse I deserved. She told me that she had been studying with an animal communicator and that he was telling her that he was miserable and he couldn't be the horse I wanted him to be.

I cried until I threw up.

Within a few days I had recognized it as completely wrong, though. That was years and years ago, and we're still happy together. I made the decision that I would follow him, and not take him where he didn't want to go. That was the horse owner I wanted to be.