Still More Joy Day!

I'm still feeling warm fuzzies over the people who left comments on my More Joy Day post.

Best of all: there are still offers out there for me to mail you some homemade horse cookies, based on the recipes I've been experimenting with.

Would you like some? All you have to do is go comment. If you've done something awesome recently, something that would bring a smile to someone else's face, then please share that. If you just want to try some horse cookies, that's cool too! Comment away.

So go forth! Bring more joy unto the world!

Secretariat and the 1973 Belmont

As far as I'm concerned, this is the best video on the internet. Yes, the entire internet. In fact, I have been known to say that this video, this specific video, is the reason the internet exists.

I can't watch it without breaking into big, ugly, gulping sobs at about the halfway mark.

Enjoy.

They're on the turn, and Secretariat is blazing along! The first three-quarters of a mile in 1:09 and four fifths. Secretariat is widening now! He is moving like a tremendous machine! Secretariat by twelve, Secretariat by fourteen lengths on the turn! Sham is dropping back. It looks like they'll catch him today, as My Gallant and Twice a Prince are both coming up to him now. But Secretariat is all alone! He's out there almost a sixteenth of a mile away from the rest of the horses! Secretariat is in a position that seems impossible to catch. He's into the stretch. Secretariat leads this field by 18 lengths, and now Twice a Prince has taken second and My Gallant has moved back to third. They're in the stretch. Secretariat has opened a 22 length lead! He is going to be the Triple Crown winner! Here comes Secretariat to the wire. An unbelievable, an amazing performance!

Cranky Toddler Time

Last night, we had a great longeing session: Tris worked beautifully, and had some really nice reaching fancy trot. I left excited about our plan for work for the next few days.

I woke up this morning to a thick sheet of ice over everything, and more freezing rain coming down hard. I spent the first 2 hours of my day sprinting around settling work things and am now settled in at work glaring at the rain out the window. The odds that it will ease up in such a way as to make a trip to the barn possible are...not good. It will rain hard all day and the temperature will drop with sunset, about when I would head to the barn.

(for the record, Saturday is a regular part of my work schedule - so I'm not sulking about being at work - more at the weather that has made everything in my life more complicated.)

Mentally, I feel like at toddler throwing a full-blown tantrum in the middle of a grocery store. I love Vermont, I feel beyond lucky to live here, but I almost wish we would just get one or two really big blowout snowstorms, so I would be forced to take 4-5 days off and then have a more consistent schedule otherwise. This stringing together two or three good days, only to be foiled by the weather for two or three bad days, is getting really old.

Getting in a short ride

Last night, I was bound and determined to ride. Though he had been worked at other times, I hadn't sat on my horse in a week, and I hadn't schooled him under saddle in a week and a half. I watched the weather all day, left work on time, changed into warm barn clothes, made a snack, and I was at the barn in a reasonable time frame.

I checked the thermometer there: 18 degrees. Cold, but not insurmountable. I tacked up with a quarter sheet and laid out a line of poles on the quarter line.

Actually riding was colder than I thought. We walked with a good forward energy and rhythm for about 10 minutes, over the poles each time around, and I mostly steered through my seat aids while keeping my hands in my pockets. Which was actually a good, useful exercise, as it forced me to pay careful attention to my aids and not over-correct. I have a tendency to ask for him to turn off my leg, over-ask, and then boomerang him back with the other leg, resulting in a weird wobbly line. Last night I played Goldilocks and he responded well, getting a good turn off the track, marching forward, and even changing direction a few times all while I kept hands in pockets.

I picked up the reins on the buckle for the trot, and we worked on forward and stretchy, with poles each time around, and then picked up the reins a little bit more. Nothing dramatic, nothing even like a frame, but I wanted to encourage him to reach for the bit even with a very light contact. He did beautifully, stretching down and staying forward.

After about 30 minute total of work, my feet were very cold, even with winter tall boots and two layers of socks (one of them Smartwool). I was a bit confused but I'd gotten some good work in. In all, a quiet, laid back, yet productive sort of ride. I was pleased with my plan and my execution of the plan.

I topped off Tristan's mostly-frozen-already water bucket, threw him an extra flake of hay, and tidied up my things.

When I got back in my car, I checked the temperature again: 8 degrees. It had dropped ten degrees in the hour+change I had spent at the barn. No wonder my feet were getting cold! I immediately felt even better about my decision to plan a light stretchy ride without much aerobic exercise.

Then I went home and crawled under many blankets.

Movie Review: Danny

Danny (1979)
(available for purchase on Amazon.com, or instant through Netflix or Amazon Prime)

This could have gone wrong in so many ways, and yet, ultimately it turned out right. It has the cliches in abundance: the poor girl who really cares about horses versus the rich girl who only cares how she looks, the talented yet broken pony, the Big Show, the mid-movie horse health crisis, you name it.

In the end, it's a really sweet movie, and it really gets the horse stuff on a good level. It refrains from over-explaining, which means that it avoids the pitfalls of getting the nitty gritty details wrong, and in its generalities it rings true.

In short: Janie is a young girl who loves horses, and lives next to Longue Vue (yes, really) Stables, owned by her rich neighbor, apparently as his private farm. Neighbor's daughter Andrea rides because daddy expects it, and doesn't really "get" horses. Danny is the horse that was supposed to be Andrea's next champion hunter, but is sensitive and ends up injuring a tendon, and so becomes Janie's.

You already know the plotline of this movie from a thousand other horse stories, but it's the way the movie treats everyone involved and especially takes its horses seriously, that really make it sing. That, plus the long, loving shots of 1970s fashion and horse equipment. Trust me, it's great.

This was also reviewed by Horse Nation and by Lauren at She Moved to Texas, if you'd like other opinions.