overwhelmed, but this made my day!! Dutch rider eliminated at WEG due to blood in horse's mouth!

Daughter dislocated her finger last night and after a trip to the ER she is now wearing a splint for the week and is of course not able to do her usual chores. I went out this morning, took one look at the stalls that have to be cleaned due to rain and horses being in most of the night, and decided that at 72 degrees and sunny today, they are all proceeding to daytime turn-out, at least as long as this weather holds.

I spread hay all over the back field, checked the water trough, and after their breakfast tubs were done, said "see you later!"

Now I'm back in dealing with some very annoying ants, and basically am ready to bomb the house with ant poison.

It's just one of those days.

But then I took a break to check in on WEG and found this, which really made me happy. Thank you, judges. I applaud your doing your job!!

Photo added, from Dressage-News:

Adelinde Cornelissen eliminated from World Equestrian Games

Sarah Jenkins, H&H reporter at WEG

28 September, 2010

Dutch number two Adelinde Cornelissen is out of WEG after blood was seen in the horse's mouth in the grand prix

Adelinde Cornelissen and Jerich Parzival, gold medal prospects at the World Games, have been eliminated after blood was seen in the horse's mouth.

Judge at c and head of the ground jury Britain's Stephen Clarke had to ask Adelinde to leave the arena after her halt and rein back on seeing the red in the foam around the horse's mouth.

Speaking to Stephen Clarke at the national championships last month he said that he was honoured to have the responsibility of judging from C, but was dreading something like this happening and having to send a rider out.

Adelinde shrugged her shoulders and patted her horse, dropped her reins and walked out.

Up until that point she was well in the lead, scoring nines for their halt, extended trot and both half passes.

The Dutch still lead the team competition but being down to three riders Edward Gal cannot afford to have a big problem this afternoon on Totilas.

This puts Adelinde out of the individual competition too, and throws open the possibility for our top rider Laura Bechtolsheimer to stand even higher on that podium.

The following photo is (I think) Adelinde during warm-up. Is that Sjef in the background? Big fat clue: if your body is that torqued out of position, what you are doing is WRONG. End of story.

could be Keil Bay's sister; she's a steal

Oh dear. Someone just sent the ad for this lovely young mare to my email inbox and now I can't stop looking at her.

She's part of an entire Hanoverian breeding farm herd that is going to auction very soon if not sold locally.

If wishes were horses, she'd be mine tomorrow.

sunday morning solo

Husband and daughter have gone to volunteer at a dressage show for the day. Daughter is a score runner for half the day and has taken her camera to look for and capture rollkur the other half. Husband is in charge of awards. Does anyone besides me see the possibilities in this combination of volunteer duties? :)

If she finds any rollkur I am going to do my part and send the photos to the FEI, as well as posting them here. 

Meanwhile, back at the farm, teenaged son is doing what they do well - sleep. I am finishing my coffee and yogurt and then heading out to feed breakfast to horses and donkeys, harrow the front field in advance of the RAIN THAT IS COMING (we badly need it!) and enjoy the much cooler temperature that rolled in overnight.

Guess who is standing outside my window right now keeping me company as I type? The Big Bay. The Big Handsome Bay. Get on out here, he says. Unless you're blogging about how wonderful I am, in which case you can take a few more minutes.

end of the week musings

It feels like this week has flown by. Having the Proust group on Monday evenings kicks things off a little faster for some reason. So far it's a good group, with good discussion and very nice to be reading Proust again, but especially rolling into my favorite season.

We're having a few days of summer again, and yesterday horses got baths. I'm not sure where the weather is going after this week (it's mid-90s today and tomorrow and then 70s for the next 5 days, with some much-needed rain in the forecast) but it occurred to me this could be the last bath of the season. They are all shedding summer coats right now, and Cody and the pony are already growing in winter fur. The donkeys started several weeks ago.

I have Keil Bay on a 3-day on, 2-day off riding schedule, which I've noted in the past seems to work well for him. In our last ride of the 3 days on, we worked mostly at a walk, but did some more difficult work, and he did really well, again. We seem to be getting more finely tuned with the bitless bridle and I've noticed that he is licking and chewing at times even without the bit in his mouth - I was interested to see what he did in his power trot without a bit the day before that. He moved much the same, but I think there is a freedom in his shoulders that is likely due to lack of tension in the head/poll and also probably has something to do with the Thinline pad we're now using.

Keil and I were working diligently at the walk and were quickly joined by Cody and the pony. Cody opened the gate to the arena and in they came. For a few minutes it was me on Keil followed by Cody and Apache Moon. I had to actively discourage them from joining in with us, as it was distracting Keil Bay and I really wanted to get some focused riding in. I find it interesting and wonderful that although it was turn-out time, the gate to the front field was wide open, and both had been ridden earlier, they still wanted to come into the arena.

The day before, daughter rode the pony in the back field and they were joined by two very energetic donkeys.

For a moment it was like a window into a different time: a pony and his girl, trekking along the forest's edge with two trusted and spirited companions.

Funny aside:  People get to this blog a number of ways, mostly via links from other places and by googling horse information, but since I wrote the post about my dream about the Keebler Elf, many numbers of folks are arriving here by googling Keebler Elf. I don't know why this tickles me so much, but it does. I can't imagine what they think when they arrive at my crazy dream post, but many of them go on to read other pages on the blog, so I guess they aren't too put off. It makes me wonder, though - are folks around the world suddenly dreaming about the Keebler Elf???  

Fed-Ex your horse!

This is an interesting video about the huge transport of horses from Europe to the USA for the upcoming World Equestrian Games in Kentucky. The process looks fairly benign and I love that someone is actually inside each "box" with the horse at all times.  Of course, I'd want that person to be me if it was one of my horses!

I think the only way I'd ever ship my horses by air is if we moved and needed to transport the entire herd with us. I would probably need to be sedated myself for such an undertaking.

Salina came from Germany so she has flown, and I can't help but wonder if that contributes to her general anxiety when she thinks someone is getting ready to be loaded/transported.

Note to daughter who says she is moving to England when she gets older: could you put the Little Man in one of those box stalls and watch him go up and into the plane? I am not sure I can stand it if you do!