Okay, let's go There.

Now, there's an OLD picture. 1970. Ouch. I'm 15 years old, riding at Second Worst barn. We're in a tiny schooling show here, after I'd "won" everything. The photographer, bored to the eyebrows, asked if I'd take Red Harrison over a fence bareback. Globe and Mail, oh, yeah. 15 seconds of fame.

Bad heckquitation, huh. Red Harrison was a QH (GasP) Stallion. Nice horse. Just a sweet easy going guy, solid liver red chestnut. 15.3 hands of classic Quarter 'orse. His head was very naturally above his withers. Short curly-ish tail:) Not high-headed by any means. Red was justright.

Not like some of the tapir builds on equines seen today. I'm in total love with QH's. Always have been. I just wonder what the point is, to the low-head=slow=relax=always a low head WP thing of today. I just wonder. It seems so backwards. I can't explain why. Straight hind legs. I can't get that, sorry.

Raven, the buckskin I've previously bloogled about, was derned spooky:) I was expecting Red Harrison, I got the physical equivalent of a tapir build in front. Weird. That's all I'm saying:) Ooops, too late, already blathered enough.

I've been browsing some horse for sale sites. Some nice horses, many not so nice.
You should see what goes through our auction. And the breathless glee, waiting for the catalog, from so many people. All looking for that diamond in the rough. Or someone else's wreck.

Meanwhile, diamonds abound at FernV's, and kestrel's, and Tx's, and HP's, etc.
Horses ready to be ridden.

The major difference I could spot between the dressage and the reiner (in the video kestrel kindly posted from mugs excellent blog) was the shape of the horse. The western horse was lower, more cat-like. The WB was all upwards and outwards, the western more inwards and downwards. Coiled as opposed to sprung. Somehow. I'm not sure I know what I mean, anyway:)

Not the same. But so alike. Different builds, different carriages, different shapes, but the same aids obviously interchange easily. Gee, have I been saying something to that effect all along? Probably not.

Which horse would you rather ride? At this ancient stage of my life, the QH would throw me from a much lesser height..
I'd love to ride the QH, but I wouldn't want that disappearing neck thing. That's just me. The WB could throw me much farther down. Snickering the WholE time:)

I would ride a JBG, if ever I'm back in the tack aGain. See, I don't believe in rushing. Wonder how long it would take to get fit again. Ow, the thought hurts..

Another QH solid bright bay gelding I rode, Boomer King was his silly ol' name, quite the barrel horse, me being his first English, fervidly jumping rider. Poor guy. Boomer was a darlin'. I don't know how he put up with me. He was 15 hands on tippy toe, and I was still riding as if my legs should be touching the ground.

Boy, did I sour him well. Aye, aye, aye. I was of the jump every possible ChancE crowd. Still hadn't noticed/heard about flat work, except you trotted and cantered before jumping. It was all about the jump, in those foolish days.

Tangents, right, darn tangents..
Red Harrison was one of my two jumpers in my string of horses at SecondWorst barn. He sold them to Chicago.. I quit, when the 2ndW.guy wanted me to jump a calf-kneed, unbroke two-year old TB mare. I'd been flattened by horses several times by this point, I could see the mare wasn't a safe mode of transportation. I've typed that before, draT!

2nd.W guy was the low-level kinda dealer/trainer, you see. I'm not saying by finances. He never made it out of "don't cut-your-toes-off-in-a-lawnmower" school:) He was pretty low on talent, too. He brought all kinds of crap home from the auctions, to make some money. He just never quite did.

It's such a terrible shame, that Auctions must needs to continue. If only for the horses. They deserve more value placed on them than that. You know the type of Auction I mean.

If not, if they are indeed dangerous/"useless"/terribly ill, they can expire, and if possible, serve us again, with their incredibly rich equine shells. Everything on this earth needs put to use. Or it becomes useless. Nothing ever wants to be useless.



Pretty Flowers, for spring.
Which is SOMEwhere, out there! Not here, although it is raining, 38degreesfahrly-freakin' cold and the snow-drops are up!

To Horses. Your Horses.
They are so lucky to have you. So many don't have the luxury of great owners, who'll care for them to the end of their days.

I need to answer the foolish idea that dressage is elitist. It's just such a wrong way of thinking. I wish we could change the word back to Training.

Hang in there, all you hearts in love with horses.
A horse's great heart stays with you forever.