ButchAndTheUID.

You know, there's been something missing from old Butch's life. He's coming up on 53, which is 1,845 in people years, and his poor old legs just don't bend. They never did, though, and he's finally a little cranky about the poor breeding practices that resulted in his immobility. Old Butch is a patient sort. Like most horses on the planet. Just look at the surprise on his face!!
:)
We've just received a mini-miracle in the mail, in the form of the riding bible for thinking horse-people. Sally Swift's "Centered Riding". We've been thinking on it, wistfully wishing for it, and feeling slightly adrift, bereft. Something was missing.

We've been feeling the guilt of a good working dog, when he hasn't had enough to do that day. Or in the case of my two dogs, guilt, squared. I just hoped I'd get to touch this book someday. I'd been wondering why I wasn't aware of Sally Swift and her Centered Riding.
I know why, now. It was published in 1985.

Nothing like tearing your entire house apart looking for paperwork needed by a certain date. Amazing the stuff you can find. I've re-discovered my personal journals from 1984-85. A tad bedraggled, they are:) I've been skimming through them, fascinated by that self-deprecating penniless riding school-teacher, terribly shy, overtly brash. The mentions/descriptions/accolades of GoLightly are amazing, and wondrous, and painful, and illuminating. But my life was in such turmoil (self applied) through those years, that I didn't realize how important little details might help the old memory, later in life..
Write it all down, is what I didn't quite do. I wrote a LOT though:)
No surprise, there..

I mention my fear of old schoolie Chinook going for meat:( My love for all of my school-horse "boys", my heartbreak when I quit, and left them behind. The dimming of a fire that had burned for many, many years, with the loss of the best horse I'd ever sat, GoLightly.
GoLightly wasn't perfect either. Funny how memory clouds certain points. I detail, after his preliminary jumper win at Cheltenham, his poor showing (always with Peter riding, at the big shows) at the next event. Peter mentions to his groom that GoLightly was luggy, lazy. I detail the guilt I felt for that comment, even though it had nothing to do with me:)
Boy, I was WeirD,with a capital D.

I rode GoLightly for a little over a year, I thought it was less than that. It felt like less:(
I write of my frustration that I'll never finally learn to ride him properly, before he's sold out from under me. But through the whole time I'm riding him, I'm learning (through the words I wrote then) to relax, and let him be, and ride him with confidence and assertion. I wrote, "I need to be straight, and square, and supple."
It's cool. From a historical point of view. The horse notes are interspersed with barn and personal drama. Lots of ThaT.

Even cooler to read Sally's words, they ring so many bells, my head feels like a dang cathedral. I'm almost afraid to read those words. It's that kind of awe. Denny Emerson's foreword made me gasp. Still gasping a bit. It's true, because GoLightly showed me that it was true, through the subsequent horses I was able to ride well, with less time in the saddle than I'd feel was ideal. It doesn't take as long to get back into it, if you can remain relaxed, straight, square and supple. Balanced on your own pins, first.
Confidence comes from balance, not conformation. In life, as well as in riding. Training. Anything. Horses. Fascinating.

Butch and I haz some readin' to do. Catching up, for GoLightly.

To Horses.
From the happiest dang ditzy witch eveR.

To Riding Horses as well as you can, for mutual comfort.
I think I'm leaking again:)
Schnickers, schlobbers, scritches and love to my amazing readers!
Have a Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!


Reading his Fan Mail..


Check out the flowing mane and flagged tail!