(no subject)
Sep. 5th, 2005 11:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI was going to take today to recover from the horse events of Saturday and Sunday but as it happened, a horse event showed up on my doorstep.
Tash (pronounced "Tosh", rhymes with "gosh") is conditioning Cashew (as in the nut-like food item) for the competitive ride this fall (The Keystone Ride, a 30-mile 4-H event up in Huntington along about mid-September). I'd like to do the competitive ride but I have to pass on that until I have a horse that is broke enough to ride ten miles a day for six weeks. Goober isn't quite that sane yet, but what with her general improvement on the traffic front, things are looking up for next year. Anyway, so Tash was out with Cashew and for company, she had her guy Mike on Chance (big red-roanish Walking Horse sort of a thing) and two friends on Geronimo and Country. (All four horses are more or less Tash's.) Geronimo is more arab in build and Country is a stock-type horse, though I realize this isn't helpful to the non-horsey readers. Er. Okay. This is what an arabian horse looks like. This is what a stock-type horse looks like. Think ballerina vs. linebacker.
Tash (Natasha, if you must know, but nobody calls her that. Mike calls her "George". I don't ask why.) lives over the mountain from me -- there isn't a road connecting us but there are horse-passable trails and it's about five or six miles from there to here. Anyway, they stopped by my house to pick up one of my USGS maps of the area for more accurate planning of training rides. The ATV trails (in James Buchanan State Forest, which abuts our land) are not marked but the official CCC trails built in the Depression are named and marked, so the USGS map is at least somewhat helpful. The ATV trails aren't a huge problem for 'em either because Mike knows those because he has an ATV.
Anyway, since the friend on Country wasn't much into horses and since they'd hauled ass (conditioning is mostly at a solid, working trot -- for the nonrider, this is very uncomfortable and tiring) for about five mile, the friend was done in and said so. I offered the friend (whom I had never met, but Tash's sensible and would not have given her nice paint mare to a stupid person) a vehicle to drive back to Tash's house while I rode Country the rest of the way and when I got there, I could pick up my vehicle to drive home with. The friend thought that was a swell idea, so that's what we did.
I gotta say, it was refreshing to ride something trustworthy that I didn't have to worry about jumping out from under me. Country is honest and sane. She's steady. I had a fine time, though the synthetic saddle (Wintec, I think) they had on Country did some major damage to my knees. The angles just weren't right and boy, howdy, did my knees notice. I like the red seat Liss has, if I have to have a saddle. *sigh* The red seat is not long for this world, though. It's about worn out. I've got to find something else to ride in that doesn't kill my freaking knees... but finding a comfortable saddle is worse than trying to find jeans that fit.
Also, Tash had Easyboots on Country and I asked her how those worked for her. She says they're not as difficult to put on and take off as the internet claims and, watching her take 'em off of Country, I think I might have to spring for a pair to see how they do. They look like fun. She's got double-ought for Country and I think that's what Nick and Meatly would take, though apparently I need to get out a ruler and chase after some foot measurements first.
Tash (pronounced "Tosh", rhymes with "gosh") is conditioning Cashew (as in the nut-like food item) for the competitive ride this fall (The Keystone Ride, a 30-mile 4-H event up in Huntington along about mid-September). I'd like to do the competitive ride but I have to pass on that until I have a horse that is broke enough to ride ten miles a day for six weeks. Goober isn't quite that sane yet, but what with her general improvement on the traffic front, things are looking up for next year. Anyway, so Tash was out with Cashew and for company, she had her guy Mike on Chance (big red-roanish Walking Horse sort of a thing) and two friends on Geronimo and Country. (All four horses are more or less Tash's.) Geronimo is more arab in build and Country is a stock-type horse, though I realize this isn't helpful to the non-horsey readers. Er. Okay. This is what an arabian horse looks like. This is what a stock-type horse looks like. Think ballerina vs. linebacker.
Tash (Natasha, if you must know, but nobody calls her that. Mike calls her "George". I don't ask why.) lives over the mountain from me -- there isn't a road connecting us but there are horse-passable trails and it's about five or six miles from there to here. Anyway, they stopped by my house to pick up one of my USGS maps of the area for more accurate planning of training rides. The ATV trails (in James Buchanan State Forest, which abuts our land) are not marked but the official CCC trails built in the Depression are named and marked, so the USGS map is at least somewhat helpful. The ATV trails aren't a huge problem for 'em either because Mike knows those because he has an ATV.
Anyway, since the friend on Country wasn't much into horses and since they'd hauled ass (conditioning is mostly at a solid, working trot -- for the nonrider, this is very uncomfortable and tiring) for about five mile, the friend was done in and said so. I offered the friend (whom I had never met, but Tash's sensible and would not have given her nice paint mare to a stupid person) a vehicle to drive back to Tash's house while I rode Country the rest of the way and when I got there, I could pick up my vehicle to drive home with. The friend thought that was a swell idea, so that's what we did.
I gotta say, it was refreshing to ride something trustworthy that I didn't have to worry about jumping out from under me. Country is honest and sane. She's steady. I had a fine time, though the synthetic saddle (Wintec, I think) they had on Country did some major damage to my knees. The angles just weren't right and boy, howdy, did my knees notice. I like the red seat Liss has, if I have to have a saddle. *sigh* The red seat is not long for this world, though. It's about worn out. I've got to find something else to ride in that doesn't kill my freaking knees... but finding a comfortable saddle is worse than trying to find jeans that fit.
Also, Tash had Easyboots on Country and I asked her how those worked for her. She says they're not as difficult to put on and take off as the internet claims and, watching her take 'em off of Country, I think I might have to spring for a pair to see how they do. They look like fun. She's got double-ought for Country and I think that's what Nick and Meatly would take, though apparently I need to get out a ruler and chase after some foot measurements first.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Space boots for astrohorse
Date: 2005-09-06 12:06 pm (UTC)My only question is whether these Easyboots can be used to throw at stakes set into the ground. Do they make a satisfying "ringer" sound?
Re: Space boots for astrohorse
Date: 2005-09-06 07:49 pm (UTC)If I get some, I'll let you fondle them to evaluate them for horseshoe pitching suitability, a quality they pretty much entirely lack.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-06 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-06 10:14 pm (UTC)Interested parties (I hear crickets chirping) can read more on this subject here (http://www.imh.org/imh/bw/tbred.html) and here (http://www.diamondcrestinc.com/FoundationSires.html).
Allowing for improved track conditions and such, the average speed of the thoroughbred horse has not improved a hell of a lot since the 1900's. There is a great deal of discussion in some circles as to whether or not outcrossing to different breeds would produce faster horses, like outcrossing to arabs did in the creation of the thoroughbred from the English racing stock that had preceded it, but The Jockey Club doesn't approve of freaking AI or embryo transfer, so I don't imagine they'll be lining up for outcrosses either.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-16 07:56 pm (UTC)The comment about The Jockey Club not approving of AI, at first reading, lent itself to a robot-horse interpretation.