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Sep. 10th, 2006 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickWell, I downloaded the pictures from my digital camera. I learned that perhaps I should not let other people take pictures of me with the digital camera. Most of them were hideously blurry. The one that isn't, well, it's less than flattering but I assure you that this is entirely due to the camera angle and that my ass is in no way as large as it appears.
My ass is not this big in real life.
That's Trys on the appaloosa (spotted horse on the left), TJ and his girlfriend (with the very red hair) talking to me, me in the black tank top, and the IRH investigating the evil, horse-eating trash can. It's a very flattering shot. All ya'll can also mentally pretend that my left hand is not sitting on my hip flab but instead is hovering about two inches away from my real hip. Yeah. That's the ticket. Also of interest in this picture is the blue horse-cannot-escape rope system, on prominent display, there, so people who were wondering what the hell I was going on about with that can see it being used.
Because I know that lots of you don't really believe I ride the IRH, here is an action shot of us going around a barrel at rather less than ramming speed. We are trotting. This is pretty lame, but you have to start somewhere.
Her eyes do not really glow like that when I'm riding her. That's something to do with the camera and the flash. In real life, her eyes glow red.
On a more serious note, she did a good job at the show and completed every class we went in. She also loped when asked (three times, the last of which looked pretty damn nice) and didn't offer to buck at all. Yay!
Her turns weren't bad, she knows to go where I look, and she appears to know all the patterns. I was about to screw up four corner stake when she was like "No, dude, go this way" whereupon I figured out that I was not asking her to do the correct pattern. So we did it the way she wanted to do it. She's done it twice before in her entire life. Twice. I am *so* dead. They're having another thing in October. I think we might go to that, schedule permitting. The shows are fun and they're great practice.
At the show (lots of horse people are at these things -- they're about as much a social event as they are a horse show), Tina mentioned something I hadn't thought of -- the competitive ride up in Huntington needs sweep riders. Sweep riders only do half the ride and they aren't timed or judged. It's free to be a sweep rider. It's also got all the accompanying commotion and excitement of a competitive ride. We have several horses (including the IRH) who have Coggins papers and who could benefit from that. La thinks we should take a trailer up and I agree with her. That'd be the 23 of September, I think.
Kimmie was also at the show with her daughter Brittany. Brittany's riding Sombra, who is a reasonably healthy twenty-six years old. The reason I mention this is that Sombra used to be a greenish five year old back when I was fifteen and had to make the call between pony and car. Sombra was the horse I didn't buy even though I adored her. I'm glad Kimmie has her and that she's doing a good job for Brittany. Sombra is so honest and kind. She goes exactly as fast as Brittany wants her to go -- but easily. Sombra is not a dog like a lot of kid ponies. It doesn't take any effort to get her to trot or run -- just click and she goes, gently and smoothly. She steers wherever Brittany wants her to go, easy, head-down and relaxed. Sombra stops carefully, every time. She will never, ever hit the fence or jam on the brakes and unseat the kid. Sombra reminds me a lot of her grandmother (Shadow), actually.
Also at the show was Dippy, who is a full brother to both Tash's Cashew and to Boo's Eikon. He's... he's so cute that I don't mind how bad he is. The fact that they've repeated the same cross three times is a pretty solid indication of how well everyone liked it. The three horses from Orion X Image (Image was Shadow's last baby) are stunning, if of questionable temper. Dippy (Little Dipper) is a very handsome dark bay gelding and we just like looking at him because he is so cute.
Today I visited grandma in the AM and grocery shopped after that. Avocados were 99 cents each. I bought four.
Right now, I'm doing wash and contemplating a fairly thorough cleaning of the living room. Due to my great love for cleaning, I generally save up the cleaning for months and months before I let myself have a go and binge clean. I'm trying to give it up all together because it's probably wrong on some level to love something that much... and that'd be why my house looks like hell. (I figure if you went for the "hovering two inches away from my real hip" argument, you might also swallow this whopper.)
My ass is not this big in real life.
That's Trys on the appaloosa (spotted horse on the left), TJ and his girlfriend (with the very red hair) talking to me, me in the black tank top, and the IRH investigating the evil, horse-eating trash can. It's a very flattering shot. All ya'll can also mentally pretend that my left hand is not sitting on my hip flab but instead is hovering about two inches away from my real hip. Yeah. That's the ticket. Also of interest in this picture is the blue horse-cannot-escape rope system, on prominent display, there, so people who were wondering what the hell I was going on about with that can see it being used.
Because I know that lots of you don't really believe I ride the IRH, here is an action shot of us going around a barrel at rather less than ramming speed. We are trotting. This is pretty lame, but you have to start somewhere.
Her eyes do not really glow like that when I'm riding her. That's something to do with the camera and the flash. In real life, her eyes glow red.
On a more serious note, she did a good job at the show and completed every class we went in. She also loped when asked (three times, the last of which looked pretty damn nice) and didn't offer to buck at all. Yay!
Her turns weren't bad, she knows to go where I look, and she appears to know all the patterns. I was about to screw up four corner stake when she was like "No, dude, go this way" whereupon I figured out that I was not asking her to do the correct pattern. So we did it the way she wanted to do it. She's done it twice before in her entire life. Twice. I am *so* dead. They're having another thing in October. I think we might go to that, schedule permitting. The shows are fun and they're great practice.
At the show (lots of horse people are at these things -- they're about as much a social event as they are a horse show), Tina mentioned something I hadn't thought of -- the competitive ride up in Huntington needs sweep riders. Sweep riders only do half the ride and they aren't timed or judged. It's free to be a sweep rider. It's also got all the accompanying commotion and excitement of a competitive ride. We have several horses (including the IRH) who have Coggins papers and who could benefit from that. La thinks we should take a trailer up and I agree with her. That'd be the 23 of September, I think.
Kimmie was also at the show with her daughter Brittany. Brittany's riding Sombra, who is a reasonably healthy twenty-six years old. The reason I mention this is that Sombra used to be a greenish five year old back when I was fifteen and had to make the call between pony and car. Sombra was the horse I didn't buy even though I adored her. I'm glad Kimmie has her and that she's doing a good job for Brittany. Sombra is so honest and kind. She goes exactly as fast as Brittany wants her to go -- but easily. Sombra is not a dog like a lot of kid ponies. It doesn't take any effort to get her to trot or run -- just click and she goes, gently and smoothly. She steers wherever Brittany wants her to go, easy, head-down and relaxed. Sombra stops carefully, every time. She will never, ever hit the fence or jam on the brakes and unseat the kid. Sombra reminds me a lot of her grandmother (Shadow), actually.
Also at the show was Dippy, who is a full brother to both Tash's Cashew and to Boo's Eikon. He's... he's so cute that I don't mind how bad he is. The fact that they've repeated the same cross three times is a pretty solid indication of how well everyone liked it. The three horses from Orion X Image (Image was Shadow's last baby) are stunning, if of questionable temper. Dippy (Little Dipper) is a very handsome dark bay gelding and we just like looking at him because he is so cute.
Today I visited grandma in the AM and grocery shopped after that. Avocados were 99 cents each. I bought four.
Right now, I'm doing wash and contemplating a fairly thorough cleaning of the living room. Due to my great love for cleaning, I generally save up the cleaning for months and months before I let myself have a go and binge clean. I'm trying to give it up all together because it's probably wrong on some level to love something that much... and that'd be why my house looks like hell. (I figure if you went for the "hovering two inches away from my real hip" argument, you might also swallow this whopper.)
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 11:18 pm (UTC)I could, I suppose look on Google for what this is. But your explanation will be significantly more entertaining than the one on the website of the International Organziation for Being Snooty About Horses and then Firing Your Executive Director for Malfeasance So He Can Go Screw Up FEMA.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 12:17 am (UTC)While not 100% lethal, it isn't treatable and horses that are infected cannot be cured. Some strains of EIA are fatal, but not all of them. Anyway, until the early seventies, it killed lots more horsies than it currently kills. The problem with EIA was that horses that DID NOT DIE turned into inapparent carriers who were infected but didn't die or even seem very sick. The inapparent carriers dottered on and on, allowing the reinfection of horses forever and anon from their virus-ridden blood.
Anyway, in the early seventies, Dr. Leroy Coggins of Cornell University came up with a blood test (the agar gel immunodiffusion or AGID test) to check horses for the presence of the virus. (There's also another test called the ELISA test but mostly they use the one that Coggins developed -- the AGID one.) In these, our modern times (since 1981 when I started fucking around with horses), horses are required to have a negative Coggins to enter a show, go to an organized trail ride, be sold at auction, be shipped across state lines, and probably absolutely every other interesting thing you might ever like to do with your horse. A negative Coggins test lasts for a year and it costs about thirty dollars to get one done.
To prove that you've had a Coggins done, you get a piece of paper back from the lab showing the horse and its status. Below is Nick's current Coggins test paperwork, with the name of her owner (who is not actually me) removed for privacy reasons. Note that the Coggins paperwork has several numbers on it -- one of them (probably the serial number) is written down along with the horse's name and cross-checked with the state to make sure that it's not faked. The horse is also compared to the drawing to make sure that it looks at least reasonably like the drawing. While it would be pretty easy to fake Coggins paperwork well enough to get into one show, mostly nobody does. The test is inexpensive, one's local horse world isn't big enough to get away with cheating on this, and it's not worth the effort.
Horses that turn up positive on a Coggins are retested (to be sure) and then either maintained in a fly-free environment for the rest of their lives (expensive and difficult), donated to research facilities like New Bolton (where Barbaro is recovering), or are put down.
Want to know more? Probably not, but if you do, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equine_Infectious_Anemia) has some information. The Merck Veterinary Manual (http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/52800.htm) also has more stuff.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 12:45 am (UTC)I'm so glad you asked. See here (http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/nahps/equine/eia/web-mapping.html).
no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 04:29 pm (UTC)And you look cool on the horse! Especially because of the glowy eyes!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-11 11:51 pm (UTC)