Hang 'em high!!!!
May. 8th, 2004 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
summer_jackelI'm *still* sick as a dog (or would that be, a sick puppy? That pretty much describes me *all* the time, though...) but I just couldn't break my mom's poor little heart and duck out of the trail ride we had planned for this weekend. Though believe me, I tried. Maternal guilt. Gotta love it.
Actually, I would really have enjoyed this event if I hadn't been coughing my tortured lungs up and swaying in the saddle struggling for conciousness for at least half of it, but I digress. This event was a "trail trial", to wit an easy 10-mile trail ride through pretty rolling foothills and oak woodland in Napa. The catch is that you have to go through various obstacles, on which you are judged.
These obstacles tend to demonstrate the kind of thing that common sense would tell you a trail horse needs to be able to do. Opening gates, stepping over logs, letting the rider pull mail from a mailbox, walking past a cage of chickens, etc. All this stuff has practical applications, which is the point. One trial stopped me utterly cold, though.
Here's the test: you have a nice life-size and realistically weighted human effigy strung from a large overhanging tree limb by a rope around its neck. Judge hands you the rope with the "fake corpse" still aloft. Rider is to lower it to the ground while horse stands quietly. Then, rider is to back horse while holding rope so as to raise body aloft again.
????
Um. Isn't this kind of a skill...we don't really precicely *need* anymore? That we maybe don't want to?
**Awright, we gonna have us a *Lynchin'* here to-night!!! yee-ha!!**
At first I just thought it was funny, but the more I think about it, the more distressing the implications of this become.
As far as my performance, or rather my partner Jhala's, goes, well, we did OK. We can do all the stuff, we just aren't polished enough to do it competitively and she hates waiting for other horses to do their thing, so we got points knocked for her dancing around at the stops. Jhala's still getting started and feeling frisky after a mere 10 miles, and gets frustrated. Still we did good.
But we pretty much failed the afforementioned test. She'd let me lower the dummy, but she refused to have anything to do with stringin' him high.
I have never trained my little mare to help me *hang people*, you see. Funny how I managed to overlook that crucial phase of her education. Silly me.
Somehow, I can't bring myself to feel that upset about it.
Actually, I would really have enjoyed this event if I hadn't been coughing my tortured lungs up and swaying in the saddle struggling for conciousness for at least half of it, but I digress. This event was a "trail trial", to wit an easy 10-mile trail ride through pretty rolling foothills and oak woodland in Napa. The catch is that you have to go through various obstacles, on which you are judged.
These obstacles tend to demonstrate the kind of thing that common sense would tell you a trail horse needs to be able to do. Opening gates, stepping over logs, letting the rider pull mail from a mailbox, walking past a cage of chickens, etc. All this stuff has practical applications, which is the point. One trial stopped me utterly cold, though.
Here's the test: you have a nice life-size and realistically weighted human effigy strung from a large overhanging tree limb by a rope around its neck. Judge hands you the rope with the "fake corpse" still aloft. Rider is to lower it to the ground while horse stands quietly. Then, rider is to back horse while holding rope so as to raise body aloft again.
????
Um. Isn't this kind of a skill...we don't really precicely *need* anymore? That we maybe don't want to?
**Awright, we gonna have us a *Lynchin'* here to-night!!! yee-ha!!**
At first I just thought it was funny, but the more I think about it, the more distressing the implications of this become.
As far as my performance, or rather my partner Jhala's, goes, well, we did OK. We can do all the stuff, we just aren't polished enough to do it competitively and she hates waiting for other horses to do their thing, so we got points knocked for her dancing around at the stops. Jhala's still getting started and feeling frisky after a mere 10 miles, and gets frustrated. Still we did good.
But we pretty much failed the afforementioned test. She'd let me lower the dummy, but she refused to have anything to do with stringin' him high.
I have never trained my little mare to help me *hang people*, you see. Funny how I managed to overlook that crucial phase of her education. Silly me.
Somehow, I can't bring myself to feel that upset about it.
