Swish

This is why I am so conflicted with the show circuit.
This colt is lovely.
His head carriage is much more natural than what we've seen in the last several years.
I was happy to see it.
But then I saw his tail.
His poor,mangled, surgically blocked tail.

A blocked tail hangs long and low and doesn't switch in frustration. It gives the look we stock horse people love so much, but doesn't require training a horse so at ease he runs with a quiet tail on his own. It also stops one of horses main means of communication. Blocking a horse's tail is the equivalent of an overdose of Novocaine for one of us.

"Mhuh? Glable, mleah, slomo, nee?" Drool....

You might still be talking but nobody is going to understand you.

A few injections of Everclear and you've got the look we want in western pleasure, reining, cow horse, cutting and halter. Before anybody gets too excited about me opening the door to slam western events, I hear tail blocking is now prevalent in dressage, all the way up to USEF events.

We need to keep our outrage pointed where it belongs, at anybody, in any event, with any horse, willing to damage them permanently for cosmetic purposes. It's crazy. It's the industry.

I'm going to 'fess up here. I've done it. Once. I could give you all my excuses and reasons why I did it, but I'm not. I will tell you I had it done by a veterinarian who was able to inject the horse so the effect was temporary. If everything worked out right of course. I was lucky, it was temporary, and the horse I had injected recovered completely. I'll never do it again. If I can't win because my horse rats out a misplaced
spur or a sore hock with an angry snap of her tail, then so be it. I'm not a good enough trainer to get the job done, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Before you hang me from the highest tree here, keep in mind, a lot of my opinions and thought processes come from experience, seeing the results of our idiocy, and deciding I wanted no part of it. Not from jumping on the soap box of indignant ignorance and screaming my head off. I'll be as honest with my mistakes as I am with my successes if they are helping people learn. As soon as they become a reason to tar and feather me and run me out of town, well, I'll go back to showing photos of fairy princess horses.

Tail blocking hides the myriad of unfair training involved behind winning big. It hides sore backs, over cuing, fear of being spurred until they bleed and spur stops. It covers exhaustion, fear and anger. Gums, lips and tongues ravaged by lip chains and twisted wire snaffles aren't an issue with a quiet tail.

Blocked tails hide the stress of being started too young and pushed too hard. We insist that our horses perform at mentally  impossible levels and appear happy while they're doing it. So let's go ahead and ignore the possible side effects.  How about fecal dribbling? There's a nice look for your dappled gray reining champion. Problems with foaling, impactions and spinal displacement are all a price your horse can pay for a five minute run in the arena.

Of course it doesn't hide anything, not really. If you watch long enough, you'll learn to recognize the spastic twitch of a blocked tail, trying desperately to say what needs to be said. It's like walking into a warehouse and seeing a bound and gagged woman hogtied to a chair. Her eyes are bulging out of her head, she's covered with cuts and bruises and when you see her you say, "My she has pretty hair." Because if she was in pain she would say something, right?

What seems truly crazy to me, is we're taking away our horses rudder. A horse's tail is the counter balance to their head through all those NRHA, NRCHA circles, spins and turns on the fence. How the hell is a horse supposed to give a calm and balanced performance when his tail is hanging down like a weighted baseball bat?


Wouldn't it be more interesting if there were points given for the use of a quiet tail to enhance a performance and points taken away for rider interference causing a loss of harmony?
How fun would that be?

So here you go. Can you see it? Watch the dock of his tail.

NRHA Futurity Champion

Why I Retired or They Made Me So Tired

                                         

One Horse, One Kid at a Time

 I've just gotten a flicker of what I want to do when I grow up.

Thank goodness for flickers, because this getting old thing sucks rocks. 

I hate feeling used up and useless. 

I hate dwelling on the future with a sense of fear and doom. I just hate it.

I was talking to Victoria, a young woman I volunteered with before Jim's stroke, when I was still 1/2 time at the paper. I did a story on her work with homeless youth for the paper and ended up volunteering with her until life took me away.

What we did was called homeless youth outreach, we walked the out of the way places where homeless kids live/hide. For the most part, in tents or cobbled together shelters in the empty woods areas around train tracks, waterways, city trails etc. Then we'd go through the parks and library downtown, where they spend their days.

We handed out socks, gloves, snacks, water, personal items, condoms, and information on where to get help without being picked up to street kids, from twenty somethings to kids barely in their teens .

I added books and rain ponchos to the list and got my family to donate $$ and a local book store to give us books.

It was my kind of volunteering, no judgement, no moralizing, just handing out some much needed supplies and schmoozing. Once in a while we'd lend an ear.

Anyway, her program was shut down, due to lack of funding, and she's working elsewhere, but worries about the kids. As of now, there's no help in place for them.

I told her that every year I donate my x-mas money for my family to a local charity. I was thinking this year I would put it into socks, gloves, snacks and water and we could touch base with the kids.

She's all over it.

Anyway, this tied in somehow with all of the things that have been buzzing around in my head. Here's a synopsis.

1. I want/need a place to live that gets me outside with my critters, no matter what's going on with me or Jim.

It needs to be easy enough to maintain to keep us safe, but me from drowning in the day to day.

2. I want/need to have a purpose beyond being Jim's caretaker.

3. I miss working with horses -- so much it hurts. My well trained duo just doesn't cut it. They aren't rotten enough.

4. I want for Jim to find a purpose beyond waiting for two terrible things, to die and for me to become a decent housekeeper.
5. We both like teenagers, the more rotten the better.

The Universe has joined forces to open a path for me.

I'm seeing it fall into place and I'm impressed yet again, how the world makes things happen.

1. My husband Jim and I really need something to do other than watch Netflix.

2. The Big K and his wife are hoping to adopt. They are also becoming foster parents because they believe in the power of horses, hard work, time to think and horses when it comes to shaping a person.

3. I was talking to my dad about buying a place where I could keep my horses. He raised doubts about my ability to take care of them. 

4. In my very typical way, I got my hackles up and thought, Don't tell me I can't....

5. I talked about the homeless kids with Victoria, which got me missing them.

I woke up with a very clear picture in my mind of what we need to do.

If I have a place where I can have one extra horse at a time, I'll pick one up at a sale, rehab/start it and sell it. Then move onto the next one. Not as a money making venture (God knows, I can't be doing that!), but to help a good horse stay out of a Mexico-bound slaughter truck. The horse industry is still in a huge mess. The only horses that can make it need to be kind, safe, healthy animals with a purpose. I can do that. I can also find decent registered stock for little to no $$.

Jim is a race bike, vintage motorcycle mechanic extraordinaire. He used to rehab vintage motorcycles for himself and clients as a hobby and to pay for his motorcycle habit. Now his hands and eyes don't let him do much.

I could take on one homeless kid at a time. Teach her/him to work, care for and train my project with me. While the horse would be sold when ready, the kid could stay as long as he/she needed to.

Jim would offer the same opportunity to a mechanically inclined kid. They would restore a vintage bike together, using Jim's vast knowledge and his protege's eyes and hands.

I would keep a running video progression going on the blog for you guys. So you would actually get to see me train stuff and teach a kid how to become horsaii. 

I would have fresh things to write about. Oh my, I think my head is exploding.

BTW...I might be sorta, maybe finishing up a Tally story here. Stay tuned.