The Dressage Curmudgeon

On horse buying and life lessons...

2012-03-06T21:38:00.002-05:00

I figured the time had come to actually let the people who still owned Ms. V in on the news that I planned to buy her, so I scheduled yet another trip out to their farm.

I found that few things had happened since August, when first we met.

First - when I called up to break the news I learned an interesting factoid. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the daughter was actually a working student at WXYZ Farms. What are the chances!

And, in discussion with Ms. V's owner, the secret to why Herr Schlamm made such semi-flaccid efforts to sell me a horse in October was revealed. It was because in November, they corralled up all of the meaty and wild 2.5 year olds there and put them through an intensive 7 day "backing" program or something along these lines - voila, the horses were now "started" and their prices increased accordingly. Why sell one only a month short of windfall time?

What works for a stable with the best moving Stallion on Antartica should also work well for a small family farm. Right? And so, the daughter followed along at home and did the same intensive 7 day backing program on Ms. V.

Time for an awkward moment here.

I may be a bitch, but hearing the mom gush on the phone about the work her daughter had done to start this spindly little open kneed, spongy skeletoned 2 year old - well, I could hardly say "WTF - WHY? WHY on EARTH!" Even though I was most definitely thinking it.

(Yes, I realize I also must sound like a raging hypocrite, since I whined about El Muddo being unstarted at five. But honestly, I think there is a middle ground in there somewhere...don't ask me to quantify exactly what it is. I think Hillary Clinton knows. Or Monica Lewinski. What the hell is that woman's name anyways. Someone.)

No worries Curmudgeon! I know mature, hard bone when I feel it! Ride on!

I took a deep breath, composed myself, and decided to make the most of it.

C'mon Curmudgeon. At least you will get to see if she is a totally insane bucking freak dialed up to die-rider-die. Don't turn back now...

Yah, Whatever. Even if she did get testy, riding her would be sort of akin to saddling up a large angry goat, not a real horse hell bent for death and destruction.

Another interesting thing had happened in the last few months...It seems hard to believe now, since we have been hovering at parity with the U.S dollar for quite some time, but in 2003 the exchange rate CAD to USD ranged from ... get ready for it... $0.65 in January, to $0.76 in December.

(Remember how we looked longingly at the Victoria's Secret Catalogue back then, sure we would never, ever be able to afford the exchange on a Miracle Bra with matching Thong panties?)

I was thinking of moving up a level this year , but damn! I can't sit the trot with this miracle going on!

So, in August when I initially headed out to see Ms. V, the rate was $0.71, which would make her advertised price on the American equine.com "all prices in USD" website roughtly $6300. By the time I headed back there in late Nov, the rate had gone to $0.76 - or $5921.

This left me in sort of an awkward situation. Price had never been discussed - YET. So in my eyes, I was going to buy a horse that was advertised for $5900 (as the ad on equine.com had not changed). In THEIR eyes, I was going to see a horse advertised for $6300 (as in.. the day they wrote the ad) - PLUS - the value of the exceptional training that she had now received from a sixteen year old under the tutelage of Herr Schlamm in the fabulous world of WXYZ . Surely that puts her at $7000, give or take.

Curmudgeon - you can't seriously think the price would go DOWN just due to the exchange rate, you cheap bitch!

Yah, well, maybe I am. But tell me - had it gone the other way - would they have offered to let me to pay LESS?

Sigh.

Well, I must say - when I showed up that Saturday, I was ready to be underwhelmed at least - more likely annoyed. But in fact, the kid had done a perfect job of starting the large goat. They dolled her up in a little white pad and polos, and she executed some shaky version of a walk trot canter hack class for me. Really, I have seen worse at Trillium shows. Go figure.

So, when the time came to bargain - the mom looked at me with pleading eyes and explained how she had told her daughter that if she did a good job... if she made an effort.. it would pay off. It is a good life lesson to learn, no?

Sigh. Again. Whatever. I split the difference. We agreed on $6500.

I had myself a horse..provided she passed the vet check of course. Luckily, one of the better clinics for pre-purchases was right in the local area, so I was able to arrange something that week - Thursday morning it would be.

Driving to work on Monday, I was happy and excited about my new horse, but pretty bummed out that I would not be able to actually attend the vet check, since, as you may recall, I had no holidays left. Oh well.

As it turns out, I wasted critical bummed out energy for nothing. There was no need - because when I arrived at the office, I was greeted by my boss with tears in her eyes and HR at her side.

(This is never good, unless maybe HR has just told your boss a side splittingly funny joke. Generally speaking, HR people are a bunch of wizened dressage-judge like bitches that just don't have it in them, so this is a very unlikely scenario).

I was laid off immediately. Cutbacks. We know, we know, you work hard, you do your best... Sorry.

A good life lesson to learn.

Really, it all turned out for the best. Vet check, here I come! Now I had absolutely nothing else to do on Earth on Thursday other than surf Workopolis, or show up and witness some of my last non-pogey dollars go up in smoke. X-ray after X-ray. Hot Damn, you know where I was going! Good times.

That.. and also, the look on my ex-boss' face when I said "oh for FUCK'S sake, why didn't you say something before I bought a HORSE!" was priceless. I would do it all again, just for that.

Doin' a Do-Over

2012-03-03T00:00:00.001-05:00

No matter what it is we are doing in our life at any one time, we do all wonder what would have happened if we had made different choices.

What would we change, if we had - a do-over?

For example, Jamie is probably still crying, wondering what would have happened had she only had that one night stand with David Lee Roth back in the day.

Ok, this time... I am buying better laces, and a horse from Charlot Farms

Hey, I am no different.

(No, not about that. I never even met David Lee Roth. I am not that old, they were already Van Hagar by the time I saw them at the CNE).

There are a few aspects of the whole adventure where I am sure I did make the best choice possible. Fairly sure anyways. Kind of. Maybe.

One would be choosing the Viva Voltaire offspring. He really did turn out to be a good "bang for the buck" local stallion (yes, I realize he is not truly LOCAL local, in that he is imported, but I mean, in the neighbourhood).

The year I showed PSG, there were at least 3 other 9 year old Vivas out there showing PSG as well. He was the only stallion with two offspring at the latest Pan Am Games, with Viva's Salieri W winning Silver. So, although he is often described as being "jumper bred", he does seem to create some decent dressage horses.

(Yah, yah, meow-meow-meow...I know what's on your mind, don't bother posting...Whether or not you consider going to the Pan Am Games for an obscure country not actually known for dressage as a noteworthy feat or not is up to you to decide all on your own, not for discussion here).

In fact, it has been suggested to me that perhaps Ms. V is the most remarkable of all of his 2001 offspring going, since she actually turned out fine... while being ridden primarily by me, and not by someone wonderful like Tom Dvorak. Uhh, thanks. I think.

The other thing amazing about Ms. V - and the scientist in me says it is ok to type this, even though the irrational freak in me is thinking jinxies - is how incredibly sound she has been from start to finish. This, I would most definitely NOT change. She has missed only about a month along the way due to a stone bruise - which probably wouldn't have happened if she was not 8 yrs old and still barefoot due to her absolutely perfect looking, chip free feet.

(No, I am not a militant barefooter. I am just cheap. I nearly cry every time I think of the beautiful shoes I could be buying myself for the $200 a month I now hand over to the farrier).

I am not sure what I attribute this to. Breeding? Maybe. Size - likely. I was also pretty dedicated to keeping her lean in her early years, since there is good research in dogs showing that low body weight does reduce the likelihood of a dog developing osteoarthritis.

http://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/abs/10.2460/javma.2000.217.1678

(Getting barn managers to feed to what I considered to be a lean body condition - well, that's another story, for another day).

So what would I do differently - if I were to do it all again?

Really, all of the different choices I would make relate to only one thing...

I would consider, from the very start, that the day would come when I would get sick of riding and decide to sell my horse.

Alas, I made choices that are not conducive to this activity.

First... I would have hunkered down, saved my money for a year, and bought something:

1. Taller - 16.2 at least
2. Male -
3. With sexier breeding - imported Elite something or other.

Sorry guys. I want to believe in the underdog breeds. And although I am no judge lover - I truly don't think breed prejudice in the ring is rampant. I have never, in all of my time scribing, seen an "off breed" marked down for anything other than being shitty. And I do think horses of different breeds CAN make it up the levels if they are good enough. So if one is going to keep their horse forever, it can be whatever breed lights their fire, and probably crappy riding will be the limiting factor to their success.

But breedism in the horse industry is rampant, not in the ring, but in the average everyday people out there. People who want Nike swooshes on their runners, Coach handbags, and imported horses. So if you plan on selling shoes, purses or PSG horses, you may want to take this into consideration. Logical? No. Reality? Yes.

The other thing I would do differently is not show my own horse at any show likely to leave an easily searchable trail in cyberspace.

70's ridden by a pro looks a lot better on paper than 50's ridden by an amateur spaz... even if the end buyer is another amateur spaz, who will never ever see the 70's again. I have never totally understood this one, but I guess people want hope, not reality.

Lastly, of course - I would have made different choices relating to training, all along the way. And that, my friends, will be the focus of the rest of my blog.

But - for now - who knew what the future held back then. I was just glad to have finally decided what horse to buy. I prepared to run back to the barn in London, sweep her off her feet and wedge her into the red rocket, and bring her home. Wherever that was.

Actual product not exactly as shown. I am female, Ms. V is a horse

yadda - yadda - yadda - the end.

2012-02-23T12:41:00.001-05:00

No, no...it is not REALLY the end of the blog.

I am sure you are all as sick of hearing about horse shopping as I was of actually horse shopping, and as I am of writing about it here now. So it is the end of that.

But before we move on...

I know that half of you are saying:

- "I can't believe she actually bought the funky cross - what a loser"

While the other half are saying:

- "I can't believe she actually bought the funky cross - what fun"

And 100% of you are probably wondering by now, if you were to meet me in real life and watched me riding around the arena - would you laugh and point, just point and back away slowly in horror, observe quietly then mock me on UDBB, perhaps choose to ride your own horse at a later time so as to avoid death by collision...

Or maybe...does Dressage Curmudgeon weigh 400lbs, are her half passes actually leg yeilds, does she really bounce alarmingly during extended trot, do the funky bobbing chicken thing during her changes, and lack the ability to count to 4, 4x in a row?

There are so many possibilities, so many things you are probably pondering... and on closer inspection, they all boil down to one thing...

You are asking yourself "am I going to waste my time reading the training journal of someone who actually - really - sucks".

And I am here today to help you to decide whether or not you want to blow your lunchhour with me, rather than hearing muffin recipe secrets of the woman in the cubicle next door, or whatever the hot topics may be in your office during breaks.

(I am hearing about why she chooses to eat kraft dinner for lunch right now...innnteresting. Now - she is discussing belly dancing...oh, there is a visual I could live without).

To accomplish this... I will also share with you THE END of the story, big picture. As in... how Ms. V turned out.

(Oh, now she is on about the movie "Alive" for some strange reason - you remember, the one where the plane crashed, and the soccer players ate each other. NO, no NO... they didn't eat each other in a sexy way, seriously, you are a sicko. They probably all shit their pants when the plane was crashing, I know I would - so that is the last thing you would want to do to any of them...)

Anyway... to help with your decision...I bring you... a video. Of Ms. V and me - the one and only video I will ever post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6lVREQxr6k

I think it is only fair since so many of you have committed serious time and effort to following my somewhat lucid ramblings - there have been close to 65,000 visitors to the blog even though it is about dressage AND is completely free of porn - who would have thought it possible?

In return, I ask only three things:

1. That the first person who feels the overwhelming need to comment on my lack of a helmet - takes my heartfelt invitation to fuck right off. Go discuss muffins and kraft dinner.

(In fact I do always wear a helmet, but the coach at the time insisted that in a sales video, lack of a helmet shows that you are not afraid of dying if your ride without one. Apparently a "selling point").

2. That as time goes by and I post tales of my trials and tribulations working with my 4 year old / 5 year old / 6 year old... every time someone who has not clued in to the fact that this HAS ALREADY HAPPENED suggests that I sell my horse, try a new saddle, consult horse communicator, drink vodka, have her teeth checked, smoke weed, take up Rumoli - whatever... that it will be the responsibility of you, my dear readers, to point them to this video.

I can't be on here 24/7 explaining the meaning of "retrospecive". And I am not climbing aboard the way-back machine to try any of these innovative solutions. So thanks, but no thanks.

(In fact, I am thinking of designing a t-shirt or badge that I can send out as a prize to the first one who says "WATCH THE VIDEO, ASSHOLE" to the offending parties).

(No, no no..the t-shirt itself would not say WATCH THE VIDEO, ASSHOLE. Although it does have a catchy ring to it. It would say something pithy about being a dressage curmudgeon. )

I am telling you, if we just go back in time to 2006 and whack her in the head with a parelli stick thingy, all your problems will be solved!

Thirdly - if you feel the need to critique - knock yourself out. I am not afraid to take my turn. As the quote goes.."There is nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others, is there?"

Of course there isn't. Otherwise... none of us would be here reading, would we?

The Decision....

2012-02-20T20:28:00.000-05:00

And so, videotapes in hand (remember those?), I headed off to get a second and third opinion, on my first, second, third.. etc. horses - and ultimately, with any luck, to make a decision I could live with.

Realistically, my other option was to pack it in for the season, and start shopping again in a few months. I was already struggling with less than perfect conditions - as we headed into winter, the horses were only going to get furrier and muddier, the footing lumpier, and the experience all around less appealing than it was.

If that was possible.

The other issue was that word on the street is that people with nicer horses give up on selling for the winter, send the horses out for 60 days training, and try again to sell in the spring as started 3 year olds with price tags to match. So, my window of finding a bargain - and being able to identify it as such, under a crust of snow and filth - was closing fast.

Although my pregnant friend has not been able to join me on many shopping missions, she was coaching me from the sidelines. Based on the information I had provided to her, she had thought Don Donutico sounded like a good bet as well. She was familiar with the stallion, and had heard decent things about him. That said, she also thought there was some potential in the Viva offspring based on the limited information available on him.

And best of all - having been involved in equine genetics for many years - she had an exceptional understanding of one of the most fundemental principles of horse breeding, one that I think can be difficult for someone less experienced such as myself to grasp.

You can have the world's best sounding horse on paper, and still wind up with a dog in the barn. And vice versa.

So, we watched the videos, discussed, and decided.

Ms. V it would be.

D is for...Duuhh...Dud... Die Driving...Dressage Curmudgeon

2012-02-16T22:29:00.002-05:00

And then... in about mid November, when I was feeling very discouraged and frustrated by my search...I saw the ad.

Don Donutico. He was the one. I knew it. I even loved the way the name rolled off my tongue. Sexy. Delicious.

Don Donutico was a beautiful dark bay Oldenburg, by a popular D-line stallion (a slightly dated one, but this still sounded cool to me...), out of an Oldenburg approved mare (which really means....anyone? anyone? anyone...?). Who's only fault was that he was...a midget. A stout little 15 something hh, with a string test that said there was not a whole lot more growing to do..which knocked him right out of $20,000 prospect country, and dropped him squarely into my price bracket.

No, no, NO! I said D-Line Hanoverian. Not D-Cup. Pay attention!

Goodbye freaky freaks of the wannabe dressage horse world. Here was a horse I could afford, with the talking points that snotty dressage assholes would approve of.

Now not only did Don Donutico sound like a good bet as a dressage prospect based on his breeding - he already had results to back this claim. He had been shown extensively on the line, focusing on "dressage suitability" classes - and had done extremely well. (And we all know how important success on the line as a youngster is when it comes to evaluating prospects, since it correlates so directly with the future potential of a horse to walk quietly around the showgrounds on the end of a lead rope).

I was so excited! It was meant to be.

Unfortunately, the bad news was that although I live within an hour or two of the hottest horse hot spots of Ontario - Don Donutico did not. He was a solid 4 hours away, and not a nice 4 hours either, but 4 hours of nasty 2 lane death pass highway and backroads. He was out in Hinterland Who's Who country, with the Wood Spider and friends.

(Sorry. I couldn't help myself. I know it is old but it still cracks me up every time).

Where was I ... oh yah...

And so, our long distance romance began.

I went old school and phoned his breeder, and talked to her at length about the life and times of The Donut. How wonderfully he did... well, everything. Clips, trailers, cooks, cleans... you know the drill. She gushed on about how talented he was, how he was the last foal from her very favourite mare, how she had always dreamed of creating a perfect dressage horse with this stallion, how the legendary exceptional D-line temperament was absolutely personified in this little horse..

And of course - how he sounded like exactly the right horse for me (do they ever say "yuck! no! All wrong!").

Did she have a video I could see before I drove halfway to hell?

Of course! It is on the way!

And so I waited eagerly for the video to arrive - and when it did...it was perfect. Lots of clear, sane footage, made by a person who did not seem to be a moron. Conformation shots, the triangle, free footage, as well as footage of the little nut being started on longeing and other ground work related things.

Ooooohh! This is it, I know it!

Only one hitch - someone from the States was coming to see him on Saturday. So if I wanted first dibs, I had to get out to see him - right away. Which can be tricky if it is Monday, you work full time, and have already used all of your holidays.

There is no way this was NOT going to happen for me. I begged and sniveled and got my boss to let me off a little early the next day, and I hightailed it out to the middle of nowhere to see my new boy. I drove like a possessed maniac and arrived there around 7:00pm.

(Hmm, I don't remember them saying it was supposed to snow. But then, I didn't actually check the weather forecast for middle of nowhere. Oh well. Hey speaking of which...when did Mr. Motard say he was putting my snows on again? Is it this weekend? I can't remember).

And I met the nice woman and her husband at the house... And we went out to the barn... And they brought out the Donut... AND...

I didn't like him. Right from the first second I laid eyes on him.

Who the hell knows how your brain decides such things. But if I can just push aside the scientist within me for a second and anthropomorphize ...he just had a dour, sulky demeanour about him, not out of character for the entitled, spoiled, raised-by-doting-baby boomers child that he was.

I remember that it actually freaked me out a bit, how little I liked him in person. And for no logical reason that had to do specifically with anything physical - his conformation was perfect, and he was very attractive. He just didn't have an endearing personality, which I guess if we get really technical, could possibly have translated into lack of heart or drive or pissyness under saddle - who knows. Or maybe it meant absolutely nothing other than the fact that I am nuts, just like most horse buyers.

Regardless, I shot a lot of video, and continued along with my visit - give him time, Curmudgeon. He is going to grow on you...

But he didn't. In fact, watching him run around the arena just cemented the impression in my mind that he was a no holds barred boring horse. Was he a nice mover - sure, I guess so - but nothing spectacular. It was almost as though he were part TB instead of hard-core sexy "Oldenburg". (It's a joke people, I know, I know). He had the floating feet thing going on, a nice big walk, clear 3 beat canter - all the shit you are supposed to look for... but that was about it - beyond the checklist he was just... blah.

Maybe this WAS the remarkable D-line temperament I had read so much about. Maybe what I was interpreting as surly and braindead was actually amateur friendly, calm, sane, and sensible. Who knows. After an hour or so of humming, hawing, and staring at this horse from every angle imaginable, I thanked the owners, (Thanks for coming! Don't forget! Buyers are coming Saturday! Act NOW!) packed up my camera...

And walked out the door into a horrific blizzard, with about 10 cm of snow on the ground already (that's 3 inches or something, FYI), and more falling fast.

Nice.... I like to think of myself as a sane person, but I was pretty sure this was a sign from above (the aliens, of course, who else?)...saying...CURMUDGEON... Don't buy that horse!

Six hours of white knuckle, no snow tire driving later, I arrived home mentally exhausted and totally depressed. Faaacccck!

But I still worried that I wasn't being totally objective. I decided I would take my growing video collection to review with my now very pregnant veterinarian friend and her horse savvy husband. I needed some fresh eyes on my project.

Do you know what the hell you want, Curmudgeon?

2012-02-15T06:34:00.000-05:00

I arrived at my friend's farm outside of London, and broke the news to her - as much as I'd love to spend the afternoon canning Salsa and discussing cross-stitch (while Mr. Motard drives combines and grain buggies and other cool things with the boys) what I really needed to do was go horse shopping. See you around.

What? You already have a horse. Why do you need another one?

Well...uggg....

You have all been here. Insert ...some futile attempt to explain to the non-horsey friend that your Arab pony (what's an Arab?) is not a dressage prospect (what's dressage?), and so you are buying another one... here. Why? Well, it has to do with...(oh, look at that. Her eyes are glazing right over...)

Just stop right there. If you are a horse person, you have been down this road before. Although your non horsey friends expect you to remember every minutia of the lives and times of their boring children (oh they are SO unique - just like all of the other children), to colour with them and model little plasticine pigs for them, and dig in their cat shit infested sandboxes with glee...they can't be bothered to spend 5 minutes trying to understand what the hell it is you do with your horse. Enough said.

Give me a sec. I am making you some magic clay.

Well if you are going to see a horse - can we come? Little Sally loves horses.

Sigh.

And so, I headed out to see Ms. V for the first time with a non-horsey friend and her 5 year old daughter in tow. Yep, there is nothing that someone showing a 2 year old horse likes more than having a non-horse savvy 5 year old on site trying to get their head kicked off during the process. Sure. What the hell. All aboard!

The farm was a very nice private stable, with a beautiful arena. Only very limited amounts of mud. Thank the lord. Ms. V was standing quietly in the cross ties, neatly groomed with a slick show-sheeny tail, and presented to me by a pleasant mom and daughter. Reason for selling was immediately obvious - the daughter already towered over me. So although they had bought this horse in-utero... things were not going to work out based on her size.

So far so good. I poked, prodded, asked polite questions - no club feet, roach back, or alarm bells of other sorts. She was very friendly and well mannered, which was nice. The other nice thing was that her dam was also on site, so I got to check her out too, and she was similarly friendly and well mannered. Neither did anything frighteningly crazy, and flames did not shoot out of any orifices as I had expected due to the Saddlebred influence. (Kind of disappointing, really).

The one thing that really stood out in my mind - is that she was small. Really small. Large pony small. And she really looked every bit a nerdy, gangly two year old. If horse shopping were high school, Ms. V did not yet need a training bra without a whole lot of kleenex, whereas the other horses I saw would have already been using tampons and getting Brazilian waxes.

If you are not used to shopping for young horses, seeing one that is still just emerging from the ugly yak conformation phase does shake you a bit. Looking at their little dented in knees, giant butts, and sea horse necks - none of this brings to mind the shining finished beast you plan to own.

Don't panic, Curmudgeon. Wait until you see her move. Remember the story of the ugly duckling.

Off we went to the arena.

And for the first time, I got a really good feeling about this little horse - you could tell right away that she loved to move. No longe whip was really required - she took off at a big trot, big canter, monster bucks, here there everywhere - and didn't stop for about 10 minutes, scaring the crap out of my non-horsey friend and her child as they cowered in the centre of the arena. It wasn't freaky scared running all over the place - it was "woo-hoo, look at me go, I am loving the footing in here" zooming around.

(I didn't ask myself at the time... "will this horse ever want to STOP?" Which may have been a valid question. After the balky Platypus, seeing this horse go-go-go was just so refreshing. There can't possibly be anything bad about a horse who has excessive energy, can there?)

I was also impressed that every time she went to accelerate, she sat down and pushed off with her hind legs instead of just rushing faster with all four feet like Fred Flinstone (no, I know he doesn't have four feet. But you know how his legs just spin in a circle when he runs?). Which, of course, gave her front end the look I was after - big and spidery. Not just dime-a-dozen floating feet.

He moves a little out behind, and is on the forehand, don't you think?

And herein lay the problem. This horse did not look or move anything like any of the hunters I had ever owned or ridden. The upright conformation (the seahorse neck came out of her back at approximately a 90 degree angle), the knee action and flinging front legs (no daisies would be cut or otherwise maimed as this horse trotted by)... the snappy hocks - it is what I thought I wanted, but now that I saw it before me, I just wasn't sure.

Because in the back of my mind I kept thinking "what if you hate dressage. This horse will NEVER be a hunter - she is too small, and she moves like a freak".

There would be no turning back. If things didn't work out for this girl as a dressage horse, I would be stuck with a small jumper or eventer - two activities I just didn't (still don't) have the balls to participate in. Even the big clunkers at WXYZ could have made respectable hunters...

I thought maybe I was over reacting, and worrying too much, so I came back a week or so later to see her again - accompanied by a hunter friend. She was polite, watched quietly, but I could see it on her face... as soon as we got in the car she said I was insane to buy this horse... especially when there are so many good ones over at TnG! Let's go there! (oh, fuck ooofffff!!! Don't worry. I did NOT go there)

And so... sigh....back to equine.com.

Saddlebreds are kind of like mopeds...No, wait. I think I have this joke all wrong

2012-02-12T14:55:00.001-05:00

I must admit, I have been holding out on you. Because the very first horse I looked at ended up being one of my front runners, three months and three visits later (the seller no doubt thought I was the tire kicker extraordinaire).

Late in August, just as I was sending the Platypus off to be sold, I saw the advertisement for this horse.

See, I seriously did draw little lines on my pictures.

Who knows why, but her picture caught my eye. I thought she seemed lean and athletic, and I liked her hind end - it looked like she would have a hell of a motor. I was sick of looking at pictures of overfed meatball two year olds with little wimpy stifles and big round asses. I also kind of liked the look on her face, which I know should not count for anything, but hey, I am only human.

The other thing I did like about her was that her sire was Viva Voltaire, one of the young hot stallions at Charlot Farms - she was from his first crop of foals who were all just rising 3, so who knew if they had any talent...pfft, minor detail. Viva Voltaire was himself a lame jumper, not a dressage horse in any way, shape or form...errrr... again, minor detail, as long as the bloodlines were in there somewhere. Right?

WTF...Yes, for shit's sake, I am on about Charlot Farms AGAIN. I am not too proud to admit, I had a Charlot Farms complex. I was convinced if only I could afford a horse from Charlot Farms, the birds would sing, heavens would shine down upon me, and I would passage on off to dressage Nirvana.

Well - if I could not afford a REAL Charlot Farms horse - at least I could afford one of their offspring. NO, she was not a wonderful, all talented Rio Grande baby like El Muddo, but what the hell, still close enough.

There was of course something I really didn't like about her. The fact that she was part Saddlebred.

I could rationalize away Arab, had a childhood lust for Morgans - but..the Saddlebred thing was hard to swallow.

Why? Well, there were several factors.

First, I had never met a Saddlebred in real life, so I really had no frame of reference. I had only seen pictures. Pictures that looked like this:

Now don't get me wrong, I am not knocking this horse and rider at all. Maybe if you are a Saddlebred person this is a total mouthwateringly georgeous picture, but as someone who knows nothing of the sport - what is good / bad / freaky - it just looks weird. It also does not look anything like what I envisioned my dressage horse resembling.

Next - Saddlebreds undoubtedly have a reputation as being - uhh - nuts. I know people think Arabs are nuts too, but I had dealt with Arabs all my life, so I had a pretty good idea of what variety of nut I would be dealing with in an Arab, whereas I had no clue exactly what awaited me in the mind of a Saddlbred. Brazil - or filbert? Tree, or ground nut? Who knew.

But I would say the biggest turnoff with respect to Saddlebreds had to be that the Saddlebred sporthorse industry unfortunately has some total hard-core freaks representing their numbers on the bulletin boards - the thought of being associated with this group in any way was frightening to me. Remember that at this time, I was still regularly visiting COTH and UDBB. There was a particular poster there who made me want to vomit every time I read her self promoting, bullshit posts on her stupid stallion - who happened to be a "horse of colour" as well. Coincidence? I think not.

(You may wonder why I kept reading her posts. Good question. They had that irresistible train wreck quality about them that keeps you coming back for more).

I would like to be able to say that the Saddlebred spothorse movement has come a long way since then, but unfortunately, I don't think it has. One Harry Callahan versus a few very vocal jackasses that keep promoting whacked out bullshit (like thinking that Totilas is actually Kenyan, not American... (no, no, wait, I am confused again) - is actually a Saddlebred descendant, as are all KWPN horses...) make it a really big uphill climb to reach the realm of sanity and well accepted sporthorses.

(And yes, this same nutbar woman still appears to be highly active on UDBB, although lucky for the Saddlebred people, she seems to have new genetics to flog).

So, when faced with a Saddlebred prospect, just like the old joke says - I thought they might be fun to ride, but I wouldn't want my friends to see me on one.

But...I happened to be visiting a friend in the London area, so I figured I would stop by to see her. What the hell.

Oh - just to be clear - that would be London, Ontario. Just down the road from Paris, Ontario. I was driving in from the town formerly know as Berlin, Ontario - but now called Kitchener, due to that nasty "we hate Germans" sentiment that cropped after the war. We aren't very original in these here parts when it comes to naming our towns.

Bottom line - No, I still wasn't jet setting around looking at horses. Unfortunately. Sigh.

Mr. Motard visited the Saddlebred Museum on his Kentucky cycling trip

Everybody loves a Winner. You could be a winner too. If you weren't such a sucka.

2012-02-11T08:59:00.001-05:00

Well I can see I hit a bit of a nerve with Morgan lovers out there. I am not saying all Morgans suck. I am saying that the ones I looked at did.

I do agree that not all warmbloods make it to FEI levels of dressage, just like not all Morgans do. I would argue that rider ability might just have something to do with this, for both Warmbloods and Morgans. I would also argue that anyone who thinks your odds of getting to FEI levels are even remotely as good riding the average Morgan versus the average Warmblood is a delusional crack smoker. (See "yummy sweet lemon" post from days gone by)

However, regardless of the breed, the point is... wasn't picking one that had FAIL stamped on its head to start with. It wasn't a breed thing.

Horse shopping is like shopping at Winners (do you have Winners in the states? No? Can someone provide a similar store for reference?). I have friends that LOVE Winners, only shop there, and find beautiful things every time they go.

After many visits and many hours rummaging through racks of messy crammed together shit, I have yet to find anything that isn't either ugly, priced ridiculously (WAS $300! (WTF - where?) YOU PAY $250! (no, I don't!)), and only available in size 0 or 18 or the colour puce.

It is all in the timing, and I don't seem to have it when it comes to designer clothes at low LOW prices. Or beautiful, athletic, FEI bound Morgans. Apparently.

Now there's one thing that I am sure we can all agree does suck more than Morgans... and that would be selling horses.

I know, I have been relentlessly mocking horse sellers for the last few posts. While I was complaining to anyone who would listen about the crooked legged roach backed horses I was seeing, no doubt some parent somewhere was at Starbucks complaining to her friends about the balky little asshole pony that their daughter Suzie tried out last Wednesday.

Ugh.

I think there is really only one other situation in life that sucks as much as waiting for your horse to sell. That would be looking for a job when you are unemployed. Or maybe looking for a husband when you are 35 and desperately want kids before your ovaries shrivel up and die. I am not 35 or in the market for a husband or kids so I can't totally vouch for this one, but I would imagine it is in the same ballpark. (winding up with kids would, in fact, suck more than selling an unemployed 35 year old horse or any combination of the above mentioned in my books. But that's just me).

No matter what you do - keep everything neat, clean, trimmed and good smelling, try to be charming and interesting - you really have very little control over the situation. And a multitude of things can derail the process that actually have nothing logical or sane at all to do with you, your horse, or whatever. Colour, gender, number of socks.. you name it.

Price is of course one of these things that can derail the deal and actually makes sense, and here lies the most difficult part of sending your horse to a sales barn to be sold, as I did. Especially when you have a cheapy cheap hunter pony like the Platypus, and you are anxious to move the little bugger, and each month of board eats considerably into any money you may actually wind up with in your pocket at the end of the deal (note I did not say "any money you may make". Because you are not going to make any money. No, seriously. Dream on).

I would like to offer 3 suggestions to ease the process of selling your cheapy cheap hunter pony via a local sales barn.

1. Be sure the price of the pony is advertised somewhere/anywhere/everywhere on the internet, so everyone involved is on the same page re: price of said pony

2. Be sure the price of the pony is advertised somewhere/anywhere/everywhere on the internet, so everyone involved is on the same page re: price of said pony

3. Be sure the price of the pony is advertised somewhere/anywhere/everywhere on the internet, so everyone involved is on the same page re: price of said pony

Now - don't get me wrong. The problem won't be that the sales barn is trying to sell your cheapy cheap hunter pony *too* cheaply. Not at all.

On the contrary, let me present to you a totally hypothetical situation, that just might occur IF you DON'T advertise somewhere / anywhere / everywhere on the internet, so everyone involved is on the same page re: price of said pony ...

They pony may mysteriously not sell. At all.

Which seems so strange to you, really. He is no Popeye K, but he is entirely sound, relatively sane and suitable for the job, has a show record, and based on the other stuff out there - surely worth the $5000 you have said you want out of the deal, as well as the 15% the coach has asked for too.

But - the reports you get back from the seller is that all of the kids are too small, or too fat, or too young, or too old... or..or..or..or. But don't worry! No, no, never fear!! he will sell soon.

So, you just keep on paying board, vet, blacksmith, trailering, show fees for the coach's students to show the pony at local shows, where he does well, wins ribbons - yet... STILL.. no buyers. Weird. Really weird. Especially with all of the connections the coach has. I mean, that is the reason you decided not to go it alone in the first place... to SAVE time and money. And it just isn't happening. Huh.

Until you catch wind - maybe true, maybe not - that a pony sounding strangely familiar, presented by the same coach, is up for sale for a low five figure price. Interesting. What are the chances that she would have TWO ponies, so eerily similar to each other, yet one worth twice as much as the other? That is the only explanation. Right?

Only one way to find out, really.

Call the coach up and say "sorry, but the well has run dry. Yep, I am coming to pick up cheapy cheap pony at the end of the month". Thank her for her efforts, yes, it is a tough market, I know, I know. Maybe he would sell better after the Royal, when all the ponies start moving, yes, good point. But - time is up, my friend.

Oh, by the way, I know you are busy, busy, busy. How about I go ahead and post some ads on the internet FOR you. Yes, I know you have been meaning to do it, and how hard it is to find the time to do things on the internet these days - especially with dial-up, you poor thing! Always go-go-GO! I feel for you. Well, let's see.. $5000 + 15% is what we agreed on...so I am assuming you have been asking around $6000 - $6500 for him... right?

Let me post that ad for you. No, it is no problem. No, seriously, I will do it right now. Yes I will. YES. Good-bye! La-la-la...

Then - something magical happens. The perfect buyer walks through the door - that week! Can you imagine. Thank goodness you didn't leave sooner! You just almost missed this bus. Whew!

So there you have it...whether shopping for Morgans, designer clothes at low-LOW prices, or selling ponies ... timing is everything, isn't it.

Oh, by the way... now that my entirely hypothetical story is over... did I mention the Platypus finally sold?

I am outta here, stupid dressage woman.

And it is a good thing too. Because I had my two front runners chosen - I was ready to buy a horse.

Justin Morgan had a horse. No one said it was a dressage horse, did they.

2012-02-07T05:36:00.002-05:00

There was only one problem with my plan.

The 9 year old in me is generally a pretty shrewd negotiator, but no amount of debate could get her to convince the somewhat rational 30 something side of me that there was anything Anky about the horses I looked at.

They were two nonathletic meatballs on sticks, owned by two very nice, very earnest sellers who prepared them carefully for my visit (brushed, groomed, pre-wrangled), and painstakingly showed off their lack of athleticism to me in great detail.

The first one actually made me feel really badly. To start, I got hopelessly lost getting to the farm, and was about an hour late, which I do realize would soundly earn me the title of "horse buyer who sucks" on the average bulletin board (this was before the days where every Joe out there over the age of 3 has a cellphone too, so the poor woman was waiting around for me all that time wondering if I was dead in a ditch somewhere, or just your typical horse buying asshole).

Next - she could not have been nicer. Example - I was moronic enough to leave my sweater behind, and she was kind enough to contact me and have it returned to me all the way back in Kitchener (blushing - yes, I am a total loser).

The horse was an adorable little bay, about 15.1 hh, impecably groomed (the woman did have an hour to piss away after all), well started on groundwork and ready to strut her stuff.

Oooh, I am giddy with excitement. Let's see her on the longe!

Hmm...Well, ok, maybe strut isn't the right word. Maybe sew is a better descriptor. As in... make a repeated poking motion with legs like a sewing machine. Pitter patter pitter patter pitter patter...Don't panic, Curmudgeon, the ground is not perfectly level, there is a stone or two, maybe she is not 100% confident lettin er' loose on the longe...I am sure there is more horse in there somewhere...

Uhh.... can I see her free in the paddock? Yes, yes, she is excellent on the longe, only started her 2 weeks ago eh? Wow, well what a temperament. Just excellent. I am still interested in seeing her moving freely.

Yep, she was still quite the seamstress. On the line or off.

Sigh. Figures, doesn't it.

The most depressing thing about this was that I had received photos of this horse. Lots of them. Perfect photos, where she was well groomed, on level ground, standing squarely and appropriately for a hard core conformational evaluation. And based on these, I was SURE she was going to be a drop dead beautiful mover.

Uhh... no.

I searched through my old pics and emails to see if I could find the photos that were sent, but unfortunately you will have to take my word for it, as they are all gone.

But I swear to God... I studied them at length, got out my rulers and protractor, drew little lines here and there to evaluate sloping, straight, uphill and downhill... none of which predicted the depressing movement that I witnessed in person.

Artist's rendition only. Actual product was not exactly as shown

Which really made me wonder how much all of that conformational evaluation shit really matters. Sure, it can probably identify a serious train wreck, but beyond that... I think it is a crapshoot. Not that you would ever get this impression from the message boards...

To be fair, if I were 80 years old, with a hip replacement, and looking for something truly georgeous to mosey around on in the arena, this would have been my girl. She was cute as pie. And as athletic as pie, as well.

(Not a spicy Jamaican patty type pie either. Think banana cream).

At least a little good did come out of the viewings - the second one, an equally nonathletic chubby black dufus named Mr. X was actually quite a cute little lump, and was stabled at a boarding place just down the road from Chez Motardmudgeon. And he was already started under saddle. The owner was a university student who like virtually all university students with horses was stone cold broke, and so was actually looking for a buyer, part boarder, leaser, sugar daddy, pimp... anyone who would help her to pay some bills and ease the burden of the insane cost of horse ownership.

And so, at the end of the sales call, although I was 100% certain that Mr. X was not my future dressage prospect, I actually agreed to a part board deal for the short term. So, at least I had a horse to ride now, until the Platypus finally sold.

Hey by the way - what is up with that anyways, Curmudgeon? How long DOES it take to sell a horse. Surely he must be gone by NOW!?

Ha ha, you crack me up, italic font know-it-all.

NO, the Platypus was NOT gone. In fact, it was time to turn up the heat a little in that department.

Waaah! I deserve strawberry pink farts. Waaah!

2012-02-05T08:15:00.002-05:00

Morgans, morgans, morgans.

I really did want to love you. I had high hopes. Alas, it was not meant to be.

The problem was that I didn't manage my expectations - I was expecting something truly exceptional and ready to take the dressage world by storm... and what I saw... well, just wasn't.

But it is not the fault of the little meatball horses that I met, they were probably just fine specimens of what one typically sees when they shop for $5000 morgan crosses.

No, I know that a perusal of the Psychology Today blogs will tell us that really the problem stems from my childhood, as do most of the problems that make me the surly curmudgeon that I am today.

The problem was Adanac Reidagirb. The magnificent, rainbow farting Morgan from my youth.

The fact that I can remember this name, now 30+ years later tells us a few things right away. First, it tells us that I need a lot more on my mind. It also tells us that this Morgan must have made a big impression on me, back in the day.

(I can also remember all of the lyrics to "Afternoon Delight" and many other useless things that were part of my life in the late 1970's. Skyyyyyrockets in FLIGHT! *vrrrrrooom* Afternoooon DEEEELIGHT! AAAAAaaaaAAAfternoon DEEEELIGHT!).

Reidagirb was one of the resident horses at Derryvue Acres, back in the day, along with Senhor Cavaleiro and his freakshow of cattle and lusitanos.

Now, whereas Mrs. Curmudgeon may have thought Senhor Cavaleiro was magnificent, I was smitten with Reidagirb. He was like a Breyer horse come to life - black, with an archy neck and flowing mane (unlike the ewe necks and horribly pulled mohawk manes of our own ponies).

To make him even more impressive, his owner was an adorable little barbie doll of a girl, probably around my age, with long wavy blonde hair and a turned up nose. I, on the other hand, was a smeary, lumpy, chunk of a child, with a horrifying bowl cut (thanks a lot, Mrs. Curmudgeon) who wore husky Levis and the same t-shirt for days on end.

Any guesses?

As I recall part of what made Little Barbie girl so intriguing is that although she was adorable and all, she was also a tough as nails little bitch in the making who barked commands and ruled over this horse with sort of a Nazi mind control level of intensity.

This combination of beauty and scariness was fairly disturbing, and I often thanked my lucky stars that she didn't attend my grade school. Although she was always very nice to me at the barn...chances are good she had charmed a posse of hired goons who roved the playground kicking someone's ass at recess each day. Chances were also good that it might have been me, had we been classmates.

Whereas my pony was wearing the pants and definitely running the show, she had Reidagirb by the ... well, geldings don't have balls..so whatever part of the part of the anatomy one grabs and twists when controlling a eunuch.

He had a subjugated, hen-pecked husbandly air about him, and would, as far as I could tell at the time, do it all and then some to avoid any version of grab-twist punishment. On any given day, he would school some form of English something or other with a big curb bit and flashy browband, a variety of slow-mo Western things, or pull a buggy. Beyond this, he ground tied without wandering off, pawing like an annoying idiot, or weaving his ass back and forth incessantly, even with a pile of hay only feet away (in retrospect, this seems like a cruel thing to do to a horse, but the 9 year old me found it very impressive).

So who knows what ever happened to these two - a bit of internet stalking shows that Reidagirb was a champion Morgan several years running, so all of the grab/twisting evidently worked. As far as Little Barbie girl - I can't remember her name at all so stalking is not possible, however I would hazard to guess she maybe married a rich nerd who now stands hopefully in front of her hay pile nightly without getting to actually have any. Or, otherwise, she became a high powered dominatrix type call girl hanging out with the likes of DSK. Or maybe she is just a normal, struggling adult am rider. Like me. (But how fun is that to imagine. Pffft. Zzzz).

Annnyway, I am sure you get the picture. And I probably didn't actually need the help of Psychology Today to understand why I was rooting for Morgans. I realize that really, I was insanely jealous of the perfect little barbie girl and her beautiful, browbeaten, rainbow farty, flowing maned Morgan. Some part of me still wanted to own that horse myself, 30+ years later.

And now my chance was here.

The good news was...over the ensuing decades, more hard core rainbow farter breeds had moved in and soundly kicked the crap out of the Morgans and stolen their "most useless and decorative horse breeds" crown - after all, many of them can really DO stuff, and not too shabbily either. There's not much time to fart up rainbows when you are busy actually performing.

Which left me with a dream situation... If I could find a perfect Morgan, I could secretly satisfy my inner 9 year old's desire for a horse with colourful flatuation, while still seemingly being focused on buying a respectable "dressage horse"..

ACT NOW! Operators are standing by. This deal won't last forever!!

2012-01-31T09:50:00.002-05:00

Ok, email box is cleared of all incriminating emails.

The year was 2003, and so if you are as old as me, you know that one of the "hot" stallions for just about anything in Ontario at that time was Rio Grande.

Maybe I am wrong, and it is just because I am a bit more up to speed on genetics now, or maybe it is because I am not actively shopping for a horse so I really have no fucking clue what I am talking about - but I think breeders are doing a much better job of matching the parental units to the task at hand now than in the olden days. Seems like dressage bred/proven sire = dressage offspring, and other crazy out-there breeding strategies like this are more prevalent.

But back in 2003, Rio babies were exceptional hunters, jumpers, dressage horses, could do hand-to-hand combat, quadratic equations and of course, split the atom with their anus as required by F.Trainerin. Were Wessage around then, they would have kicked some jogging ass.

There was no specialization required. This stud did it all.

And so, when I saw the advertisement for "El Muddo" a Rio x Arab cross, I was sure he was THE one.

But...there were two problems with this boy from the start.

1. He was at the top end of my price bracket
2. He was rising five... and unbroken

Yikes.

Curmudgeon, there is nothing at ALL wrong with that. Have you not read Hillary Clinton's (wait, wait - that can't be right.. you know who I mean, whatever the hell her name is) study on the maturation of warmbloods? Their little spines are like marshmallows up until the age of SIX. This guy is right on track...

Yahhh, maaaaybe. But having worked at a TB farm, I am a big believer in the "get on 'em before they get big enough to notice they don't have to put up with that shit" philosophy of starting horses. Not necessarily "get on 'em and ride them into the ground.." - but just climb aboard and do something authoritative while you are still the top dog in the kennel. If they go back in the field for a year, fine. They will come back in 500lbs heavier, but still under the illusion that you actually have some sort of power to run the show.

(The trick is then to keep it this way for the next 20 years).

The great majority of horses, like teenagers, turn into unpleasant freaks at some point during their adolescence. Get the backing out of the way before this day occurs. Because whether it be horses or kids... really bad things... like vile eye-burning tatoos that eliminate any possibility of a nice wedding photo without some hard core photoshopping ....and serious buck-you-charlie, you-want-to-put-your-ass-where, how-are-those-kickboards-feelin-now type habits can easily crop up during this period if you don't set the ground rules early.

So.. back to the unbacked.

I gave the seller a call to find out a bit more about El Muddo. I am sure you can all hear the conversation in your head, and that it goes without saying (but what the hell, I will say it anyways..) that....

* This horse was AMAZING. A-freaking-MAZING. Sleek, sexy, floating feet and more, suspension, extension, contraction, elongation, deflation... if you are looking for a horse that can be described with a noun associated with movement, look no further.

* Uhhh... no. There are no pictures available of the horse. No, no, he is not a vampire horse or something that would rationally explain WHY he has never been photographed. But over the course of 5 years, no one owning a camera had dropped by

* video? Ha ha ha. Haaa. NO

Well, he wasn't far away, and was in picturesque Mennonite land. Nothing nicer than a drive through the countryside to buy some maple syrup or summer sausage from people who are too clueless to notice that their standardbred cart horse is three legged lame.

Well guess what! On arrival:

* he was in a field, full of mud and burrs, with about 9 other horses, full of mud and burrs. All 10 begin running around like idiots when we approached.

* there was no arena, no ring, no barn. Just a run-in shed. No surface free of mud and burrs - other than the laneway. But does he look great in that mud or what! Look at the hind end action! He really bends those hocks!

(slurp-slurp-slurp - horse yanks its legs free of the sucking mud very expressively)

Ok. To the laneway! We did our best border collie impressions, cut El Muddo from the herd, wrestled a halter over his unicorn horn of burrs and forelock and headed out into the wild world.

Poor El Muddo. Imagine - someone taking him away from his peeps! This was stressful not only to him, but to his peeps as well.

So, as the owner tried to jog him up and down the laneway, she was accompanied by the 9 other horses, running along beside her on the other side of the fence (slurpslurpslurpslurp), all 10 tails flagged and 20 nostrils snorting and blowing, while El Muddo looked entirely pissed by the rude invasion into his private time (i.e. 24/7) and I worried that he would lift the poor woman off of her feet and run through the page wire to return to his life interrupted in the mud.

Did he look expressive? Hell YES. Did he look impressive? Hell YES! Did he look like something I wanted to wrangle a saddle on at the age of five? HELL NO.

So I was kind of torn. But at the same time, did not want to wind up... torn, beaten, bruised etc. I fully believed there was a really nice horse in there somewhere - but I just couldn't see enough of it here, and the negatives associated with a herd-bound wild child five year old were pretty hard to rationalize away.

Then, the owner played her ace in the hole card.

"You know, I am sending him out for training SOON. Like... really soon. And his price is going UP when that happens. So if you are interested, I would ACT FAST".

Will clean blood off of kickboards!

Really.

So how fast IS fast. Seems to me this guy is 2 years past the date that should have been FAST.

I hate when I read this on a sales ad, and hated it even more as a pressure tactic while staring at Muddy El Muddo. You know what lady? That's GREAT. Do it. Spend your money, start the horse, then post some pics and video that warrant the new price tag. In the meantime...Fuck off with the "oooohhh-ooohhh! Time's a' ticking" bullshit.

Also, I guess I was kind of an exception in that I was totally ready to start my own horse - so having you pick your own weirdo to TTouch / Parelli / tarp / bag on a stick or whatever YOU think constitiutes "good starting" may actually reduce the value of the horse in my mind. Yah, maybe you are going to crack open the wallet and send him someplace awesome. But based on what I see here before me... I am doubtful.

(Do I get a discount if he turns out to be a total asshole that no one wants to start? No, I didn't think so. That can be swept under the carpet, and he can be sold again as ... Unstarted).

So that was the final straw, any tiny crack of open mind I had snapped shut. I thanked the woman for showing me El Muddo and went back to the drawing board.

I did some stalking this morning - El Muddo did finally find a home, as a six year old, and went on to the Arab circuit to do very well as a "Sport Horse" there, whatever that means, and he has earned some punctuation - AFTER his name. All good. I wasn't surprised, as he really did look like a nice enough horse.

So, maybe this diamond was just a little too rough for me, and I missed out big time. Oh well. Although he was not "the one" - nothing I saw really scared me off the idea of a WB x Arab in principle.

Now the Morgans... that was a different story.

Epilogue...

2012-01-30T19:01:00.000-05:00

I was cleaning up my email box last week and I came across this one I thought you might enjoy.

I just added the pic of Bart today - which is too bad, I should have had it on the original. I can just imagine Cara's hearty guffaws, can't you?

(Back to the story tomorrow, I promise!!)

**********************************************************

RE: Canadian Eastern Regional Dressage Championships - September 16-18 2011 - Volunteers‏

11/08/2011

Dressage Curmudgeon

To caraw@xxxxxx.xxxx

Hi Cara,

Please take me off of your list of potential volunteers. I have one more commitment to volunteer at a dressage show this summer, then NEVER AGAIN.

I volunteered 3 days of my precious time scribing at one of the Palgrave shows, only to have some petty judge complain to the show management that my shorts were too short. (To sit in a box with my legs totally hidden, in 25+ C weather, doing a boring job, entirely for free).

They were very normal cotton dress shorts with pockets, worn with a belt and a polo shirt. I was not sporting some spandex hoochy wear.

I think some of the "higher ups" in the sport really need to get over themselves. I have better things to do with my time than put up with small minded garbage. If you like your dress code more than your volunteers - good luck with that.

I am sure I can find somewhere else to volunteer where people are more concerned with my ability than my attire.

Regards

Dressage Curmudgeon

(Or in other words....)

Foreign types ask "have you been smoking a hookah pipe" Oh-way-oh-way-ooo-aaa-ooo..Don't buy an EEEgyptiannn

2012-01-26T12:42:00.001-05:00

I was of course drawn to Arabs first, since I do have a soft spot for them.

There was the Platypus, you all know him, but my very first pony was in fact an Arab cross as well, and what fun we had together. Without her, I would have never experienced the exhilaration of true, XTREME horsemanship - things like rearing / flipping / being crushed.

(It is best to do this all when you are 10 or 11, and still fairly likely to heal. Physically in any case).

Also, there was the fact that there are a lot of Arab dressage people out there. They even have their own shows where they wear real dressage tack and are awarded complex strings of punctuation after their names to mark their wins.

( I don't know the details of this secret code beyond some of the basics. For example.... *%$*# YOU PLATYPUS ... is a bad thing. Conversely, PLATYPUS +++// is actually very good. ).

They can’t all be wrong, can they? (Oh – they can? Well, never mind this point then).

Lastly the coach with Mr. Limpy (remember him?) actually had a really cute young Trak x Arab at the time that I kind of liked and that was apparently going to go on to great things (blah..blah..blah..uhh...yah. I have now seen the finished product and am thoroughly underwhelmed. Is it the horse? Rider? Hard to tell. But they both seem to have their miserable ears pinned and teeth gritted every time I see them go. Perhaps better suited to Wessage?)

And c’mon – when you look at the conformation of the average Arab, do they not just scream DRESSAGE SUITABILTY? Their perky little croups pointed to the sky, hocks set high above the ground and way out behind, straight shoulders for good jackhammer action...

However there are actually not plethoras of WB x Arab crosses out there, which I found kind of surprising. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of crappy Arabs incrusted in burrs occupying nearly every barbed wire paddock across Canada. People could be using them to breed to excellent stallions to crank out “fine” sporthorses, as is done with Thoroughbreds.

Perhaps the reason is because...with their baby seal eyes and punched in little faces, they are like crack cocaine to the first time, totally ignorant horse buyer.

One theory I have is that when this first time, totally ignorant horse buyer brings their Arab mare home from the St. Jacobs auction and releases her into the wilds of the local “pasture board, $150” farm, she is actually able to outsmart the owner for the next 20 years and is never caught for riding, breeding or any other purpose, until the day she drops dead and can then be captured with a winch and flatbed truck. This would explain her absence from the eligible mare pool.

Just try and catch ME sucka! I got the moves, ooo-AAY -oooh!

Or at least from the warmblood baby daddy + mare pool – because chances are actually excellent that the totally ignorant horse buyer also brought home a stallion, and the two of them will doing their best to make beautiful pasture ornaments for years to come.

(No, no...The MARE and the stallion. I realize the wording is not entirely clear here)

More likely the reason is that even if you bred the most athletic, magnificent Arab on Earth to Popeye K, the majority of hunter people would not touch it with a 10 foot pole.

So, if a breeder chooses to create an Arab cross, they had better pray (to Allah? God? Not sure here) that the face and tail are both flat, because even a whiff of Arab is problematic. Say what you would like about dressage breed prejudices, but we are positively kumbaya when compared to the Apartheid which reigns in the Hunter ring.

(This is not entirely true for hunter ponies. Whereas for horses you can fatten up your TB and say it “looks like a warmblood” – you can fatten up your Arab pony good ‘n’ juicy, weigh down its anus-displaying tail with a big tacky fake one , and longe it until nearly dead and rideable by the average child – voila, problem solved – “welsh pony”).

Step away from the round bale, Sir Porks-a-lot. It's weird how ponies founder sometimes, isn't it.

I did find one that sounded quite promising though. Ha ha ha. Ha.

Half-breeeeed, that's all I ever heard, Half-breeeeed, how I learned to hate the word

2012-01-23T12:23:00.001-05:00

Alright, alright.. back to the story.

And so I got home from WXYZ, (mercifully not a 12 hour drive!), washed the mud off of my boots, and went back to the drawing board.

Time to stop thinking of "good" and "bad" horses in big amorphous groups. I tried "CSH", "from a small breeder", "from a large breeder" - with zero success. From now on, I would concentrate on evaluating each horse as an individual, and judge each one on its own nutty baggage.

What were my criteria again?
- Horse with potential to be competitive at upper levels (four good feet, etc, etc)
- Modern, leggy - no cocktail weenies (more on this later)
- Flog free temperament - a.k.a "hot"
- Smaller in stature
- Cheap

I was pretty stuck on the fact that the horse have one sexy, impressive "dressage-y" parental unit - most likely the sire. However... hot dressage-y dam would be perfectly fine too, but what are the chances of that - who would breed a smoking hot elite mare to some backyard unproven stallion?

(Oh wait, I forgot about the whole contingent of insane cremello people, who for some crazy-assed reason do this, and for even crazier-assed reasons, seem to make a go of it...there is an entire post to rant on about here for sure).

And so, I hit the bulletin boards again.. exactly what were the reportedly good choices in the dam department that might make it to higher levels of dressage, without the price tag associated with full WB....?

The obvious category here that actually does make sense are the Iberian horses. I have known and ridden a few now, including a PSG stallion who was absolutely georgeous, and I must say I am a fan - the nice ones really are nice. However, due to the Fabio romance novel factor, even the totally crappy ones with the double jointed paddle knees that look like flagella coming down centreline are more expensive than a similarly talented warmbloods. So this was out of the question for me.

Curmudgeon, I still don't get it. The obvious choice is a TBx. Why do you hate TBs so much, what is your problem? Did you seriously eliminate them from contention all together?

No, no....I did not avoid TB crosses, not at all.

But the problem here is that decent TBxWB’s are generally marketed as hunters – which adds $$$ to their price tag for no particular reason related to athletic ability. And the ones I saw WERE hunters – all-round flat boring movers, definitely not worthy of the upper price bracket to me. The other issue is that they tended to be bigger than what I hoped to buy; since everyone wants their hunter to be 17hh so that it can safely clear the massive 3’ fences that the average child or adult amateur owner will be soaring over.

The only breeds I eliminated from contention “just because” were the hard core rainbow farter breeds, and colours or crosses thereof – things like Friesians, Canadian horses, and anything with flowing hair and/or described by a word ending in an “o” (palomino, tobiano, sabino, Art Deco = owner weirdo). I know, I know...some are very nice. Maybe I missed out on a real gem here due to my fear of nutbars. I was willing to take that risk.

Don't you want to comb me, baby?

So, eliminating all of this – I found 3 breeds that kept cropping up in discussions of good options for warmblood crosses:

Arabs, Morgans, and Saddlebreds. I am not saying this was right or wrong, but that's where I headed...

Shuffle Shuffle Shuffle Shuffle Shuffle...yeah! Your'e western and you know it...

2012-01-20T06:12:00.000-05:00

I have tried, really I have. But I am failing, since this is the second post in a row....

I stay off bulletin boards as best I can. Really I do. But for those of you who don't know me, I do have a sideline business, and about once a month, I visit the local EMG to post an ad and stir up some customers.

Shameless promotion disguised as a link

And when I was there a month or so ago - I saw it for the first time.

I couldn't control myself, I made a few snarky posts - but then I backed away slowly. Slloooowllly. Until yesterday, when I went back over there to post my "how about a portrait for Valentine's day" advertisement.

And there it was - still. The thread lives on - a month later...freshly bumped.

Come on now, I am not super human. I can't resist temptation indefinitely. It is like a plate of French Vanilla cupcakes and a coffee with a shot of Baileys, calling out to me softly... I could jump into the mud and wrestle with the others, but instead....I bring you, here on the pages of Dressage Curmudgeon...

Wessage.

(Really, it is a testament to the kinder, gentler person I have become that I was able to put it off for this long).

What is it that burns me so much about Wessage? Why on earth do I care? I have no idea. Maybe I am insane. People can train the animals in their life to do whatever the hell they want, really it is no business of mine. Just because I am incapable of training Mr. Motard to do.. well, really anything he doesn't want to do.. maybe I am bitter, it is true. Lucky for me he likes doing laundry, all on his own.

I guess it is because it is something new that people who would really like to make a buck doing something horse related have pulled out of their ass and tried to make a legitimate "sport", so they can start charging for clinics and training and the like. Replace little wool cap with cowboy hat - voila, same shit, different day.

Just exactly what are you basing this accusation on, Curmudgeon (ya bitch)?

Well - One of the first people in Ontario to really jump on the slowly jogging wessage bandwagon was caught trying to smuggle her featured wessage clinician over the border or some crazy shit back in the fall, which did not add to my impression of this activity as anything other than slightly crooked and shady people trying to fleece middle aged women.

But you are right, maybe its just a total cooincidence that trainers that don't seem to be getting much traction in REAL dressage seem to be the first ones that embracing wessage as an alternative income stream. Who knows.

Curmudgeon - obviously you don't speak French. Dressage just means "training".

Oh, trust me. I wasted too much time in my life learning to speak French, only to learn that people from France have better things to do with their time than talking to scum like me. If western people just want to learn horsemanship based on the principles of dressage, why don't they just call up a local dressage trainer, explain this to them, and take a lesson? Or organize a clinic? Why do we need a "special" category?

I really did try to give it a chance. To learn, to embrace. Whatever.

So I went to the FAQ's for the new Western Dressage Associaton of America to get a real feel for Western Dressage principles.

Here is what I learned.

1. What is Western Dressage

Western Dressage helps a rider to improve the horse’s balance, cadence and carriage. Whether your horse competes in reining, roping, cutting, western pleasure, or enjoys the trail with you, using dressage will improve your partnership and keep your horse happier and more sound far longer than it would otherwise be.

Hmm...So far, so good.

2. Who can compete in Dressage / Western Dressage

Regarding Regular Dressage:

The USDF says "Dressage is for equines of all breeds and all sizes!"

The Western Dressage Association of America has a slightly different take on who "Western Dressage" is for:

"Western Dressage horse will be evaluated with the conformation and movement of today’s western horses in mind. The Western Dressage horse will have a shorter stride than a Dressage horse and the Western Dressage horse will be asked to walk, jog and lope as opposed to walk, trot and canter".

Woah, woah, woah. Wait a second here.

Can you imagine if USDF posted something similar? Something that said

"Because success in dressage at the higher levels requires a horse that actually has the athletic ability and conformation for collection - and big expressive extended gaits too - horses will be evaluated with this in mind".

(Everyone would freak out and lose their minds. UDBB would have virtual heads mounted on stakes. Even if it is kind of true).

I read their disclaimer as "we really want to have something going on here that we can market as "dressage", but boo-hoo, our horses aren't built for the sport as it exists. So let's just change the rules to matchy-match their abilities, so we can have a game where we can be WINNERS too!"

Strangely enough, the Guidelines for Judging Western Dressage state:

"the description of the gaits is virtually identical but the western dressage horse must maintain rideablity for the rider in a western saddle"

What the hell does that mean? How is jog virutally identical to the big-n-boomy trot that wins at training level in normal dressage? Can you imagine being a judge (and as their FAQ states "any licensed Dressage judge can judge western dressage" - ha ha, I am so picturing Judge OOOhhh! I am sure they are booking her in now, Danno) and trying to figure out how to place a shuffling trot wessage test? (Well, he is jogging, and that is allowed - but that gait is not identical to anything I have ever seen anywhere related to dressage...)

I watched a few Morgan dressage tests on YouTube - basically the jog appears to be a prancy little gait that doesn't track up. What is a dressage judge supposed to do with THAT?

And what is so special about riding in a western saddle that a horse needs "special gaits"? Some coach expected me to be able to ride my horse's uber extended trot in a Stubben Tristan for christ's sake, but these riders only have to lope around in their sofa saddles? WTF? There is even a holey shit horn to grab onto to stop the bouncing!

3. WTF - well, the "purpose" statement should clear this up

"It is not the goal of Western Dressage to create western horses that compete in open dressage but to create better western horses and riders through the use and principles of dressage".

That's great! And I am sure I can learn more about what the goal of each test / level is by looking at the overall purpose at the top of the test. You know, that box that noone reads, but is often quoted on message boards.

For example,

Training level test 1 says:

Purpose: To confirm that the horse is supple and moves freely forward in a clear and
steady rhythm, accepting contact with the bit

First level test 3 says:

Purpose: To confirm that the horse, in addition to the requirements of Training Level, has developed
the thrust to achieve improved balance and throughness and to maintain a more consistent contact
with the bit

Wessage Primary Level 4 says:

Primary Level 4

Uh... there is no purpose. It is essentially a training level test. Purpose is to ride around and pleasantly execute figures. I guess.

This is also the highest level test listed on the Western Dressage Association website - apparently they planning more. Which will be awkward, because if the foundation of the pyramid is shuffling jog, it is going to be a hell of a climb to the little pointy peak. (Yes, yes, I know, for lots of riders of normal Dressage, this is true too).

This is what I find so funny about some of the stuff I am reading on the boards. They are talking about ultimate collection, light in the hand, blah-blah-blah... zzzzz....have they even gone and looked at the tests? They are training level for pete's sake! Or have they noticed the fact that the judging that's "just like normal dressage" includes a disclaimer to favour shuffling joggers?

There have been some cool videos posted of Western dressage-like freestyle riding...absolutely, really fun to watch - (anyone who says a spin is the same as a pirouette needs a strong kick to the head, but still fun) - but this is exhibition riding based more on reining, and is absolutely NOT what you will be seeing at a Wessage show. You will be seeing jogging prancy pretty horses doing training level tests, not tracking up, and dolled up in lots of silvery tack.

And as it gains momentum - people with awesome, fancy western horses and good trainers will figure out the game, and come in and kick ass. Quite possibly, they will be mounted on WB/Saddlebred or WB/Morgan crosses - something with a hint'o'cowboy, but mostly a big dose of what makes high level dressage beautiful today.

And the losers will then say they aren't pure and "classical"....and we need classical western dressage....

AHHHH! Time for wine.

Mmm - MMM! I love a sweet lemon, don't you!

2012-01-15T18:35:00.000-05:00

I have had a change of heart.

I know, I know, a while back, I said one of the most idiotic things I hear said often with respect to dressage is that "dressage is just flatwork", usually uttered by hunter people.

Well, I was doing a little bulletin board surfing in preparation for my next few posts to refresh my memory on what made me decide to look at the laundry list of crossbreeds that I eventually headed out to see next on my shopping spree of 2003.

And while reading, I recalled a sentiment which is even stupider than this.

Someone, somewhere on Chronofhorse, said this regarding riding off-breeds:

It's fun! Anyone can do well with a great, expensive horse, a good trainer doing all the work for them, and enough money. Those people are a dime a dozen.

Face it, nowadays, you just have to have a bazillion dollars to compete with the big boys who are too chicken to try to deal with the non-standard breeds.

MMMmmm! MMMmmmm! Oh so SWEET!

(I particularly love the "too chicken" part)

Fortunately, I was not partaking in the thread at the time - because my answer would have been something along the lines of:

ARE YOU ON CRACK

And responses like this are generally frowned upon on bulletin boards. Some people find them rude.

When asked why I ended up buying the cross I did, the answer is pretty simple. She was the fanciest, most athletic horse that met my requirements - and with the most potential for dressage - that I looked at within my budget. And she turned out great.

But I am not too proud to admit that if I had the money, I would have flown on over to Holland and picked out a Sandro Hit x Gribaldi dam line or whatever the hell was trendy that year. Well, If I had the money I wouldn't have been buying a 2 year old in the first place, I would have bought... well, something like my horse is now, years and $$$ later, and ready to show PSG - you get my drift. I didn't seek out the breed, the horse just fit the bill.

But contrary to this attitude... there seems to be this hard core contingent of people out there who, for some reason, like to wear the "off breed, not meant for dressage, downhill, ewe necked, bench-kneed" horses like some sort of hair shirts to be proud of. "Yes, it's not easy being me, but I suck up the challenges and not only that...I LIKE IT THIS WAY.."

Stop doing this. You sound like idiots.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no issue at all with people who own horses not particularly well bred for dressage who love them, and do their best with them, face challenges, some days want to kill the horse and themselves and those around them, but eventually enjoy getting to wherever it is they end up along the dressage spectrum. Good for them. (I consider myself to be in this group).

But this holier-than-thou, off-breed riding rebel thing is just weird.

Imagine that you decided to pack your things and head out for a nice day of skiing at Whistler, or wherever it is you ski, and on the gondola you ran into someone who looked at you with slight disdain, and announced that "yah, any asshole can ski black diamonds on those new fangled shaped skis..Pfft. Wimp. What are you, chicken? Real skiiers prefer the challenge of tackling the slopes on 1973 Rossignols. The kind with the tethers, instead of brakes on the bindings, so when you fall, the skis flail around and peg you in your helmetless head. Now THAT is skiing".

See you back at the chalet, pussy

You would think this person was a total whackjob, and if they turned left off the chair, you would make a point to turn right, staying as clear of them and their hot tub time machine getup as you humanly could for the rest of the day.

But somehow, in the minds of this weird little contingent of dressage nutbars, this line of thinking is honourable, even preferred.

Somehow they have this strange belief that announcing "Yah, we bought horses not bred for dressage because we are HARD CORE. Not warmblood riding pansies like Anky and Edward".

Or...

"Yah, I am a middle aged, out of shape woman trying to master an Olympic discipline - but that just hardly seems to be setting the bar high enough. I think I will buy totally inappropriate equipment to make it just a bit more of a stretch goal... who wouldn't" will totally explain the fact that they are not yet short-listed for the national team, and goddammit, that is exactly the way they want it.

(You really couldn't get away with this in any other Olympic sport, as you would quickly be called out as being...full of smoldering crap. You can either run fast, jump shit, whatever... or you can't. There is no horse to blame your inadequacies on).

Here are a few of my thoughts on this, if you care:

1. You are wrong. Not anyone can "do it" with a good horse, a good trainer, good karma, good luck and enough money.

Just ask Katie Price.

My Crank is really coming along. I will practice Spank later tonight in the bedroom

2. There is a reason this sport IS an Olympic discipline. It is really hard.

Just ask one of the many higher level trainers out there, who, despite good horses, good sponsors, good opportunities - still just never seem to be good enough to make the cut.

THESE people really ARE a dime a dozen. Funny that...

3. Lastly - the thing I really don't get... If their horses really are impossibly poorly designed for dressage - why do they feel it is anything other than cruel to try to force them up the levels?

Why is it something to be proud of? At least the wank with improper ski equipment is likely just going to kill himself. If these people really do get some kick out of pushing an inappropriate horse up the levels - they are also hurting the horse.

Frankly - you might want to do everyone a favour and pick a horse that is built to do the job - whatever breed it may happen to be. Or at least pipe down about your weird "self flagellation in the form of dressage" fetish. If you want, I can suggest some others that are probably more fun.

Are you feeling lucky, little lady... winnah, winnah, winnah every time!

2012-01-09T20:58:00.000-05:00

Ok, alright... maybe "small breeder" was not the right way to go.

But just because I can't afford to even drive up the laneway at Charlot Farms doesn't mean there aren't other larger scale breeders out there, with many horses for me to peruse. That are less trendy, less hot and therefore, also less pricey.

Yep, looks like it is time to make a trip on out to WXYZ Farm.

But I had learned a thing or two from my first few shopping jaunts. You know the saying, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...uhhh...it must be the horse industry.

This time, I followed a carefully crafted 3 step procedure. I made sure to do my homework, read carefully, talk at length on the phone, and ask questions, lots of them. And because of this, I came home only 98% annoyed and confused, instead of the full monty 100%.

See - that's called progress. Take that, you nay-sayers.

Step 1 - Study online videos and write ups. Prepare questions

WXYZ Farms has a fabulous website, with good videos. Hmm, I am feeling a winner here! Allow me time to study the site...

(tick-tick-tick-tick...)

Yes, yes, lots of horses, lots of verbage. Holey shit, lots of verbage. Blah blah blah. Each horse has a genealogy dating back to eohippus listed right out there on the site, for Pete's sake (Schlem Schimmel's great great great grandfather showed exceptional suspension and expressive gaits as he emerged from the primordial ooze, earning him a first premium rating at his inspection with an impressive score of 150).

I am always a bit suspicious when the search for a notable ancestor requires stepping back to the 1800's... Yah, lots of good horses go back to Furioso's grand sire, seriously I am not knocking that..and really, I do hate to nit-pick... but if the stallion I am considering was born in 1985, shouldn't he have at least one notable progeny on the list, instead of just his parental great grand units?

And just curious - how did you determine that your horse is the "best moving stallion on the continent today"? I guess the continent is not specified, perhaps the writeup was done while he made a stopover in Antartica. I assume you are not just pulling this stuff out of your ass. Are you? (Hmm, maybe I should skip this question. Seems kind of hostile. I will think of a way to finesse it).

Step 2 - Call breeder. Discuss your needs. Ask prepared questions

Alrighty, after readying myself as best as I could online, I gave Mr. WXYZ a ring. Let's talk horses.

Well, what are you looking for.

Let's see, one of the most important things to me, I am looking for a smaller sized horse - I am admittedly a shortass, and not getting any younger. I don't like to climb things. I also don't like it when my legs feel like they might snap at the hips like Barbie when forced to mount up on one of the "Best of the West" horses... I am picturing something not too big bodied or that would mature much over 16.1 - 16.2. Do you have anything in this range?

Barbie may look mighty fine in a bikini, but she can't spread her legs like you can, Jane.

Of course.

- Lighter, more modern type horse. Nothing too coarse or heavy

Of course.

- Sensitive and relatively hot. More TB than true WB in temperament

Of course

- within my budget - do you have many horses priced under $15,000

Of course

- I have been studying your site. I think I am interested in looking at Nussig, Fakalien, and Erbrechen. Do you agree that they might fit the description I have given you so far of what I am looking for?

Of course!

- Could you suggest any others that might fit the bill?

Of course!

Alrighty then. Sounds like it is worth the trip. See you Saturday.

Step 3 - Arrive and be disappointed

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. A picture plus Photoshop, even rudimentary circa 2003 Photoshop, is worth much, much more. Because if I had known how frightening WXYZ Farms looked before I arrived, and before some creative photographic cut crop 'n' pasting, I probably would not have made the trip. Aye Carumba. It was like a horse ghetto, set to mud.

But seriously Curmudgeon, it is fall. Get over yourself. So what if things are...uh...falling apart, and are no longer green and pleasant looking...or maintained. . And c'mon, really - if the horses are nearly as good as the site says they are, who cares if there are scary, saggy boobed pit bulls circling you with their Hell Hound puppies slowly licking their lips and growling. A few bites and a tetanus shot are a small price to pay for the next Salinero. Don't be so stuck up. Stay calm. I think they smell fear. Time for yoga breathing - Breathe in... breathe out. Relax.

(Whoa, don't do that again, or at least not so deeply, the ammonia is kind of strong).

Mr. WXYZ was actually very charming, efficient, and courteous. We headed to the arena to look at the 3 or 4 horses, chosen just for me based on my own special and carefully described requirements.

Uhhh... yes. They were carefully hand selected out of the gagling herd of, say 30 horses, crushed into the back of the arena by some temporary gates. And when I say "hand selected", I mean, the first hands that could somehow "shooo-shooo-shooo" one of the 30 horses out into the main arena and away from the other 29 similar beasts had "hand selected" it. Just for little old me.

*sigh*

Boom-boom-boom... the first big'n'meaty monster headed around the ring, chased by the obligatory running working student with longe whip (a very important skill for working students, take note. Practice if you someday hope to become one). A nice already 16+ hand high, large bodied 2 year old. 28 inches of bone. Enough barrel to take up the leg of a 6'4" man. Exactly as I hadn't asked for.

Uhhh... I am a bit confused here. Now which one is this - Nussig?

No. This is ... uhh...Riechen. Yes, Riechen.

I don't remember discussing Riechen. He looks kind of big. Have you sticked him - how tall do you think he will finish?

What are you looking for again? Yes - that is how big he will finish.

How much are you asking for this one?

What is your budget again? Yes - that is how much we are asking for him.

I don't think he is quite what I am looking for. Could we look at some of the ones we discussed?

Apparently - NO. We instead looked at 3 more horses - that were absolutely nothing like what we had discussed, but were conveniently located in close proximity to the gate, and docile enough to be chased away from the herd.

These fine qualities were not outlined in the verbose descriptions of the horses on their website... well, I guess I shouldn't say that, seeing as I didn't actually review the pages for any of the horses that were chosen especially for me using the magical horse lottery technique. Maybe they were ("this gentle giant will await you at the gate, eager to be showered with your love", "an in your pocket horse, he will go wherever you want him to go").

I foolishly wasted my time reading the pages associated with horses that actually seemed to be suitable. I am sure my delicate little picks were in there somewhere, like the one i-pod hidden in among the 25 cent stuffed animals in the claw game.

I used to think my boyfriend in high school was very romantic because he never showed up without a stuffed animal. Then someone told me there was a claw game at the Sword n Shield Strip joint. Ohhh... it all makes more sense now.

All of the horses shown were very nice examples of big, clunky, old style warmbloods - very calm, attractive, and all looked like they would be good eating should a world war sneak up on you. They did all have what Mr. Motard scientifically refers to as "floating feet", which is good. Bottom line - I am not saying they were not "quality" animals, if giant lumbering warmblood of the 80's was the primary quality you were looking for.

Alas, I was not.

And so, I slowly backed away from the pit bulls, while thanking Mr. WXYZ for his time. At least to his credit, I could tell by the look on his face that he knew he wasn't going to sell me a horse, and strangely, really didn't seem to give a shit, either.

To this day, I am not really sure why.

NEXT!

Ahhh Porky... there is nothing like the feel of a cool breeze on your genitalia, eh?

2012-01-04T21:05:00.000-05:00

Hmm, traffic is up here at Dressage Curmudgeon. Must be those fun loving UDBBers again.

Yep. And someone is accusing the poor sucker who bumped the post as being a DC shill.

For the record, I do not know or have anything to do with swgarasu. And the blog shows me where the traffic is coming from, so no, I don't just start talking about you guys after one of my paid goons bumps the post. Google Blogger tells all...

But since you are all wondering what turned me from average everyday struggling amateur to the super curmudgeon that I am today, I do figure it is time to share with you all one of the defining moments in my dressage career..

I like to call it "the day I went Sandra Dee on Dressage".

You remember Sandra Dee. From Grease. "Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee, lousy with virginity" and so on. She did everything right, she tried to play by the rules, didn't drink, swear, or rat her hair.

Then one day, she got fed up with all that goody goody shit. It just wasn't paying off. I don't even remember what pushed her over the edge, but she put on some sleazy spandex pants, danced around with John Travolta at the carnival, then shot off into the sky in a convertible (presumably to have hot sex with him all night long, while drinking, swearing, and naturally ratting her hair on a pillow or backboard).

Yep, once you cross that line and just say "Fuck you all, I could care less if you hate me or think I am an obnoxious bitch, I have had enough of this whole gig" life gets to be a whole lot more fun. And I crossed that line, this summer at Palgrave. Due to the shorts incidence.

(Which also helped me to finally understand why Porky Pig has never, ever been seen scribing at a dressage show).

It started a few weeks before the actual incident. I was enjoying a totally fabulous afternoon in a sponsor's tent at a Pan Am Games qualifier, drinking wine and eating munchies with some equally fabulous dressage ladies, when I saw over at the next tent some of our local judges huddled and looking sort of gossipy and miserable. (Well, I didn't actually notice that they looked gossipy and miserable until I was too close to turn away and run - I was approaching them, wine in hand, with simply the good intention of saying hello).

Upon investigation - I discovered that they were miserable because they had been recruited to scribe for REAL Oh-Oh-OHHH judges at this Pan Am Games qualifier due to the lack of other competent volunteers available. Being good sports - who wanted to support the sport - they had played along, but I could feel the love was not there.

I felt kind of badly about this. I am a qualified scribe, and have spent many a weekend madly scribbling instead of actually having a life. I have shown most levels up to and including PSG, one of the actual Pan Am Games levels. I was not showing in 2011, and therefore would not have a time conflict. I should be doing my part to give back to Dressage Canada. Right?

Sooo... while Mr. Motard was off on his annual Motorcycle pilgrimage to somewhere with his Dad as he does every summer, I volunteered THREE days - all THREE - the whole show! - of my life to scribe at the next CDI qualifier in my area. This included not only my weekend, but also one of my precious personal work holidays.

This is what good dressage people do, right?

I planned a nice weekend around the event, which included spending my nights with Mr. and Mrs. Curmudgeon and other friends who live more local to the Palgrave area than I do, so as not to have to commute all the way home each day (1.5 hour journey). I packed my overnight bag (key to the story) and off I went. Good times! La la la..

Things started off great. The weather was fabulous - and hot. And so, I wore...(whew, get ready for it. You may want to cover the eyes of young children)... I wore... SHORTS.

Ahhh! My eyes! My eyes!!

My assigned judge was fabulous. I was working a lower level ring and therefore watched mind-numbingly boring lower level tests for all three days (I think 3rd was the highest, but mostly TL and 1st), but I was ok with that, we were having fun and good conversations, and there were some really nice horses and rides.

Good times, la la la.. ooooh.. what is for lunch! Lasagna! Mmmm.. la la la..

SCREEECCCHH - CRASH - WWWWHAAAAA - BANG (this is the sound of crashing, burning, wheels falling off of things...)

I made several errors at lunch.

1. Apparently, you do not sit at Judge OOOhhh's table without being invited. No worries, my assigned judge quickly and smoothly rectified this error by luring me over to her table with garlic toast or something. Whew, really dodged the bullet there. Imagine my gall, thinking that I could eat lasagna next to Judge OOOhhh! I have a lot of nerve, really.

2. When fleeing from Judge OOOhhs table as is expected from a lowly volunteer, you should not whack your plastic chair into hers. Even if you say "oh, sorry about that OOOhh", it is NOT ENOUGH. NOT NEARLY ENOUGH to make up for doing something so clearly and utterly awful and disrespectful. I didn't actually see the daggers come out of her eyes, but I heard about them from others in attendance.

3. You should NEVER. EVER. EVER. wear shorts.

Well, I didn't know about rule three until after lunch. Just as things were wrapping up, the show organizer gave me the "ahem" with a "c'mere" finger curl and took me aside.

Apparently, one of the judges had complained about my attire.

What? Seriously?

Yes. It was not appropriate. I would have to go home and change. Do you mind?

You have to be kidding me. I drove 1.5 hours to get here. It is 27C out. I am sitting in a wooden box sweating my totally hidden nether regions off, for you, for three days, entirely for free. NO ONE can see my fucking legs, or any of my body under my boobs. I could be naked below the waist, wearing nothing but a sparkly barrette in my pubes, and no one WOULD EVEN KNOW.

I have an overnight bag full of shorts packed to get me through the next two and a half days. I am not going home to change... Or if I do - it is for good.

Again, I ask, are you fucking kidding me? Or can I wear these shorts.

Uuuhh... I could see the wheels turning - if we send her home, and she doesn't come back... who will do our free labour? As much as her legs offend us - we will be screwed.

Ok. You can wear the shorts today. But can you find pants tomorrow?

Well that was it for me and dressage. Seriously people..that is what matters? My shorts?

I took a lot of abuse along the way, from various people, and listened to a lot of bullshit from wannabes and fakers, froze my ass of at classical clinics, smiled and nodded while people lied to me about this, that, the other.. but something about a whiny Judge, who should have had 1,000,001 better things on her mind at a CDI event than my bare legs absolutely was the final straw.

I went Sandra Dee. Put a fork in me, I am done. Time to fire up the Blog.

For about 15 minutes, I struggled with the idea of just packing it in and going home. But then I thought of my fellow adult amateur dressage riders, left with no scribe, or one with horrid handwriting, or who made lots of errors - why should we all be punished for the fact that there was a petty bitch of a judge in attendance. I know how important that stupid slip of paper is to us, and how much they cost us, not just in terms of entries for the day, but in terms of the horrifying sum of every board bill, every lesson, every vet bill, every blacksmith bill that all add up towards those 5 minutes that go into creating that stupid slip of paper. I said I would do the job - I did the job. But I never, ever will again.

I think I cried secretly all afternoon as I wrote down 6 - more 4ward. 5 - not o. 6 more bend. 4 -disobed etc. etc. and didn't speak to my judge (who kept apologizing for the whole affair) until the next day. We have to kiss butt a bit, she explained. The OOOhhh judges expect it. Don't take it personally....

Well, maybe she does have to kiss butt, it is her job, perhaps she someday aspires to be an OOOHH-OOOhhh-OOOhhhh herself. Maybe she is practicing her OOOhhhh face right now. I don't know what drives her... but I am a volunteer, and frankly, although often it doesn't feel like it, a customer paying the bills that allow this whole sha-bang we call dressage to happen in the first place.. and as such, I could really care less about kissing old dressage judge butt.

Or should I say - I was.

To be fair, I still to this day don't know exactly which judge complained about my shorts. It may or may not have been Judge OOOhhh. I doubt it was the only male heterosexual judge in attendance, but then again I could be wrong, who knows. Bottom line is - I don't care. It was Mean Girls, Pretty in Breakfast and Square Pegs, all set to dressage.

And - also to be fair - not everyone was on my side. Mr. Curmudgeon, who is a hard core National golf rules official said he would have sent me home too.

(We like to support each other like this at Chez Curmudgeon).

On further inspection, there is actually a scribe dress code that does say - no shorts. Had I taken the initiative to research this on my own, I would have known it. Alternatively, the show organizer could have attached it to the "thanks for helping out, see you on the weekend" email she sent to make my life easier (and I had worn shorts often before, with no complaints, adding to my confusion). I suspect she didn't see this train wreck coming either, and while she was smiling and nodding to the complaining judge was probably secretly thinking "oh for fuck's sake, really? It is hard enough to get volunteers as it is... another one bites the dust"...

On Monday, I called up my coach to whine to him about the incident, and he was 100% fully supportive.

Curmudgeon, he said, I am sure your shorts were not inappropriate hoochy booty wear. That judge was totally out of line.

I got a little choked up and thanked him for his support, until he pointed out that the reason he knew this - for sure, without a doubt - was because I just don't have the booty for booty wear...it would have looked bad on me, and I am always well dressed.

Uh, thanks. I guess.

Will I be getting my freak on, on your freak?

2012-01-04T06:23:00.003-05:00

Conformation and visual appeal or lack thereof are actually the easy pieces of the puzzle when looking at sales ads. The toughest thing of all to evaluate - really at any point in time, young, old, nearly dead - has to be temperament, and specifically "hotness". (No, no, I am not back to the running guy on the triangle with the tarp. I am being serious here!)

Reader Jackie was kind enough to send me this link, and it does cover many of the areas where misunderstandings can exist.. for example, the relationship between bombproof, stupid, and nearly dead...
http://www.ultimatehorsesite.com/fun/jokes2.html

I know it is probably no different for those of you looking for love on internet sites, I can just imagine how my online dates would turn out if I didn't already have the perfect-in-every-way Mr. Motard (Yah, well... let me tell you, her pic was not bad, she sounds ok on the phone... but WOW we just aren't compatible in the bedroom. She put her fingers in her ears and went la-la-la-la when I started talking about how important it is to get your pole* vertical, and just totally LOST it when you ask her if she has any interest in trying some "airs above the ground" - I didn't waste all of this money on the stripper kit and sex swing to wind up dating a prude. I bet riding from behind would be right out of the question - DELETE).

But really, whether sellers try to be honest or not regarding the degree of freaky their horse possesses, I don't think there is any way to totally overcome this, especially when you are dealing in the world of dressage. We will never all agree on what constitutes "good temperament", because there absolutely is no once size fits all when it comes to temperament - or your definition of "dressage success" for that matter.

Why? Well, when dealing with adult ams who are new to dressage, there are two main problems:

- Horses that reach higher levels and are competitive these days are firecrackers
- Middle aged women who want to reach higher levels and be competitive these days typically aren't

(And yes, I do include myself in this category on most days, so don't get all pissy and think I am being elitist)

"Oh but Curmudgeon, the pyramid says "Rhythm" is first, and that is the result of physical and mental relaxation. A tense or reactive "firecracker" horse is missing the first rung! This is the whole issue with "competitive dressage"!

I get so sick of people saying this. Yes, we all want relaxation. No, we don't want rhythm mistakes, and the hotter and more reactive your horse gets, the harder it is to channel their energy in a "relaxed" way, no doubt. But if your horse is bombproof to the point of near death, that is just a little too relaxed.

To really witness this - spend some time scribing at training level, over the course of several years (for the love of all that is holy, wear pants!).

But I am in a box! No one can even see my legs!

There are very relaxed, rhythmic horses that will win at training level, every single one of those several years. Again, again, again. ZZzzz... First, they make for a very boring day, often of high scores and few mistakes, which is not at all entertaining.

Secondly - although they earn scores that would get any bulletin board to heartily agree that "YES! If you are consistently scoring 65%+ you are READY for the next level!" for some reason... they never do move on.

Then ride one of these "relaxed to death, I smoked the first layer of the pyramid and came back for seconds" horses. You may want to sing while you ride... may I suggest "flog, flog, flog your horse". Because if the horse is not at least a little reactive, you are in for a non-productive or at least very boring ride.

Unless you are a hard core low level DQ and plan to stay that way (not that there is anything wrong with that if it is your goal..), you may want to set your sights on something a little more fiery.

And the flip side of this is...I really hate to say it, I know it is going to piss someone off... but if you can't handle at least "medium salsa" in your horses, you may have to decide that "hard core low level DQ" is where your sights should be.

Or, perhaps win the lottery, because near dead bombproof AND easy to ride at upper levels is going to set you back. Lots.

I am not saying the "bombproof" horse cannot make it up the levels. I have ridden a few of these horses over the years now that have progressed quite far. One was a perennial Young Rider's horse that never did particularly well in the ring who needed to be "jazzed" up a bit before he would really "come through". After riding him a few times, I realized that "jazzed" translated roughly into "harassed incessantly into getting his lazy butt in gear", (which is maybe less scary than a horse with go, but so incredibly freaking frustrating it will sap any joy out of riding). It is was easy to blame his lack of success in the ring on his gaits (after all, he was part TB and judges have a bias blah-blah-blah), but really, when the rider is working that hard to do everything...nothing can look very beautiful, regardless of the breed.

And I am not saying that firecrackers are for everyone, but if you truly want to make it up the levels, can tolerate a bit of terror now and again - and think your hips can take a fall or two without breaking, I do think it is your better bet. Buy the sharpest horse you can actually ride (after being realistic with yourself about what constitutes "the sharpest horse you can actually ride"... hmm, material for a whole post right here...coming up!).

Short term, you will be frustrated as your horse acts like a wingnut as a 4 year old at training level and you get smoked by all of the nearly-deads, but longer term, as your horse boogies around the ring passaging without a whip, you will forget the times you were humiliated by his exuberance...

*Yes, I know - spelling is different. Work with me on the joke, would you?

Dear small scale breeder of "fine" horses....

2012-01-01T13:22:00.000-05:00

I begin 2012 with a letter that I really should have written back in 2003.

To the kind of crappy horse breeder that depresses the hell out of buyers, makes us think we can't win if we don't buy imported, and ruins the game for the actual ethical breeders working their butts off here in North America to create a reputation for something other than... well...

Dear small scale breeder of fine horses,

I want to start by saying that, in theory, I do admire what you are trying to do. Really. I am glad to hear you have lush green homegrown hay, bed your horses only on light golden straw, and have100 family owned acres on which your mannerly and people oriented youngstock are free to roam while socializing and "just being horses". Yada, yada, yada... All that shit sounds great.

I am just a bit confused as to how, during all of this nurturing and caring and bringing along of babies slowly and carefully, you somehow managed to overlook the fact that your horse has a screamingly obvious club foot.

Ooooh I am seeing FEI level Dressage potential, aren't you!

One would think that during all of these line classes that you apparently took Clubby to to give him the opportunity to learn to trailer, and to experience the exhilarating atmosphere of the showgrounds as a youngster, that maybe someone would have mentioned it to you.

Or maybe they did... and really it is my bad for not specifically asking "does Clubby have any glaring conformational defects?" or, maybe "did Clubby always come in last at these breed shows, due to the presence of glaring conformational defects?" or "is my blacksmith going to say "oh for fuck's sake" the first time he meets him"?

I know, I know, I read it time and time again on the message boards. Sellers complaining about how we buyers just have no clue what we are looking for. Like, say, if we want a dressage horse with FOUR good feet, you think we would mention it!

Assholes.

Honestly, we buyers are such a bunch of time wasters, just driving all over the countryside kicking tires, begging our veterinarian friends to come out on unpaid shopping jaunts with us as a favour, in November, when they are 8 months pregnant, because we THINK the horse sounds perfect, without doing ANY of our homework...only to have our friends look from the club foot, to us, to the club foot, to us.. in the universal, silent, alternating eye contact gesture that clearly says "is it just me or...WTF? You needed a vet for THIS?"

Same deal - with Roachy. The roach backed horse. I know, I know, my bad again. As we gabbed away about the wonders of Roachy, we only covered his georgeous steel grey colour, and unbeatable Trakehner bloodlines, floating movement, blah blah blah. The fool that I am, didn't ask probing questions to see if his back was relatively flat, and his ass was sort of roundish in shape. For all you knew, I was looking for a horse with a nice little ridge to hang your hat on - this may have been a "value add" in your books.

If I had used my eyes and really, REALLY inspected the running Sasquatch-type pictures you sent, I would surely have noticed his interesting profile. Or at least the fact that every one of them was taken at kind of a 3/4 side angle, therefore never actually letting me see any profile at all....

Anyway, now that we have established clearly that *I* am most certainly the crazy one here... would you be so kind as to offer me some advice?

When faced with this situation, how would you prefer the (non)buyer respond?

The fact that you called me back with lower pricing even after I said "uuuhh...I really doooon't really think Clubby and Roachy are what I am after" at the end of my visit indicates that you felt my budget was the only thing standing between you and a successful sale.

Not so.

To avoid this confusion..should I have gone "HOLEY SHIT! This is SO COOL! I have only seen a roach back like that in "101 Conformational Don'ts"!... I had no idea they really existed!"

Or maybe "WOW - that horse's foot looks just like a weird sort of ball! Not all slopey like normal feet. How interesting!"

Or what would you have said if I just laid it all out there and announced "Hmmm, nice club foot. NO. Why on earth would you even show me this animal for the price you are asking". I guess that is the right thing to do, be transparent! Assssertive!... but it just seems so awkward, what with the three years of golden straw and frolicking and all that shit. I feel badly for you, really I do.

Don't worry. Sooner or later someone will show up and be too stupid to notice. Or maybe you can sell via the internet to someone in the U.S or something, who doesn't actually come on out and look at the horse themselves. Just be patient. You jerk.

Know when to Hold em. Fold em. Run.

2011-12-31T10:35:00.000-05:00

Now where was I...

Horrible videos, Horrible pictures, and ho-hum Canadian Sporthorses.

I clearly needed a bit more strategy to my search.

Although the platypus had not yet sold, I knew that I would be lucky to get $5000 out of the whole deal by the time it was all added up. I had a little bit of savings to spare, so realistically, my budget was $10,000 tops.

Leave a bit of negotiation room in there - I was looking at things listed under $15,000 that could potentially be negotiated down to $10,000. Or much less, even better.

Which eliminated:
Anything "imported"
Anything with two "imported parents"

(= So fuck off and stop asking me if I have been out to Charlot Farms yet)

It also eliminated the possiblity of paying comission to a dressage trainer to help me find the perfect horse. There just wasn't a dime to spare. Well, actually it was about the money and also about the fact that I hadn't yet located one that didn't make me want to drive a spike through my left temple. And add to that the fact that they would likely insist on me finding something imported or with two imported parents, which would take care of the spike through my right temple.

"Oh but Curmudgeon, by paying for expertise up front - you will save yourself money and heartache in the long run"

Yah, whatever. Bite me.

Now don't get me wrong. Remember that I was not a newbie to the equine world, I had been riding all of my life. If you don't actually know anything about buying horses, hiring someone knowledgable to help is definitely the way to go, I am not poo-poohing this idea in theory. But in a lot of ways, it is like reading "How to win at Blackjack" before heading to Vegas. You will give yourself an edge by knowing that giddily yelling "hit me" with two tens in your hand is probably not a great idea, unless entertaining your friends with your stupidity is your goal (and that can be fun too, I am not knocking it).

No, seriously - this one is not an ad. Stop clicking it!

But the bottom line is - who the hell knows how your horse is going to turn out, especially when you are buying a two year old. If Vegas were easy and predictable, we would all be laughing with our friends tossing about $80,000 worth of poker chips while driving home from Vegas in our father-in-law's smashed up convertibles, happy as clams even though we slept with hookers while drunk and even though we know we are going to be late for our weddings, at which we will smell like unwashed ass when we do finally arrive.

If choosing unstarted youngstock was simple, fabulous Grand Prix horses would be everywhere instead of only being owned by a handful of olympians (and thousands of classical dressage people who just don't believe in the evils of competitive dressage, and therefore keep these horses hidden in their backyards).

So, long story short - I decided to cheap out and not pay for the "advice of a dressage pro". Instead, I enlisted the help of some experienced hunter/eventer friends who, while they were not "dressage professionals" did know how to spot a sound horse with good conformation. They were also familiar enough with my riding ability to be able to tell me if the temperment of the horse in question was a good match, or if I were likely to die quickly.

And really - if you wind up with a horse that is realitively sound and not all that deadly, you are doing better than 85 - 90% of the people I read about on bulletin boards. So this is no cakewalk in and of itself.

But I didn't just have my team of hand chosen experts at my disposal. I also had the internet of course. No, no, don't panic. I didn't start posting "what do you think of this horse" critiques on bulletin boards.

(Don't you love these? I decided to take a walk down memory lane and see if I could locate one to read and refresh my memory. Yep, didn't take long - there is one on Chronofhorse right now - 7 pages with "update - post 106!" Complete with the "yes! that horse is perfect!" "NO that horse is shit" and plenty of rationalization on all sides. Fun! Not!)

This time, I tried something different. I started watching videos - primarily Anky and Bonfire, winning assorted things. And from this, I formed a picture of what I wanted my next horse to look like. I was looking for something MODERN - leggy, lean and spidery. With lots of knee action. (I tried not to get too depressed by the fact that Anky is leggy, lean and spidery too, not sawed off and hammered down like yours truly, and perhaps this contributed to the overall elegant picture. To make myself feel better, I watched Isabelle now and then. She has an ass more like mine).

Yah, seriously. Who wants a Rio Grande x TB clunker for $25,000 anyways. Pfft. Rationalization, you are my best friend.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-22T19:52:00.000-05:00

Or.. Festivus for the rest of us... whatever. I am not here to debate.

Thanks to all of you for reading my blog in 2011 - see you in 2012!

Hey.. don't I know you from high school?

2011-12-22T19:48:00.000-05:00

Way back in the day when I was 16 or so and thought I was cool, I needed some spending money to play the part. And so, I passed my time on the weekends mucking stalls at a Thoroughbred farm. (Acid washed jeans don't buy themselves, you know).

Yes. I was livin on a prayer. And some alcohol, I think.

It was a fun enough job I suppose, and gave me valuable experience in dealing with maniac youngsters that would come in handy when I someday decided to buy my own (more on this to come!)

There were a few stakes winners that came and went, but for the most part as I recall the situation, the establishment was primarily a tax shelter for a rich restaurateur, and therefore the quality of the horses bred there was not of paramount importance. As a result, there was a mixed bag of claiming race divas on site, now hairy and saggy and pumping out new claiming race type babies with the help of a few equally as saggy and hairy stallions.

Now some of the mares were nice enough visually I suppose - but none had been under saddle as anything other than racehorses, and even that was probably 5+ years ago in most cases at the time, circa 1986. They were all far from racing fit by the time I knew them, and so I guess we could say they were "built like warmbloods" (i.e. - fat). Actually, back in the day we didn't even know what a warmblood was yet. Any horse with a nice topline and round bum was "fancy", and any horse over 16 hh was "huge" - some of these ladies qualified. Now and then, while scoopin the poop and shooting the shit, we would play "which horse would you turn into your hunter" as teenagers like to do, but never expected anything to ever come of this.

I have to stop thinking this, don't I. Because nothing is ever a dead end in the horse world.

Fast forward - oh, 20 years. When Dressage Curmudgeon first starts to learn about "the Canadian Sport Horse".

While shopping, I looked at a horse sired by a Canadian Sporthorse by the name of "Dancing Eudardo*". Not my favourite name of all time, sounds like a good name for a stripper at the Foxxes Den, but whatever...he is a WARMBLOOD, right? And that is why the breeder is asking $10,000+ for the offspring, makes sense, I guess.

The resulting filly that I went to see was just ok. As were most of the "TB x warmblood" Canadian Sporthorses that I ended up looking at. Nice looking, but just not WOW. She was similar to 50 other horses that you would see at any average trillium show. It was confusing to me, frankly. What is the deal with these fabulous new "warmbloods"? I am not feeling it.

When I got home, I started doing some stalking to find out more about the sire...allbreedpedigreequery is a wonderful thing. Hmmm... let's see... his mom was actually a Thoroughbred, not a "warmblood", named Dancing Lois*..ok, that makes the stripper name theme a bit more logical if nothing else...

Whaaa...WTF? Just a minute here..Lois! Dancing Lois! I know that horse! She was one of the saggy claiming race divas! How could that be?

I was just like Fox Mulder. (Not Scully. I can't run in heels that well). I had discovered the truth - it was out there. I started searching the names of all of the Saggies. Dish of Pepper - yep, she was bred to Goldshaleger to create "Ghostrunner*", another "Canadian Sporthorse" Stallion.

Her offspring, Love in My Butt* who was still racing during my time there - yep, she had a "warmblood" baby out there who strangely enough was one of the first so-called "Hanoverians" I had run into during my travels in the H/J circles - a big solid horse with a totally unbeatable temperament, but that was dog ugly and nothing special in the movement department either... well, now I know why she didn't dazzle me as I expected to be dazzled by a "warmblood".

This was at least a little less disturbing - in this instance Love in My Butt was only the mare, creating a few offspring. But why, why, why on Earth were the genetics of the other saggies being passed on to multiple mares via Stallions with absolutely no performance records associated with any of them?

Beats me. But what I knew for sure was that I wasn't about to pay $10,000 for it.

For the record - neither of these stallions are currently approved for breeding with CSH - I am not sure if they ever were. But people keep breeding them anyways! I found a Holst/TB/Perch cross sired by one of these stallions advertised as a "CSH" just now, for $2000 (you guessed it...a PMU baby).

I guess this false marketing isn't CSH's fault, but it sure doesn't help their cause any.

Had I not been an early adopter of the compulsive internet stalking habit, I would have never figured it out. I potentially would have bought the offspring at a premium as a "Canadian Sport Horse", sired by a "warmblood" (Not aged, off the track saggy mare spawn). If I had wanted a TB, I would have rescued one...not that there is anything wrong with that...

And...if I can be a bit harsh - are the CSHA's standards high enough in the first place? The mares - who at the time of their approvals must have been around 15 and 20 years of age - were not stunning specimens and had absolutely nothing to show in terms of performance, or even being ridden as something other than racehorses 10+ years ago, then wandering around a field for the remainder of their existence. Should they have been approved at all? Is that the best we have to offer with respect to foundation genetics here in Canada - big old TB's with the ability to cough up another baby?

I am not sure what the best way for them to clean up their act and image is... but it certainly does need some work.

And by the way - in case you think I have some bizarre axe to grind with respect to CSH's - really, I don't. I did end up buying one, because a good horse is a good horse, whatever you might decide to call it. She is NOT a TB cross though...

(why does Dressage Curmudgeon hate TB's so much, you may wonder. Really I don't...)

*names have been changed to protect the saggy.

Is it time to start kicking tires yet?

2011-12-21T18:32:00.000-05:00

And so, after a few tries, and a few close calls with weirdness, I decided that maybe part-boarding wasn't the way to go right away. I still had my hunter friends who always needed a horse or two tuned up, so I figured I would get my riding fix there and instead start some virtual shopping.

Now remember, the year was 2004. Horse shopping was a lot different than it is today.

Well - let me rephrase that. Because many parts of horse shopping, virtual or not, have not changed at all, in probably, oh, 500 years. Things like showing lame horses, and really hoping the buyer doesn't notice. The part that has changed is the "virtual" side of the game.

Back in the day - it was actually acceptable to post an ad with no pic and expect someone to call you. (I actually bought the Platypus from a Toronto Star classified ad. Remember those?) Now, I won't even click on an ad unless there is a multi-media show awaiting me.

This is good... and bad.

It is good in that - if a horse is a conformational horror show - a good pic will usually bring this to your attention fairly quickly. The bad side of it is - if a horse is not a conformational horror show - a stupid owner will be able to mislead you into thinking it is, by posting a really bad picture. I am sure some good opportunities got away from me due to the strange compulsion of some sellers to depict their horses as mud encrusted camels with their front legs in a hole.

"Athletic"

I get that you are busy. So am I - that is why I am not going to drive all over Ontario to see if there is a beautiful beast hiding out under the wild child exterior. I don't care how wonderful your baby is (remember, I was looking for a 2 - 3 year old, so not the sexiest phase to be viewing horses in the first place), it cannot really wow me if it is filthy with a long tangled mane, standing in 6 inches of manure. It can't be a blurry picture snapped from 500 yards away, with the horse fleeing at a strange angle like that famous picture of bigfoot. The horse should not be huddled with 7 other muddy friends.

"Ground covering stride"

It is good in that - pretty much everyone posts a youtube video these days that you can check out, typically before you even call.

It is also bad in that many owners create truly horrific videos that are impossible to watch for more than 25 seconds.

Some like to show off their horses "suspension" and "uphill gaits" by scaring the snot out of them and having them rip-snort around the mud/manure paddock, sliding into fencing and doing bad, hoppy Pepe LePeu canter with frantic disunited changes thrown in here and there.

Again - you could have been a contender! (If your owner wasn't stupid!)

Equally as bad are the people who have slapped a saddle (typically something that says "redneck", like maybe a purple wintec) on the horse, and then show it doing a slow catatonic western jog type trot on the longe line. Extra nice when this is performed on frozen, lumpy ground. First - I have mixed feelings about the 2-year old that is ho-hum bored on the longe line - how much have they been longed? Secondly - how does this show me anything about how the horse might move someday when it is actually allowed to GO?

I guess it is better than the "longeing" videos that are depicting "owner flying horse like a kite". You know the ones with the little bugger ripping around with its head cranked to the inside and the owner trying not to be launched across the field and into the fence...

The ones I can't even watch are the ones where the owner wants to wow me with the fact that they can kick a giant soccer ball at the horse's face, or drape it in a tarp, or some other bizarre Parelli / natural touch shit without the horse going nutso. (I swear, I just made this example up as sort of an amalgam of my memories, but then found a perfect example on on Equine.com in my very first search. Wow, that is only the second time you have whacked her in the head with a plastic bag on a stick, eh? Hmm....great. I guess). Hey, you know what would really impress me instead? Showing me that the horse can tolerate getting a nice shampoo, having its mane trimmed and braided, and can do something sane and showy on the triangle, while being handled by a handsome, long legged, fast running guy. He should also be shampooed. Yah, that would be nice. You can drape me in a tarp any day, baby. Ooops, my mind is wandering isn't it.

I know I live in Canada, and therefore we have Winter. Not everyone has an indoor, and lots of babies live outside. But I love the responses to sales inquiries that say "Oh, I don't have any pictures of him without six inches of winter coat and a head and body so furry, you can't tell where his neck starts or ends". Winter is not a surprise that sneaks up on us. (WTF? It is cold AGAIN? Wow, that's just crazy...!). Even if you live in Northern Saskatchewan, there is a month or two when I hope to hell this horse does not look like a Yak. Plan ahead, and snap some pics THEN. Heey, good idea, eh?

Yes, things are much better as I virtual shop today. Back in the day, I only had maybe one or two good pics to scrutinize, before picking up the phone (remember back when we called people to verbally ask stuff?) requesting that the owner mail me a VHS tape to look at (sometimes having to pay shipping/handling for the tape). Which means that I had not much to work with, and lots of time to daydream about how wonderful the horse would be, before the depressing Pepe LePeu, soccer ball to the head video arrived.

And so, I started the long, slow process of horse shopping. Step one though, was really deciding what I needed. Something "registered" would be nice. Hey, what is this "Canadian Sport Horse" thing anyways. Sounds interesting....

Empowered, enlightened, harmonized Snake Oil. When plain old Greasy / Slimy isn't enough.

2011-12-16T13:15:00.003-05:00

My retrospective bulletin board stalking got me thinking... how on Earth do some of these crappy dressage trainers manage to rise from the ashes and reinvent themselves so easily, in this day and age of the internet? And what should we do to try to protect others from them, when we hear the train a 'comin, it's rollin round the bend...

Same is true of course for breeders, sales people, whatever.

It really is remarkable.

At least if you google some of the more seasoned snake oil salesmen, they fired up the snake press before the internet was really established, so it is more difficult to look back on what they did - or did not do - in former lives. And now their identities are really entrenched in whatever it is they are doing to make a buck today.

But man, it is so EASY to cyber stalk now! Are there actually horse owners that don't know about Google? Am I the only one who compulsively searches anyone they come across in real life now?

I know the answer is NO to this last question, seeing as my LinkedIn profile has been viewed about 50x more than usual since I started this blog (hey, how do you like my new picture?)... coincidence? I think not. Although I do keep hoping exciting new job offers are going to come flowing in any time now . But then on the other hand, the morons over at UDBB felt they needed 2 pages of discussion and the powers of the resident super sleuth to determine who I was and where I lived, based on the hard core identity veil I have put up (Ha HA! if I use my REAL name, no one will ever guess who I am! AHH HA HAA! I will create a mythical land called "Toronto" AHH HA HAA <--- evil laughter)

Now, I am not saying that people don't change, or that you can't start a new career, lord knows I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. But when the new business plan is just built purely on bullshit, what is the best way to call these people out? What can we do as a community to help others avoid wasting time and money on dishonest, unethical trainers? Or is it a waste of time to try, as people only see what they want to see, and hear what they want to hear?

Am I the only one who watched Oblio as a kid?

I talk a good game, but really I am not doing anything to help either.

An example...for some reason a while back, I got suckered into taking my niece and nephew to their year end Pony Club banquet, because their parental units were otherwise engaged.

I didn't know anyone there other than said niece and nephew, so sat at some random table of parents. One started discussing dressage with me almost immediately. Well that sounds like fun, doesn't it. Tell me more!

Well, they had JUST bought their horse off of a FABULOUS local breeder - but not only that, he is also a dressage reiiki classical trainer master...works to merge horse and rider into one body of energy...trains with only the finest Euro trainers, is an active member of the Xenophon Society. Ohhh... well that is - uh.. interesting. Yah, interesting. (I started to panic, just a bit).

Oh yes. I knew the guy. In fact, he ran the only barn I have ever fled, under cover of darkness, because I feared that I would show up one day to find my horse not fed and locked in its stall by the repo man. (For the record... this never did happen at the facility to my knowledge, but it was in the air). Well that, and the fact that the barn owner was just hardcore unpleasant to be around. Probably because his business was going tits up, which does tend to wipe the smile off of a person's face, I would think. And my horse wasn't getting turned out. And was being fed at random times (maybe not at all, I could not be 100% sure). And..And..And.. you get the drift.

After pulling out, I started getting harassing phonecalls from him at work, telling me he was going to take me to small claims court to get a month's worth of board out of me since I signed a contract saying I would give 30 days notice. This went on for a while, until I sent him something in writing that cross referenced the services to be provided on his contract, versus those I actually received... and said "bring it on, baby! Can hardly wait to meet Judge Judy". Well, surprise! He went away. And I never heard from him again.

In fact I never even really heard OF him again, until just the last few years. He has magically resurfaced, dusted off the ashes, and has created this horse empowerment, reiiki master persona that seems to be gaining traction.

So back to the story... Pony Club Banquet.

I sat there staring through her, singing the "Oscar Meyer Wiener" song in my head to occupy my brain and stop it from making me comment on anything she said (I challenge myself by trying to write new rhyming verses. It really works, I use this technique a lot). She had all of the buzzwords - "advanced levels", "harmony", "empowerment"...

(hhmm..hhmm..hmmm..hmmm...Oscar Meyer Wiener, everyone would need to take a peeeee..).

But no amount of songwriting could control the next variable who walked in the door. Mr. Motard. Late for the banquet.

It didn't take him long to get up to speed on the conversation..

"Wait wait wait... Curmudgeon knows that WHACKJOB!!"

I started deeply into his eyes and used my best mind control skills. You will SHUUUUT - UP! SHUUUUT - UP NOOOW... they didn't work. They never do.

"Curmudgeon, that's the guy you hated!! Yah, yah, I am sure it is the same guy... Did he used to have that big fancy barn over on Shits Station road, or whatever it's called? I am sure it is...! Yah, yah, she boarded with him and fled because he was nuts! Come ONNN Curmudgeon! How can you not remember! This is supposed to be YOUR hobby! Sheesh"

(hhmm..hhmm..hmmm..hmmm...Oscar Meyer Wiener, everyon'd commit hariii kareeeee!)

Well, I don't need to tell you a bit of a chill descended over the table.

"MMMM... good pizza, eh?"