Firstly, Sam, I feel your pain about keeping a white horse white. But look at it this way: consider the extra hours you spend keeping Val clean and I spend keeping Greta clean as valuable bonding time!
After a week of rain and no turnout (fail!) but lots of riding (win!) it stopped raining (cross your fingers) and Greta has been able to start getting used to the mare pasture. I rode her and worked with her every day of the week and decided to give her a day off Saturday, plus I helped get a Halloween party ready, though I wish I could have seen how she did being turned-out. I came out today and she was absolutely chill. Really chill. Just dozing, and then grazing, and then going to get some water. It was really neat.
I need to get some pictures up (gee, how many times have I said that?) I don't know if it's just me being a hypochondriac horse owner, but Greta is looking a little ribby. The silly thing also apparently ran into fence and has a nice, superficial slice on her haunches, about 5 inches long that I tended to today. Oh, Greta! I should just bubblewrap you! jk
Also, I am signing her up for a Lifetime Horse Registration with USDF. I'm still debating on a show name. It's down to Gretakvinna/GretaKvinna/Greta Kvinna (I should probably get that solved too, I'm just sure if I do "Gretakvinna" somebody will say Gretak-vinna instead of Greta-ki-veenah) or Der Greters (too cute). What do you think? Ideas appreciated :D
And now something for other discussion. I did a speech for Speech class about some of the controversial methods of modern dressage (and almost everyone actually seemed to find it pretty interesting, go me!) particularly rollkur and performance-enhancing drugs, concepts that would be easy to grasp for non-horsey-folk. The topic revolved around Moorlands Totilas' recent double-whammy where he made a record of 89.4% and then beat his own with 90%! I loved the performance initially, though with time comes learning, and now I realize: holy moly that horse has some freaky gaits! If this is to be the standard for competitive dressage (God forbid we go with what Xenophon or Podjhasky or the FEI rulebook itself established quite clearly) well... can any horse do that without some funky genetics or cruel training techniques? I know Greta can't. Nor can any other normal horse I've seen. And I've seen a lot of normal horses :D
So that was my opinionated opinion. Discuss it here: http://www.behindthebitblog.com/2009/11/totilas-trash-talk.html
Ha, Val considers both baths and regular, water-less grooming to be a test of his tolerance and patience. His ears go back to half mast, not quite pinned, as he says, "Do you really have to curry me? Must you get me wet?"
ReplyDeleteAnd heaven forbid his ears get wet. He looks utterly pathetic whenever I spray down his head, poor boy!
He's just not a touchy-feely boy. He does like a bit of head rubbing when the bridle comes off, though.
I think that if you do GretaKvinna or Greta Kvinna you'll get "Greta-kah-vinna" as a pronunciation. If you want them to to say "Veena", I'd spell it GretaKvena or even GretaKveena to ensure the correct pronunciation. It stinks to half to loose the proper spelling just to get the right pronunciation, eh? :( Fortunately, there isn't really another way to say "Valerius Magnus" besides "Valerius Magnus"! I was very worried it would be pronounced wrong, but it hasn't been yet ;)
Although I do think Totilas has very extreme and exaggerated movement, I believe he is a superbly trained and beautifully built horse. I like his movement, not that I'm an expert, and I think that even if he didn't quite try to kick himself in the head in his extended trot, he'd still be an amazing horse and great competitor, capable of earning hs 90%. In short, I like the guy!