Horse Blog

Nearby, a room is full of horse-related pictures from a recent competition run to coincide with the Tom Quilty Endurance Horse Race in nearby Sheffield. Again, the ubiquitous and versatile Raoul Slater is a standout contributor, taking the Judges Prize but not the first Prize. His pictures combine insight with humour, technical excellence and, repeatedly, a glimpse of that critical moment in which the exceptional can be snatched from the mundane e.g. a ray of sunshine slices through trees to erupt as a cauldron of golden light behind a horse and rider; a horse and his trainer interchange expressions; the grace and beauty of back-lit horses is captured by the entwined blurring of a panning camera and a slow shutter speed.

Here I am in sunny, er, stormy, Cleveland. Berea, actually. I left work at 11, then headed home for some quality Buu time. Of course I was too overcome with anxiety about my impending solo road trip to really enjoy his company. At 1 I headed over to the barn, for one last lesson before the horse show.

Saturday night was costume night and this year’s theme was England v Germany. The guys went as hooligans, we think, it might just have been their usual Saturday night out on the town outfit. Apart from Duncan who went as David Hasslehoff. The girls went as FIFA 2006 referees complete with colour coded cards and England cowboy hats:

Since I seem to be stuck for inspiration today, too much rain… I thought I would check out some other sites. For cowboy boots, go here.

Scarily, the term “lesson” has been used a lot when describing this. This means that rather than piss about riding a horse, taking various “comedy” photos of myself, I’ll actually have to learn about horses. I’ve been told I’ll have to take it “seriously”, so they’ll be no cowboy hats or making jokes about the undoubtably posh instructor.

It’s time once again to dust off your cowboy hats and boots for the ninth annual Rossi Farms Barn Bash, a western style fundraiser that benefits the Parkrose Youth Activities Fund. The Rossi Family opens their farm in Patkrose to a big party every year — raising money to help make life better for students attending Parkrose schools.

We headed north along the great Rocky Mountains with snow-capped peaks west of us. In Cheyenne, we passed colorful four foot tall cowboy boots in the town square signifying that great ranch and horsemen state. At the capitol building, a counter protest group drove a pickup with the American flag flying from the back, but alongside it, a Mexican flag flew with it. That made our blood boil because every soldier from Valley Forge to Vietnam to Iraq did not die for open borders and allowance for illegal invaders that choose anarchy to ent

It has been a full mystery to me why I have been consumed by horse racing from my earliest days, but, you know, these animals have been my lucky stars. Northern Dancer has been the biggest. Happy 45th!

I actually used to compete in horse shows, you know. I had a green cowboy hat and everything, I should find a picture.

Actually, that’s a lie. It all started on my 9th birthday, when my then-best-friend Karen gave me a book about a girl and her horse, titled creatively, “The Race”. It was part of a series. After I read all 10 books in the series, I was totally hooked on the whole pony thing, and for the next few years I borrowed every single book (literally. And some more than once.), fiction and nonfiction, that the Kentwood Branch library had to offer about horses, horse care, horse breeds, horse feeding & vetting, and horse showing. I drew countless pictures of horses. I collected plastic horses. I plastered every square inch of my bedroom walls with horse posters. I painted a horse mural on my closet doors. I was forever trying to convince my dad that really, the shed in the backyard was big enough to house a horse, and truly, neither the neighbors nor the city of Grand Rapids wouldn’t care if we violated zoning laws and kept one back there. He didn’t buy it. So, at about age 15, I gave up.