The sound of cogs and spindles

This old bridle

Fri, 28 Jul 2017 22:19:49 GMT

Over the years I have grown a lot less sentimental over things - perhaps time's endless telescope has shown them to be temporary, perhaps I have stopped believing in any kind of magic that endures in objects. I think that part of it is that after moving from a house to a flat, we threw away so many things that I once thought precious and ultimately not only did I not mind, I actually felt lighter for it. The other part is that being sentimental over objects is really being sentimental over the time that they remind you of and although I still treasure memories and photographs of the days when I was younger than I felt, the truth is that since Sari and I have been together I have never been happier. The past is less precious to me than the present right now, and that is something of great and appreciated value in its own right.

However this bridle is the one I bought eight years ago at the Worlds Greatest Horseman event in San Angelo, Texas. The bridle I took with me had fallen to pieces the second time I got bucked off ( on my first day riding colts ) and I needed something better. It was the simplest design they had and I picked up the bridle and a thin snaffle bit ( I am quite a believer in thin bits, because most horses don't have much space in their mouths, I also believe in not using both reins at the same time for the first few years of your horse's education. ) and then spent an entire evening trying to put them together because of a stupid little loop of latigo leather that holds the bit in place. It took me so freaking long to sort out and I swore I would never remove the bit as long as the bridle lasted.

Talking to Steve about it later that year I said I preferred the chicago screws it uses in other parts, but he observed he's not a fan of those as they tend to fail when you least want them to.

Well, in the long run he was right. You can probably see the red bit of latigo leather I have holding the bridle together where two screws fell out during the last clinic with Steve. They work but they're far from beautiful and I had to acknowledge that it might just be time to retire the bridle. I have a replacement, which is similarly utilitarian, but has neither annoying bits of fine leather nor chicago screws, but the truth is I will miss this bridle. I have used it with almost every horse I have ridden in the time I could even approximately call myself a horseman. It has been a lot of places with me and it also marks something else, a moment when I stepped out on my own in to buying riding gear without advice or consultation from anyone else, the first bridle I ever got because I thought it was the right tool for the job.

So I'll go and cut the bit free now, and tomorrow if we ride out I will be using my new bridle, and Iris will be quite as good as she ever is, and I shall be quite as good as I ever am and the reins will be a familiar weight in my hands and really, things will be much the same.

Also that magazine in the picture is a very good magazine. You should subscribe to that magazine.

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The ruinous marriage of hubris, prejudice and treachery

Wed, 07 Jun 2017 22:27:57 GMT

I am not tremendously optimistic about tomorrow's election. And by "not tremendously optimistic" I mean that I am deeply pessimistic. In fact the only way I can see it going is the turkeys voting en-masse not just for Christmas but for some kind of special extra-Christmas where every family has to eat three turkeys.

I am among the most English people I know and being aware where I came from was very important to me when I was younger. Now, though, I don't feel that same connection. I don't feel like this country has much interest in people who want the world to be a better place or who care about the positive qualities that once made us great, instead of jingoism, penny-pinching and xenophobia.

I can quite confidently predict that after this election we will have a Conservative administration who will work hard to erase their predecessor's short tenure upon the title as "worst ever government of the UK." Of course, they may be able really hang onto that title for the long run if they can just ensure the break-up of the union, which is not far fetched given how badly they have handled Northern Ireland and Scotland so far.

I increasingly think about leaving the country- it feels as though the British people have voted for failure and if I want to be a success along any axis I probably won't really be welcome here anyway. If you're not failing and making everything worse, you're not part of the new British experience I guess. We have had a plan for a while to move west when we have a little money in the bank so I can buy the time to make some software and start doing something more entrepreneurial, but lately I find myself looking wistfully towards mainland Europe as well. Learning a new language would be tough, as would uprooting to a new country, but perhaps it would be worth it to be living somewhere that wasn't awful, where the people don't endlessly vote to make things worse for themselves and everyone else.

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Hurrying to slow down

Mon, 01 May 2017 20:49:35 GMT

We're back from a long trek across the country to ride in a clinic with legendary horseman Joe Wolter and it was about as good as one could possibly hope for.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on it right now, I'm sure Sari will have more to say later and these days a full write-up is more likely to go into the magazine ( we actually have an interview/feature planned for a couple of issues time ) but I do want to talk a little about one core theme that was very directly significant to Iris and me.

Joe talked early on about the horse's self-preservation, how important he feels it is to compromise on that - if the horse thinks they need to look around and check out what is going on, that's alright. They need it. If they spook just go with them, but then start offering some direction so that you're going together and you can help them out without forcing your decisions on them. I realised that because Iris stops so well I have been shutting down her spooks thinking I was helping her to understand they were unnecessary, but really that was just locking that bad feeling inside and making it hard to feel she was allowed to go forward. She was getting more anxious and harder to ride in new environments and I think that by not just letting her move out a little more and going with her I have been making that worse.

Yesterday, during the last afternoon of the clinic, we were doing some work around the outside of the arena ( Iris preferred to avoid the edges most of the time because the world was out there and there is a lot of it and it's all rather bothersome to a grey mare ) and Joe was asking us to work on doing the slowest possible walk and then speeding up. I asked Iris to slow down as we came around past the audience - it's an exercise we use from time to time, so she is fairly good at it - but something spooked her and she sprang off to trot most of the way around the arena. After about three quarters of a circle she found a place where she felt safe enough to walk and she immediately dropped into the slowest walk I have ever seen or experienced a horse doing, it would be easy to think she had stopped if you couldn't feel the glacial drift of her balance forward in between extraordinarily stately steps. It was unbelievable.

The thing that chokes me up every time I think about that is that she knew what I was asking her for and she just needed me to go with her first because she just couldn't do it there - when I let her take me somewhere she felt safe she tried her heart out.

She has always been trying that hard for me. I just needed Joe's clear, patient, teaching and his explanation of how every time our horse offers us forward movement it is an opportunity. That finally got me to a place where I could give her the chance to show me.

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