It's been too cold for me to ride for the past week, which is too bad...I was hoping for a New Year's Day ride.
(But I did turn Lim loose in the indoor arena on New Year's Eve and play 'tag' with her, excited snorting, flagged tail, flying arena sand and all!)
Of course, you don't need to ride in order to have fun with your horse. Yesterday I went on a run that took me by the barn and of course, I had to stop in and see Lim.
She was turned out when I arrived.
Look at that blanket all askew! She, and the rest of the herd, were dozing in the sun.
So I wouldn't spook her, I kissed at her from the doorway. She turned her head and looked at me, eyes wide.
Hey, it's you!
I went into the pasture and stood by her in the sun. She was glad to see me. I rubbed her fuzzy neck and forehead then scratched her withers beneath her blanket. I tried to get a picture of her but each time I backed away a couple steps so she would fill the frame, she would walk towards me and give me a nudge or curiously nibble my Blackberry.
Finally, I got a picture.
After chatting with Lim and more wither scratching, and her nuzzling me (including my head), my sweaty self was getting cold beneath my layers so I had to leave. When I ducked back beneath the bar blocking the pasture door, she followed me and watched me leave until I was out of sight. Awwww!
Bye bye, baby, I'll see you later tonight for your dinner!
I've been having a lot of good rides on Limerick in the indoor arena. She has been wonderful! She even passed the ultimate test last week: a solitary ride while heavy, wet snow slid off the roof of the indoor arena, over and over and over.
Normally that would mean tension, explosiveness, a frightened horse, and a ride cut short. But with the sheepskin ear puffs, while she did look up at the ceiling a couple times, she remained calm and relaxed, and all it took was my hand on her neck for her to drop her head back down and sigh.
I was nothing short of stunned and amazed. I was so proud of her!
I've always wanted to ride her in the snow but until now I never gave it more than a passing thought. But her wonderful attitude as of late is giving me more and more confidence and I have begun to wait for the perfect moment.
Picture this:
A few inches of snow on the ground, a sunny clear day, the air crisp and cold but without a biting wind.
In those conditions I want to ride her in the outdoor arena a few times, and, from there if she remains good, maybe we will try the trails!
Unfortunately there isn't always snow on the ground, and when there is, about half the time the wind is so harsh that it numbs any exposed skin. And there's the matter of daylight hours--it is completely dark by the time I get out of work, so obviously this will need to be done on the weekends...or perhaps, under a full moon on a cloudless night. Wouldn't that be cool?
I just need to wait for the right moment, and in the meantime continue enjoying the great rides on my wonderful, fuzzy mare!
She didn't want to work. But that was okay--I didn't, either. Yet I wanted more.
Content with trotting on a long rein, she again asked if we could transition down to a trot. Not yet, Limerick. I squeezed the reins in my hands and she gave me more power. Her canter was strong and effortless, easy to sit.
Just like Tuesday's ride, I was again reminded of my first few rides on her nearly 14 years ago.
I softened my grip on the reins and she slowed. Trot now? Not yet, Limerick. I squeezed the reins again and she gave me even more power. Another gear up, longer strides. The short side of the arena approached quickly.
She laid it out for me--I have more power, I can go faster, and here... She rocketed out of the short side of the arena, faster and faster. It was like being behind the wheel of a sports car. As she cantered, I sensed that despite the strength behind her stride, we had not yet touched the bottom of her reservoir.
I lightened my grip of the reins by a feather and immediately she dropped down to a long fast trot. I let the reins slide through my hands to the buckle and her neck lengthened, her nose reaching down eagerly.
I knew the wind howled about outside...yet she was not bothered. Is it the ear puffs? The quarter sheet? The pure bliss I had in being on her back?
The vet diagnosed Limerick with mild cataracts in her left eye. While Lim can still see out of that eye, her vision is a bit altered. Due to her sensitive nature, she is reacting to this more strongly than you'd expect your average horse to. I understand perfectly...and this is where the sheepskin ear puffs come in.
With them in, she can hear but sounds that normally make her paranoid and anxious during a ride are muffled or unheard. These ear puffs, these $4.95 pieces of equipment, have been more of a blessing to us than I ever expected...I wish I had found them sooner.
These, combined with the unusual fluidity of her stride as of late (you guessed it--she's consuming all her supplements now!) have made for some wonderful rides.
At the start of this year I had some long-term plans. One of them included showing Limerick. I haven't quite abandoned those plans, but it's fair to say that they are on the back-burner for now. We're just enjoying our rides...we aren't working. I know Limerick could churn out a blue-ribbon Green As Grass test if I asked but I don't feel like asking, and I know she doesn't feel like doing it.
They enter the final turn and I hold my breath. My pounding heart fades away into the background. This is it.
There is no clear path. Can she do it? My heart jumps into my throat. My eyes burn hotly.
Then there it is! Like the strike of a great black panther, her long, strong body stretches out into her tremendous trademark move. I am vaguely aware of other horses in front of her shuffling into position. She is larger than life and she blows by them like they are nothing—the best colts and horses in the world, the most stellar Classic field in years, if not ever. They are nothing to her!
She powers down the stretch along the inside, and my heart is bursting within my throat, and Mike Smith guides her around a wall of horseflesh, and she is now on the outside, undaunted, ears pricked joyfully, opening her long dark legs up into ground-eating strides, and tears flow down my face as she flies beneath the wire the very picture of a horse thrilling in her own epic strength.
Even I can hear the roar of the Santa Anita crowd through the setting California sun as she gallops out beneath Mike Smith, her swan-like neck high, ears up, let’s do it again.
Beneath Zenyatta on the television screen, I see the time—2:00 and change. It barely registers. My husband hugs me and I hold him tight. The emotions of the past 18 months are at a peak and the tears flow harder.
We are at the OTB off Butterfield Road, watching the horses load into the gate for the 2008 Apple Blossom. I am here to see a bright chestnut mare named Ginger Punch. My husband has told me of an undefeated tall, dark filly named Zenyatta running in the same race, so I watch her, too. The Apple Blossom is her fourth start.
I admit that at the time, I am a bitter horse-racing fan. Years of disappointment after disappointment have veiled my hopes of ever seeing a true legend in dark clouds.
But on that day, the clouds part just a bit. In a single tremendous move from behind, the tall, dark filly defeats my favorite with neck high and ears forward, running free and easy. Zenyatta…who is this Zenyatta? In her, I see something that I have only seen in grainy old videos of the reigning Queen of the Turf, Ruffian—a dark breathtaking graceful filly so fleet of foot that in every race, at every pole, she was in front, flying like the wingless Pegasus she was.
And so, began my love affair with a second tall, dark filly—a modern-day Ruffian named Zenyatta.
I dreamt of her. Following my personal superstition, I refused to bet her races. My heart pounded hard at the start of her races, and at the end, I would breathe a deep sigh of relief. As the wins racked up, these sighs turned into shaky breaths, then tears of joy. With every win, the clouds parted even further.
By the time the 2008 Breeder’s Cup Ladies Classic was done and won, I was convinced she was the greatest filly of all time, after Ruffian.
It is said that in 1973, the great golfer Jack Nicklaus fell to his knees and wept as he watched Secretariat win the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths in record-shattering time. Upon inquiring Haywood Hale Brown as to why he had such a reaction, Brown responded, “Jack, your whole life is a quest for perfection, and you saw it in the Belmont, and it moved you.”
Thirty-six years later, I understand perfectly. For on the evening of Saturday, November 7, 2009, I saw perfection, and it moved me.
Last year on Halloween I went for one of the best rides of my life on Limerick. It was a beautiful day--crisp, clear, the skies blue, the leaves falling and all shades of red, gold, and brown.
Two other boarders and I rode our horses across the street to the forest preserve. We were out there for hours and Limerick, normally a nervous nellie on the trails, was wonderful. Honestly, it is really one of the best memories of my life.
Among the trees, in the quiet woods, on my horse.
I wish I could do it again tomorrow. But while I won't be on a trail ride, I will be riding for the first time in a month! Yes, that's right, a month. I feel like a bad horse mom. I feed Lim every evening, as usual, groom her five days a week, and pick her feet every day.
But I just haven't been able to ride. Early in the month, the weather was very bad on the nights I wanted to ride. Then during the next two weeks, I was almost afraid to ride--not because Limerick was being misbehaving--but because I really didn't want to risk falling and injuring myself so soon before my ultra-marathon on October 17.
Then, thanks to running said ultra-marathon with a cold, I developed bronchitis and was just very run down and exhausted, and it took all my energy to just get out to the barn and groom Lim. Riding was out of the question, especially since I knew she wouldn't give me an easy time of it!
I've also been having problems with some sort of food sensitivity. I can't quite figure out what the culprit is, but when I eat it, it just wipes me out for the day. Then there's my stiff, knotty neck.
I had been planning to ride yesterday. I lunged Limerick on Tuesday with the ear puffs in, and she was soooogood, she relaxed her tail and stretched her neck out long and low. But during work yesterday my neck started to bother me. I happened to feel a tight tendon on the front of my neck and after looking at it the office bathroom mirror, I became queasy. I have a thing about abnormal-looking tendons in people...particularly if they happen to be on me, and painful!
I want conditions to be just right for my first ride in so long. So I tearfully decided not to ride. I groomed Limerick instead, and she was so sweet to me.
She has a routine vet exam tomorrow morning (eye exam, radiographs of her left fore, possibly discussing the arthritis in her left hock), then I plan on riding in the late afternoon. Hopefully everything falls into place this time!
