Last horse show, Let's Show Halloween Rancho Murieta. over Halloween weekend, of course. Seven horses, 2 fabulous grooms and one hard working trainer. Girls: Princess, Junebug, Fiona. and Fan Fair. Boys: Capote, Otto and Samson. Mixed rings, hunters, jumpers and equitation. Weather: rain and cold to quite warm. The usual expansive California experience compressed into a week.
But my question remains, how do they do it? Remember Woody Allen's movie, Zelig, where he physically becomes like the people he is with? He has no independent identity. When he is with deeply religious Jews, a funny hat and beard magically develop. He is considered the human chameleon. Neurotic? Psychotic? Extreme example of a normal human tenancy to want to fit in? All considerations are up for grabs.
Back to Let's Show Halloween. Here I am, the diligent student watching very accomplished pros do there work. Here we have Jill Humphrey looking positively relaxed and nonchalant in a meter thirty class. There we have Hope Glyn loping to a gap in the hunter ring. I ask again, how do they do it? So I put it to the test. Round after round in the 3'3" hunter ring, I slowed down and aimed for the nice bascules. Finally, Princess said, "Enough of this," and chipped and added a stride. Bobble, popup, ugly.
Fortunately, we had another round immediately following that debacle. I reversed into super safe amateur mode, having 105% of the energy needed for any contingency, a little over the pace and over the power, but any distance was doable. 8 fences, no adds, no bobbles, nice recovery. Fun sport, but darn hard to get all moving parts in sync.
