Tag Archives: equestrian

Success

9 Mar

A sad thing about success is that in addition to it breeding jealousy, it also breeds inevitable sale, which also breeds gossip (which horse people are especially good at and enjoy).

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a really successful horse is for sale at the right price; this is after all a business, but with desperate buyers demanding ready-made success at any price (it being boring and difficult to train your own) for their vaguely talented offspring/pet professional/or patriotic pride. Whilst true that you cannot win without the right horse the alacrity with which people can throw their money at success without thought or care to how it looks to others remains extraordinary. Actually they do not care as when you win all that is forgotten and no-one else cares either, and as long as everyone knows how much you spent and where you got it, heaven help the judge who marks you down.

Post Championship fervour will no doubt result in the socialistic redistribution of talent and wealth across the globe. And much fun for the rumour mongers.

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More Shoes

27 Dec

OMG. I thought that all that could have been said about shoes had been. How foolish a Funder!

Accepting that it is simply impossible to get shoeing right (and trust me the level of abject and desperate misery that shoeing can drive the Funded to knows no bounds), it is nonetheless wholly in the spirit of the shoemaker to Imelda Marco that I take my hat off to the latest fad of rubberised stick-ons. What could be better for a horse than no nails. Well, first they give all farriers another opportunity to suck their teeth and say that it is simply impossible to shoe X until they have had more growth and in the meantime a rubber stick on has to be the answer. If only the Funded had come to them first and not their competitor (the reason usually being of course the recommendation of a very important “name” or vet). So the conversation goes ” whoever did this cut off too much [hoof/heel/toe] and it is now too [long/short/low/high], and definitely not “balanced”]. Sadly without the new [very expensive] stick on shoe and lots of remediation this [very expensive] horse will suffer [immediate/lingering] death from [navicular/laminitis/pedal bone drop(whatever that is)/etc etc].

How fortunate it is that such a marvellous remedy can be applied. A phenomenon at half the price…………..until the wretched beast has the temerity to wear it in a [muddy] field, and off it comes.

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Beware the friendly Adviser

1 Nov

The extraordinary level of jealousy, prurience and plain bitchiness which imbues the dressage world cannot help but amaze the Funder. The lengths to which “friendly” advisers will go to put down and undermine the funded, to their faces or behind their back are legion and bemusing.

Examples –

[to the Funded’s face, having just had unprecedented and unheard of success at a high level]

– “of course the judges in the non-international GP can never spot good riding/rider/horse anyway”

-” Who’d want to be judged by X anyway” [X being a former international rider list 1 judge who just happened to give the Funded a high mark]

[behind the back – but reported by another friendly adviser – of a funded who has just spent 10 years training a horse from 2 to GP!]

– ” she’s just a lady who lunches” [like there is any time for lunch]

All designed in a classic level of insecure bullying to reduce the self-esteem of the Funded, keep her in her place and stir noxious and debilitating rumour. Because the dressage world is so insecure, reliant as it is on whim, soundness, hierarchy and money, maintaining this insecurity suits those (nearly) at the top. Interestingly those who have really made it don’t seem to need this – some of them even talk to a Funder. It is the 2nd tier wannabees who haven’t and won’t make it to the top who really make trouble and make me sick.

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