Dressage is an essentially individual activity unsullied by the team ethic that infects such real sports as cricket and rugby. It really is every man/woman for him/herself. As a THF you can soon get into the swing of things where “good luck” means “hope that pheasant hops out at D again”, and “lovely new horse” means unprintable things about another THF. The sense of anticipation as a particular rival enters the arena in a high wind is especially acute, akin to the show jumping ring where “oh bad luck” signifies 3 fences down, a refusal and a merry jig behind the horse box. There are of course teams in dressage but, other than those put together through patronage etc for national/international purposes, these tend to be impervious circles of acolytes revolving round a rider and combining grooms, family (to the extent not watching TV at home) THF and other supporters, each circle oblivious to other revolving circles floating like schools of jelly fish around a show, intersecting only occasionally at the score board for the “oh well done” (for meaning see above). Dressage is of course intensely personal, and plays on the paranoia of participants who are constantly subject to the vagaries of horse behaviour, conditions and the extraordinary and incomprehensible vicissitudes of judges.
Hot Topics
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Who to Sell?
Here is the judgment of Solomon, given that as we know any sale is a betrayal of a long term family member however redundant and annoying they may objectively be. Indeed many Funded would contemplate extreme measures rather than risking an horrendous chain of onward sale in a downward spiral to the knackers yard. And […]
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Buyers
There are buyers and “buyers”. As soon as a horse is on the market there is a peculiar class of horse lover determined to check the horse out (to compare with their own) other horses at the yard and the yard itself. These are buyers” (aka time wasters). Most sound and are plausible, and probably […]
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Life after Ponies
As children get older it is easy to forget the extraordinary blissful state of life without [Name that pony/young rider organisation]. A brief and passing re-acquaintance with the world through family friends however soon brings back the horror that finds the Funder in the bar and the Funded on the couch as the vortex of […]
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Success
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, […]
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More Shoes
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 […]
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