These are the first Cavalia videos that I have come across, so I wanted to share them… to be in Denver in September, and San Francisco later in year. As I’ve said before, this extravaganza is the most amazing thing I have ever seen done with horses. I seriously want to see it again– and HorseGal can’t wait!
in Charlotte NC last May
Florida in March
It certainly appears that many folks have been sneaking in their cameras into performances! (When I went in 2005 in Boston it was not allowed.)
promo for American tour, apparently Atlanta in Oct. 2009.
Elko, NV (July 8, 2010)— Over 1,400 federally-protected wild mustangs are to be rounded up beginning July 9, in the Tuscarora area of Elko County Nevada during the hottest month of the year. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is violating their own set-protocol for waiting six weeks after the main foaling season, defined as March 1-June 30, so that young foals can escape the inherent danger of a high-heat summer roundup. BLM will dispatch privately contracted choppers to run the Tuscarora mustangs over miles of rugged terrain in a taxpayer-funded roundup expected to last three weeks and result in the removal of some 1,100 mustangs. Only last month, Oregon BLM wild horse managers postponed a planned roundup that would have started the day after foaling season—opting to begin instead in mid-August for the horses’ safety.
“If allowed to go forward this will be a massacre,” states Anne-Marie Pinter who rode the Pony Express Race through the area on her Spanish Mustang and saw small foals. “It is covered with razor-sharp, volcanic rock that will rip up the feet of these poor foals. Before riding the area, our event veterinarian strongly recommended that we put thick rubber boots over the metal shoes of our horses—the rocks are that treacherous. We experienced triple digit temperatures and had to constantly work at keeping our horses hydrated. I can’t even imagine the toll on terrified small foals and even the adult animals at the hottest time of the year. This amounts to horrible animal cruelty and no one will know what is going on because BLM has closed the area, even the roads.”
Last winter, during the deadliest BLM roundup in memory in the Calico Mountains of Northwestern Nevada, at least two 6-9 month foals suffered a horrible death. Their hooves literally separated from their leg bones after running over similar terrain. Yet, BLM justified the dead-of-winter roundup by stating in their Environment Assessment: “Fall and winter time-frames are much less stressful to foals than summer gathers. Not only are young foals in summer months more prone to dehydration and complications from heat stress, the handling, sorting and transport is a stress to the young animals and increases the chance for them to be rejected by their mothers. By gathering wild horses during the winter, stress associated with summer gathers can be avoided.”
“Let’s be honest. What is driving these roundups has very little to do with concern for vulnerable foals and everything to do with contractor availability and using up taxpayer money before the end of fiscal year 2010,” states Cloud Foundation Director, Ginger Kathrens, who has spent over 16 years documenting the lives of wild horse families. “With only two helicopter contractors available to round up the horses, scheduling becomes tricky, especially when the goal is the removal of 6,000 wild horses before the end of September. So, the rush to rid the land of mustangs trumps humane treatment. Disgusting.”
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Read more at theCloudFoundation.org
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Lucky Glen and Gilford (or maybe they wouldn’t think so…!) We have a new friend in Gilford, Iuliia from the Ukraine, who has offered to come ride and exercise them approximately weekly. She has come twice so far, and she is an experienced rider.
Iuliia on Gilford
She is getting used to him, and he to her
and she is getting used to riding again after not getting to for a while!
Iuliia (sort of pronounced like Julia) has ridden jumpers, dressage, and exercised race horses before. She has told me that in Ukraine people can ride at government-sponsored stables for free, thus she has ridden since age 7!!! Can you IMAGINE!
Glen was pretty greener in some ways than what she has known before…
but she got the hang of him!
Not a bad afternoon’s work! Do you think she enjoyed it?
Iuliia is in town for the summer working at our local farm stand.
ONE LAST RIDE…
Guess what!! There’s a THREE step mounting block tonight!! woo hoo!!! Talk about making it easy to get on Gilford! I just had to literally step into the stirrup and I’m there! This is great!
Mounting up… hooray for mounting blocks!
Now on to the important stuff: Tonight’s ride was ok, but, once again, I’m hugely disappointed in myself. I was very stiff cantering which doesn’t help poor Gilford. I was also tired because it had been a very busy month with the boys and tonight it was uncomfortably warm, but those are just excuses for me to blame my not-very-good riding on. Therefore, I am not happy at all with myself. I KNOW I can do this, if I can just relax. Once again, those nerves are jangling.
More practice at not being afraid
We walked, trotted and cantered. But I am not collected at all. I’m stiff and I can feel I’m not relaxed. Emmie can see it. There are times where I get so tired of being nervous and worried, that I actually can say to myself, “ok, Horse Gal, if you fall, you fall. Just enjoy the ride.” When I can do this is when I have the best rides. That’s when I’m calm in the saddle and when riding is everything I want it to be. But it’s that letting go that I rarely can do.
The boys are leaving tomorrow and I’m not happy with myself. I have not accomplished what I set out to do, which was to try to make at least some progress towards learning to conquer my fear. I knew I would not be able to conquer it 100% as that will take a long time, but still, I was hoping for some little shred of progress.
A fond farewell
So, how would I sum up camp with the boys?…
Well, for starters I got to ride Gilford a lot!! Before camp, I’d only been on him once and that was two years ago and only for a few minutes. And did I ever get attached to him this time. He’s now my new riding horse when I’m up at Connie’s (if that’s ok with Connie, of course!!)
I had to work when riding him in an effort to help him to do what I wanted. That was new to me and exhausting (more mental than physical). But it was also a great way for me to learn to ride a horse that is young and still has some learning to do. It was fun to learn from Emmie what I needed to do to get Gil to flex at his poll, to keep him forward, etc. All things I’ve never had to before.
Cantering from a trot was also new for me. Basically, with Gilford, I couldn’t just get on and go for the ride like I do on my lesson horse or when I ride a more experienced horse. Even though I wished I could have ridden better and made more progress, I don’t regret a minute of it. Gil is young (he’ll be 7 next month), but he’s such a good boy and so willing. And he needed my help to aid him because there is a lot he hasn’t yet learned.
So, I was trying to teach him a few things while learning a few things myself at the same time and that is a lot of work! And Emmie was teaching ALL of us!!! Gilford is not a push button horse. He also had to put up with a nervous Nellie on his back. I can only imagine how much I confused him at times.
I got to have Emmie as an instructor and to ride with her! Emmie is one of my heroes in my horse world.
I talked in the beginning about trust being the key in overcoming fear. Do I trust Gilford? After having ridden him several times, I trust him if I’m riding in a controlled environment (i.e. paddock) vs. on a trail. And that’s more than I did before summer camp! At first I was worried because he is young – would he be easy to spook? I found that Gilford is laid back and calm for a young guy!
But, he, after all, is still pretty young and doesn’t have the experience his Momma mare has. I also know that Emmie and Connie would never allow me to ride a horse they felt was not safe for me and my abilities, so that helped my confidence level. They both know Gilford better than anyone else. And they know me. I think that as Gilford gets older, he’ll become even calmer.
As a result of riding Gilford, my riding lessons have become much better! As you know, I was having a terrible time with my nerves, because of a fall Mighty had taken with me on him last October. Six months later, I still was having a rough time. Every time he stumbled or tripped I was sure we were going down. But, I have felt my confidence coming back - meaning I’m learning to TRUST him again and my last three lessons have felt so good.
I still get apprehensive if he (or any horse) stumbles, because I keep thinking we’re going down, but with Mighty, my confidence, in spite of any stumbles he may take, has really come back. and my take on that is this: if I was able to ride a young horse like Gilford who still has things to learn, isn’t push button and was a new horse for me to ride, then riding a horse that I ride lesson after lesson and in a controlled indoor setting SHOULD feel a lot easier. And it is!!!
I’m so excited about that. It’s a step in the right direction, don’t you think? Yes, I know it’s a push button lesson horse and yes, it’s in a controlled setting, but still it’s something I’d lost all my confidence in; I am feeling so much better and confident about it than I have since last October. Before October, while I have fallen before, never had I been on a horse that fell. I went flying over his head.
Glendale and Gilford say goodbye to summer camp
It’s been so upsetting for me to be struggling at my lesson. I still have a long way to go when riding on someone else’s horse and riding on a trail, but just getting my confidence at SOMETHING feels so good. (Note: I guess I can take back what I said earlier which was that I hadn’t made any progress. I DID make some progress… woo hoo!!)
PROLOGUE:
I got to ride Gilford with Connie and Glendale in one of their pastures up in NH last weekend! I also used an Australian saddle for the first time and I really liked it! Because we were riding in a pasture that Gilford knows like he knows like the back of his hoof and not on a trail, I felt pretty comfortable! We did some patterns, rode over rails and weaved between “cones,” and I really did feel confident and secure.
It’s one step at a time for me – slow and easy. It’s a battle of emotions and nerves and not easy. I will never lose all apprehension; but if I can at least learn to loosen up enough so that I can enjoy riding without the nerves in being in control, then I will be happy. It also helps to have whomever I happen to be riding with knowing what/how I’m feeling.
[NOTE FROM PEACHES:Seems to me like Horse Gal made GOOD progress, just not in the way she was expecting! Riding Gilford has given her more confidence on her lesson horses! Besides, she so ENJOYED riding Gilford this last time in his pasture, and that's what it's really all about!]
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Coming next in the final installment of this series: Some helpful tips from Horse and Rider magazine on conquering your fear. These tips are especially helpful if you are a horse owner and can focus on you and your own horse. That’s the ideal situation to help work on conquering fear.
But even if you are like me and ride other people’s horses and don’t have your own horse that you can focus on, you will still find many of H&R’s tips helpful. I also found that their descriptions of fear when riding were right on the money. I can’t wait to share them with you! I found out that I am not alone with this problem!
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See other Fear of Riding posts by Horse Gal
After owning and having a horse live with you for 18 years, it is hard to contemplate a different arrangement. Yet it came to our minds in the last couple of years that our mare Willy, the mother of Gilford and Glendale, was not getting used when we went off carriage-driving the boys, and that she was just too nice a mare to be wasting her years of experience and her wonderful disposition by hanging out in a pasture.
What was happening was that we just couldn’t seem to find the time for her. Firstly, when driving her sons together, we could only carry the pair plus their carriage in the horse trailer. The second thing was that both the boys were needing more under-saddle training (our daughter taking them one month of the year was very helpful but obviously not enough, and I was finding some time to ride/train the youngster Glendale but not enough either.) So, although I’m pretty sure that Willy didn’t much mind hanging out at home with her boyfriends over the fence while we were away, it just seemed a shame to only pony her locally behind our carriage once in a while.
Visiting Willy momma mare
One other thing we hoped might happen was that the boys might become more bonded to each other without Willy around, and thus work even better together as a pair. So I began a quest to find a free-lease situation for her where she would be exercised more and treated kindly. It was not easy to find a place for the mare– even for free– simply because there are so many horses out there these days looking for new homes, but we managed to find a really nice lady to take her for light trail riding and as a companion horse to her gelding. She was then located almost an hour and a half away.
Trimming the mare’s hooves when she’s in a sleepy mode!
Willy was in this new home for 2 1/2 months. I got to go visit her, continued to trim her feet, and even took Horse Gal along to visit her too (poor Horse Gal was upset to see Willy leave the Moses herd!) It was tough for me too, even though it was for the mare’s own good– but when I went to visit her it hit home how much I really did miss having her around. About that time an owner/instructor of a local Gilford barn approached me with renewed interest in Willy, which she had expressed previously but just hadn’t been able to work out at the time. This time she definitely wanted the mare, if possible, and had more than one young girl at her barn who was interested in half-leasing her.
Horse (Gal) love!
So, thanks to a very understanding Free-Leaser No. 1, I recently moved Willy back into Gilford where she is five minutes away from us with Free-Leaser No. 2, my riding instructor who helps me with Glendale. Here she will have a second life as a “show” horse at the barn shows, be able to teach some younger girls how to ride better, and will be doted on and fawned over by the barn rats who hang out at all horse stables. AND, not only is she just down the road from me now, but Horse Gal AND daughter Emmie will get to visit her whenever they come into town, because she is not so far away.
lovely Willy mare
And what does Willy think about all this? Honestly, she has done just about everything in her 24 years (the folks at the barn couldn’t believe she was “that old”) and she just takes things in stride. So long as she has a friend to bond with, a paddock to move around in, and occasional green grass to enjoy, she is quiet and content. In fact, the mare is a people-lover as she always has been, and is most happy when she persuades anyone near her to scratch her cute butt. She has no shortage of butt-scratchers now!
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THANKS TO Horse Gal for these pictures!
