Why the seventh day, you ask? That's when God was supposed to be resting. Up to the seventh day, God had seen that everything He'd made was good. All the creations got "SATISFACTORY" on their report cards. My friends, the horse is not good. The horse is heaven made flesh, the grand finale.I spent the past two days volunteering at the Rolex 3 Day Eventing Cup, held at the beautiful Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. Of the three events that lend the Cup its name - dressage, stadium jumping, and cross country - I saw only the dressage, and several exhibitions between.Dressage is more than polished horse dancing. With roots in martial maneuvers, modern dressage is really an Associates Degree in General Education for any horse. It teaches him/her how to balance and carry himself, how to relax and communicate with his rider through seat, leg, and hand aids. Dressage aims to take the horse's best natural movement, refine it, and replicate it under saddle.Thousands of years ago, on nearly every continent on earth, some guy saw one of those four-legged "big dogs" flowing across the ground, truly "flying without wings", and said, "I bet I can ride that." And "the world was conquered from the back of the horse".The Purina booth had a sign saying "A HOME FOR EVERY HORSE". That is a nice dream, but it will never be a reality. The number of ex-racehorses looking for adoptive homes is by itself astounding. As I drove through the rolling bluegrass this morning I found myself wondering if horses weren't better off when we were riding them into war. We needed them, so we treated them better. Until the 20th century, stealing one horse would get you hanged! Sure, warfare is a grisly end, but more horses died useful and less of well-intentioned neglect.Don't eviscerate me just yet....Even the cultures who worshipped the horse drank fermented mare's milk, ate horse flesh, and wore horsehide. Is it possible the horse was put here for us to exploit?Certainly the horse is used as a sign of wealth and status today! They sell for about a dollar a pound for meat...and fetch millions of dollars for the whisper of a promise in a genealogy chart and a one minute turn in a ring. Nods to equine themes sell for a mint in the fashion world. I suppose one could argue that even the $7 funnel cakes and $15 sodas sold this weekend are because of horses. And who sponsors the event? Rolex. Horses, money, prestige.At the top of a lush grassy hill overlooking this week's chaos, the Hall of Champions holds twice-daily shows. I went to the first show this morning to see the first horse I ever followed, the first whose photos I cut out of the paper...the reason I fell in love with Thoroughbreds.
He strode into the ring with 23 years of experience, slightly bored by the routine of adoration, alternately yawning and vogueing for the cameras. His variegated tail swung near his three white socks and the morning sun shone bronze on his dappled bay coat. He looked at once like any other horse (80% of Thoroughbreds are bay) and like my every girlhood fantasy come to life, Equus incarnate. 16-1 record. A Thoroughbred god. I cried. I cried like my mother cries in movies. When the show was over I hung around. I wanted to have a moment to myself, a moment I could look him in the eye and say, "Thank you for my life."
Standing reverently in front of his stall (still weeping for reasons I could not explain), thrilled to be pointedly ignored by a celebrity on my bucket list, I heard a woman behind me ask, "Would you like us to get him out for you?"
Did the single loss come against Alphabet Soup?!?!?! (The answer is yes.)
Which is how, aside from a loitering foreign photographer, I spent a blissful ten minutes alone scratching, petting, cooing to, and having my photo taken with Cigar.Horses exist to bring us joy. They exist to remind us what it's like to live moment by moment, to feel with our whole selves, to temper our weaknesses and do what we were put on the earth to do. Dozens of vendors are selling overpriced artificial aids and fancy tack, $450 boots, $300 coats, and $60 sweatshirts. $100 umbrellas, $2000 used stall doors. None of it will make people better riders. I got two autographs (US Eventing Olympian Boyd Miller and god of riding William Fox-Pitt), met wonderful people, and gained a lot of inspiration. That won't make me a better rider either. The only way to be better is to honor my horse as intently as we honor the cult of equistrianism.The horse is built like a girder; in the proper position it's quite difficult to fall off, but the horse is only able to carry weight over a certain section of his body. He is powerful, fast, tall, savage, and he knows it. He is curious, a herd animal who mistrusts the unknown and hates being alone. Those traits are why horse and rider bond so easily. Yet with all his physical prowess the horse molds himself to any task we set, from war or sports to police work and disability service ponies. They adapt to every rider, sold throughout their lives to adapt over and over to new feed, new herd hierarchies, new tack, new work. Sometimes they learn to retire gracefully. Sometimes they cope, just trying to get by.As a girl I wanted to be reincarnated as a filly trained by Carl Nafzger and bred to Cigar. If I'd had my wish I would only have seen him once. Thanks to Rolex I can see him every year. Thanks to Cigar, I have horses. Thanks to Rolex, I'm reminded why."Thou shalt fly without wings...."
He strode into the ring with 23 years of experience, slightly bored by the routine of adoration, alternately yawning and vogueing for the cameras. His variegated tail swung near his three white socks and the morning sun shone bronze on his dappled bay coat. He looked at once like any other horse (80% of Thoroughbreds are bay) and like my every girlhood fantasy come to life, Equus incarnate. 16-1 record. A Thoroughbred god. I cried. I cried like my mother cries in movies. When the show was over I hung around. I wanted to have a moment to myself, a moment I could look him in the eye and say, "Thank you for my life."
Standing reverently in front of his stall (still weeping for reasons I could not explain), thrilled to be pointedly ignored by a celebrity on my bucket list, I heard a woman behind me ask, "Would you like us to get him out for you?"
Did the single loss come against Alphabet Soup?!?!?! (The answer is yes.)
Which is how, aside from a loitering foreign photographer, I spent a blissful ten minutes alone scratching, petting, cooing to, and having my photo taken with Cigar.Horses exist to bring us joy. They exist to remind us what it's like to live moment by moment, to feel with our whole selves, to temper our weaknesses and do what we were put on the earth to do. Dozens of vendors are selling overpriced artificial aids and fancy tack, $450 boots, $300 coats, and $60 sweatshirts. $100 umbrellas, $2000 used stall doors. None of it will make people better riders. I got two autographs (US Eventing Olympian Boyd Miller and god of riding William Fox-Pitt), met wonderful people, and gained a lot of inspiration. That won't make me a better rider either. The only way to be better is to honor my horse as intently as we honor the cult of equistrianism.The horse is built like a girder; in the proper position it's quite difficult to fall off, but the horse is only able to carry weight over a certain section of his body. He is powerful, fast, tall, savage, and he knows it. He is curious, a herd animal who mistrusts the unknown and hates being alone. Those traits are why horse and rider bond so easily. Yet with all his physical prowess the horse molds himself to any task we set, from war or sports to police work and disability service ponies. They adapt to every rider, sold throughout their lives to adapt over and over to new feed, new herd hierarchies, new tack, new work. Sometimes they learn to retire gracefully. Sometimes they cope, just trying to get by.As a girl I wanted to be reincarnated as a filly trained by Carl Nafzger and bred to Cigar. If I'd had my wish I would only have seen him once. Thanks to Rolex I can see him every year. Thanks to Cigar, I have horses. Thanks to Rolex, I'm reminded why."Thou shalt fly without wings...."
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