another posting from the far shores of equine weirdness, though I have to say despite the obvious continuity issues, I rather like this. I'd rather look at him than our Katie any day.
And I want those boots.
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Anonymous said…
Gosh.
I'm really not sure what the pop-cultural implications of that might be.
Anonymous said…
That would be one of those dressage tests with only rising trot, canter transitions, and then a big jump at the end. He gets points for a wearing a helmet though.
Susanna - neither am I. Bearing in mind he's just been on Top Gear, the mind boggles. Anonymous - and at least he didn't do a Katie Price with his riding clothes. Bowleserised - could be! Gillian - I think it was certainly him landing after a jump, but not THAT jump - whoever did that did it very well!
I hadn't seen the Grace video. Will Young and horses in the same film. How fabulous, thank you for that!!..I can just imagine my horses looking like that (not) as I retrieve them from the field.
It's been a shamefully long time since I did a review. My fellow reviewer will not be contributing to this. I made the fatal mistake of buying her the first two Georgia Nicholson books, and so all hope was lost as far as horsey book reviewing went. Added to that, she is now off in Germany on her school trip, wildly excited as this is the first time she has been Abroad. She was so full of whoomph she managed to get up effortlessly at 3.00 am on Wednesday so we could get to Kettering in time for the 4.15 am start. Although I am definitely a lark, and usually wake at 5.00 am at this time of year, 3.00 am was pushing it a little, particularly as I didn't sleep well, being too petrified of oversleeping and missing the off..... despite having own mobile, son's and husband's all set for a 3.00 am alarm call. When son did this trip (though it was France in his case) one of his friends did miss the coach, and so his mother chased it down the M1 before finally catching up at...
I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou...
Here's a clip of Dick Sparrow driving 40 horses. It's an amazing sight, particularly when the shot changes to show the team from the rear and you get the great incongruity of modern American corporate architecture as a background to the wagon and horses. I love the anticipation in the video: the sense of something amazing being just round the corner is palpable. Thanks to Christina Wilsdon for telling me about this world record 46 Percheron hitch (alas just stills) but you get the idea.
Comments
I'm really not sure what the pop-cultural implications of that might be.
He gets points for a wearing a helmet though.
I'm tempted to think that it was actually him taking the jump, because he was on the horse's neck afterwards.
Anonymous - and at least he didn't do a Katie Price with his riding clothes.
Bowleserised - could be!
Gillian - I think it was certainly him landing after a jump, but not THAT jump - whoever did that did it very well!