Melanie Nilles

Woohoo!

Here’s the video that helped me decide, although I already saw something I couldn’t resist

(I can’t embed the video. I’ve tried.)

Now, to find Star a new home! And in the meantime, I promise to get back on schedule, now that little Lexie’s starting to sleep for me again, and keep up my regular writing posts. Today or tomorrow. I have an interested buyer coming out to see Star tonight. Keep your fingers crossed!

Argh! Shopping for a new horse is near impossible, at least when you live up here in the middle of nowhere. I deleted a post about finding a horse, because now I’m having second thoughts about that one, although he is pretty, because of one flaw that he may not grow out of; a flaw that could hinder how far he goes in dressage.  And his price would put a serious crimp on our efforts to put in a lawn next spring–we have sandy clay and scattered weeds.  Allen may be a great husband for tolerating my horse habit and letting me borrow money to get a horse I really like, but I’m starting to think I should stay with what I can afford to keep him happy.  Ah, well.  Even if I don’t get the yearling, I can save money for other things.
Now, I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs, waiting for more information on each to help me make up my mind.

What I get for selling Star may influence the outcome too, WHEN I sell her.  Now is a bad time of year to sell a horse.
Oh, well! The only way to really get what I want would be to spend more than $10K, but if I had that kind of money, I wouldn’t have an unfinished basement. I will just have to make the best decision I can with what is available to me.

I’m so happy! I have my moody ol’ mare back from her vacation. I’ve lost all but a pound of what I gained in my pregnancy (over 40 lbs!) and all the medical bills are paid. Now I’ve had her back at the boarding stable for a couple weeks. She *insert tongue in cheek* LOVES me right now. Oh, at first I was all right, but when I started making her work again, I turned into the bad guy.

I might have been in good shape, but not riding shape. I was sore after each of the first few rides. I’ve adjusted now, but she still has a long ways to go. She tends to drop her left shoulder and right hip, which makes for some very crooked and unbalanced work, but the longeing is helping with that. It’ll take another month or more to really get her strong again and not falling on her forehand, which is another issue we have to work through. She knows what to do, but she’s lazy. Her workouts consist of lots of circle work to make her balance.

And, I’ve figured out that I don’t want to even really touch on dressage but to focus on the hunter showing in which she excels. She is no dressage horse. Sure, the training has helped us, but it’s not our focus. I’m at a point where I just want to have fun, but I may want to show at the fall BER show coming up and I want a balanced, correctly moving horse. That means we actually have to work.

She hates it But she tries. She doesn’t have much of a choice, and I make the effort painless. It gives us a goal to work towards too, which I need.

Now, to get her slimmed down! She’s off pasture and on a diet now…the fat pig.  If I can do it, so can she.

I’m glad to get back to the old me, and it will help my writing.  You’ll see more horse posts now with updates of what we’re doing.  I used to keep a diary from her perspective, but I quit doing that long ago.  Now, it’s my turn.  My mare and me, a team again.

“There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.” -Winston Churchill

I think everyone has heard that quote before, but it so true. I am to the point of feeling an emptiness without the regular visits to my horse. She may not like me–H***, she heads the other way when she sees me coming or sees anyone coming for that matter. She has no reason to dislike me, but she’s the kind of horse who doesn’t want to be bothered. I still care for her, but we don’t share any special bond. It’s more of an amicable relationship where she goes along for the sake of avoiding an argument. Some horses are like that, mares in particular.

Geldings are my favorite. The boys will give all they have to their human, but geldings usually have a level head. They don’t get excited by other horses the way stallions do and they don’t get hormonal like mares. They want to be your buddy. For that, they make the best war horses, or did when horses were used for warfare.

According to Wikipedia–

“The Scythians are thought to have been the first people to geld their horses. Geldings were once prized by classical steppe warriors for their silence; without mating urges, they were less prone to call out or whinny to other horses, easier to keep in groups, and less likely to fight with one another…

“However, some cultures would not geld male horses, most notably the Arabs. These people usually used mares for everyday work or war, and culled stallions were usually sold away to those in other cultures, who lacked the cultural taboos against gelding them.”

In my fantasy stories, my fighters ride mares and geldings for the logical reasons stated in the Wiki article. When I read a story where it seems like all the knights or warriors are riding stallions, I cringe at the misrepresentation. People have this false notion that warriors would ride stallions when they are the worst mount a warrior could have. Ask any horseperson who has kept a stallion–I have briefly, before they were gelded–and they will tell you that it’s a rare stallion who isn’t difficult to keep.

I warned you I was nitpicky when I read something about horses in fiction stories!

If you ask anyone who knows me personally what the first thing that comes to mind when they hear my name, it’s probably horses. (Any of my friends reading this can verify that in comments or negate it–I don’t really know what goes on in your heads ) At least that’s how it used to be.

I’ve always been an avid horseperson/equestrian. I grew up on a farm/ranch, chased cattle most of my life, and switched to dressage and hunter/jumper after college. I’ve been lucky to have experienced a taste of nearly everything you can do from horseback–playday rodeos, 4-H, trail riding, showing, racing, training–and from ground work–longing, breeding, driving. I have over twenty years experience under my belt from starting out as a city slicker kid who knew nothing to training a young gelding nearly to first level dressage as a four year old (before I sold him because of my pregnancy). I had a lot of bumps and bruises along the way and ribbons and awards.

Nevertheless, you don’t have to interact with horses to learn to understand them. There are riding instructors I’ve heard of with disabillities, but the power of their observation is as good as any instructor who also trains. There may be something lacking, as I know you learn more about observing riding by feel (that is, by doing the riding), but anyone can gain knowledge by watching and listening.

Along those lines I have a big complaint about many writers and those involved in movies when it comes to equine behavior. DO YOUR RESEARCH! I don’t know how many times I’ve sat ready to slam a book across the room because the writer–and it may have been a minor detail to them–wrote something completely screwball. To correct these discrepancies with reality, I will be making regular posts about equine behavior. If you have a question, particularly if you’re writing fiction and using horses–post a comment and I will respond. I can’t stand reading descriptions that tell me the writer has never been around horses in their life.

My biggest pet peeve with Hollywood is their tendency to misuse horse sounds. Horses have very specific sounds, but they are quiet most of the time. Movie sound people have a nasty tendency to throw in a neigh or a whinny when a horse would normally say nothing at all. That drives me insane! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG! *okay, stepping off the soapbox I climbed on without noticing*

When I’m reading, I don’t see the mistakes quite as much. Good writers either do their research or use horses so little that they can’t make a mistake. Bad writers, well, they stand out to me when it comes to horse behavior or riding descriptions. One of the worst errors you can make is the old he/she “kicked the horse in the flanks.” Does the writer know that the flanks are a sensitive area located in the general area where the hind leg meets the body? It is physically impossible for a rider to do this, and if they succeed, they’d likely end up airborne. It’s a sensitive area on horses and they don’t like it. A rider’s leg when properly seated behind the withers (the hinge where the base of the neck and the beginning of the back join, usually raised) will hang behind the girth. This is the optimal position for the rider’s balance and the horse’s center of gravity. Of course, staying on is up to the rider, but it’s easiest in that position.

Those are the two biggest things I’ve noticed recently. I’ll add more as they stand out, but I don’t get much time to read. For good horse books, look up Walter Farley or Terri Farley, Margurite Henry, or Anna Sewell.