Here I am!! In sunny, sandy Aiken SC -- Our hunting adventure!!

[Hunter_s_Rest]

You know it. You can feel it. You can see it in photographs. You intuitively realize it.
But when someone points it out, it still smarts.
I joined Jackie in today’s Jean Luc Cornille dressage/biomechanics lesson (she was worried about an hour of sitting trot by herself, so asked me to come, too.) I selected Pb to bring to the clinic, since I could use some help learning how to best work with his deficiencies. (He ‘leans’ terrifically on my right rein, and has a good bit of trouble picking up his right lead. I assume it means he’s crooked/weak to the right.) From last night’s interesting lecture by Jean Luc (former chief rider at the French Cadre Noir, their national riding school), I knew the answers might not be what I wanted to hear, but I liked his teaching style from the lessons we watched yesterday, and I looked forward to his input.
We arrived at the appointed time, and Jean Luc had us (me on Pb, Jackie on Oscar) do a little walk and trot so he could see where we were in terms of horse and rider.
It didn’t take 30 seconds for him to peg Pb’s problem.
“Come ozer heeree,” he said with the thick, nearly incomprehensible accent, native French tinged with German (he’s spent lots of time there, added to a bit of Orange County, Virginia down-country American-English – he was formerly based near Madison.) “Ze horse ees crooked. Which way does heee site?”
Pardon?
“Which way does hee site?” he asked again, a little louder, in case that helped me understand. Jean Luc began miming a rider sitting lopsided left, and then lopsided right, and I understood. “Right,” I said. “I think he sits me to the right a little.”
“Well, ze horse is twisted in hees pelvis.” Here Jean Luc twisted his hands like a threaded vise grip. “Hee tweests in hees heeeps, and eet tranmeets to your heeps.”
He added that, when viewed from the front, or back, Pb walks a touch shorter with his right hind leg, slightly twisting up and sideways with a characteristic lopsidedness that I’ve felt for years but been powerless to fix.
“Wee weel geev you ze tools,” Jean Luc said reassuringly, following my crestfallen gaze. “Eeet is verry verry seemple.”
Easier said than done, naturallement.
After an hour’s worth of exercises - literally walking five steps, balancing the horse with my spine (aligned with his spine) and moving up to trot for a few steps, until the horse lost his elevation and fell back onto my hands, then using my spine to slow to a walk, rinse and repeat (hundreds of times) - we finally had some semblance of order. “Goood. Verry goood.” Jean Luc complimented even the tiniest improvement. When Pb went from hanging on my hands to light in the bridle, just for two steps, Jean Luc noticed. “Thees is where you start from,” he said. “Vee cannot progress to bending, or lateral movements unteel ze horse ees responding to your weight and seat. Eet takes time. Lots of time.”
What they say about the cobbler’s children going shoeless felt oh-so-true as I watched Jean Luc finish up with Oscar, pinpointing a clear lack of articulation in his hocks – the right one in particular, as he went from the ‘loaded’ period (when the hind hoof touches the ground on each stride) to the propulsion phase (in which the horse should - Oscar does not - push up and forward, using the ligaments and tendons.) Oscar, Jean Luc said, has some old injuries or ailments that made it easier for him to use, instead, the muscles in his forequarter to drag himself forward rather than lowering and loading the quarters and pressing up and forward with the hind leg. Lots of work to the right, he ordered for Oscar, and plenty of straightness followed by shoulder in and bending to help the horse elevate the forequarter and lower the hindquarter.
For Pb, it was just as I’d feared - lots and lots and lots of flatwork, correct flatwork, mostly to the right, gently insisting that the horse lift in his back and reach up and forward with that right hind leg. This, Jean Luc assures me, will build his strength, straighten his pelvis and allow for far greater athletic ability. I know it’s for the best, but it sounds dreadful, I told him with a wink. “Ees the only theeng that weel make him light to your hand,” Jean Luc said. “Only theeng that makes heem leeft and push.”
Barbara went with Nina Fout to the Pine Top event. Bonnie went to the dressage lesson, and took the excellent photos attached while she audited.
Spent the afternoon lying low - I’ve caught whatever cold virus that’s making its way around the southeast - but off now to Julia Thieriot’s house in town (she has a place in the historic district/horse district, but is also my closest neighbor back in Virginia.) She’s doing a special Valentine’s dinner to also celebrate the Chinese new year - year of the tiger. She suggested we wear either red, or tiger stripes. Or perhaps both.
Lesson with Richard Lamb tomorrow here at Full Gallop. We’ll also go on and pack up, just in case we get out of here as planned on Tuesday. Feeling the sadness tug at me as I fed the horses their dinner - sunshine and 55 degrees, warm on your back through a fuzzy turtleneck. We’re steeling ourselves for the frozen tundra back home.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Betsy Burke Parker
Hunter’s Rest
Flint Hill, Virginia
www.HuntersRest.net
BetsyP@crosslink.net
Farm: (540) 364-2929
Cell: (540) 229-2048
I cannot teach anybody anything.
I can only make them think. - Socrates

[Mariequi]

Any time to vol at Paradise Farm?

I posted a thread on the eventing forum looking for volunteers for Paradise since xc is now running 2 days.

Please give my best to Richard L. He was one of my favorite co-workers in Atlanta and one I’m always happy to see. I just recently relocated back here from Lex, KY and am finding there are lots of old friends now here!

[Ponyclubrocks]

Please just stay in Aiken and keep writing…reading your blogs may be the only hunting I get to do the rest of this season…

On another topic, you could be the next Rita Mae Brown if you had a hankering to…

[Hunter_s_Rest]

Good golly, PonyClubR, (blush.) Sitting in the cafe downtown Aiken, watching a light rain fall and bracing to head back north tomorrow. Report in a bit (missed out on lesson with Richard Lamb due to rain.)

[Hunter_s_Rest]

Day Thirteen – Getting a Bird’s Eye view of Aiken

I can already feel the vacuum pull on us, a siren’s call beckoning us back north, but, for one more day, we decided to live like the Aikenites we’ve become and take a hack in the Hitchcock Woods.
Last night at dinner at Julia Thieriot’s, we’d arranged to meet Pennsylvania friend Lizzie Beer (of the Beresford Gallery in Unionville and Saratoga) at the South Boundary entrance to the park at 10 am. Afternoon plans still included a lesson at Full Gallop with Richard Lamb and a quick trip to Three Runs to check out the USET three-day event training session with Capt. Mark Phillips (prepping for this fall’s World Equestrian Games.)
Reports of rain on the weather channel made us look out the door, but the sun actually shined weakly through a heavy cover of clouds at 8:30 am, when we were deciding to decide.
“Let’s do it!” said Bonnie, the eternal optimist. “Yeah! It’s not like we’ll ‘get sick’ from riding in the rain,” Barbara added. “We’re already sick!”
Good point.
The virus has made its way around the house, and we’re all coughing and croaking. It was still dry when we loaded the horses (Pb for me, Tip for Jackie, Gabe for Bonnie, Farley for Barbara) and headed out the driveway.
The phone rang as we turned onto Wagener Road. It was Lizzie. “What do you think?” she asked. “I think we’re on our way!” I replied cheerily. “It’s pouring here,” she reported. “Pouring.” Lizzie and her horse (who’d escaped Unionville last week before the weekend’s big storm) is staying at the toney Green Boundary club, 7 miles west of Full Gallop. The weather, I knew, was headed our way.
She was right. It started drizzling by the time we got to the Owens Corning plant, and it was a full-on rain by the time we crossed Whiskey Road.
We parked and entered a small debate. I was petulant. “I don’t care what you all do. I want to ride.”
Bonnie shrugged and leaped out of the truck, the others more reluctantly in tow.
Lizzie showed up, no horse, by the time we were mounting. “Sorry!” she said from under the protective cover of her full length raincoat. “I don’t ‘do’ rain.”
Our Goretex band set off down Devil’s Backbone towards Memorial Gate, horses fractious and on high-alert with the chilly air, puddles where they weren’t previously and dripping leaves. At the Showgrounds turnoff we held a brief debate - at the trot. “Turn left!” I said. “You guys want to go down Coker Springs?” “Let’s!” came Barbara’s enthusiastic reply, adding that we could do a mobile architectural tour of Aiken’s finest, most remote yet best situated neighborhood – only a few blocks from the vibrant downtown but so remote its on a sand road with no traffic, also backing up to its own entrance to the Woods.
We kept the trot as we passed the actual Coker Springs (marked and concrete reinforced) and the minute, adorable farms lining the lane. Paddocks ranged from a half acre down to 20 by 20 feet, but they were without exception pristine, and precious. Barns went from new construction run-in sheds to turn-of-the-century loose boxes, one replete with a tiny clock tower and dovecote above what looks like a center office/tackroom complex.
We turned left onto Third Street, continuing our trot through one of the high end neighborhoods. Barbara pointed out that we had “the best view” of the houses, barns and gardens, a bird’s eye view, sort of, right over the tall privacy walls and right into living rooms and grooming stalls. One particularly cool house was built into a hillside a few houses down Coker Springs, with a retaining wall “fencing” off a directly adjacent paddock. Though you couldn’t tell from ground level, from our elevated seats, we could see that the stable block was attached to the house, forming sort of an “L” shape. The Pink House complex was the other notable farm, many levels of garden, house, stable and turnouts, on Easy Street just a block from busy Whiskey Road.
After our ride (it, naturally, had mostly stopped raining by the time we got home!) we split into three directions. I headed off to find the USET training session (cancelled due to rain/footing, rescheduled for tomorrow), Bonnie and Barbara in for more shopping, and Jackie to the doctor’s office to check for strep throat. She’s also checking into boarding with Ann Torreyson for an extra week here in Aiken (we have to give up our digs at the Schultz’s) since her trip to Charleston has fallen through. I’m here in town compulsively checking weather.com for travel updates and asking for input whether or not I should try traveling home tomorrow. My truck seems (Seems) to have mysteriously healed itself (maybe being in the buckle of the Bible belt has helped) and it seems like I might be able to make it home as planned Tuesday.

[wateryglen]

Stay put!

We’re getting another 2-4 inches of snow today…oh joy…:dead: and I’m still stranded on my farm from 2 storms ago. So if I were you…I"d stay there!
Someday I’ll be able to leave…someday!

[Hunter_s_Rest]

Day Fourteen – End of the Road.

Long story short (just to let all of you know we’re back home) - Barbara departed Aiken at 7 am; Bonnie rode with me (and Pb and Gabe and Leo and Farley) and we departed at 7"30 am. Easy drive (up US 29) and arrived Warrenton around 4:30. Dropped Bonnie off at Bloom (to pick up her car and head home to Marshall) and dropped Farley off at his farm southeast of Orlean. Picked up Natalie at Trough Hill (on Crest Hill Road) and she rode in with me. Put it in 4wd low to inch down North Poes (the roads up ‘til then were in perfect shape, but 637 had a couple ice sheets that you’d best be going sloooowwwwly for) and got into my driveway and across the first culvert (at the first driveway split) to a wide spot Stan Einstein had pushed out for me. Got my trailer well off the road, but, err, that pup’s not goin’ anywhere for a good long while. No way I can back out, nor pull forward. Have to wait for the thaw, I’d say.
Anyway, Bill O’Hanlon met us there and we quickly tossed all my stuff into his explorer and he drove up while Natalie and I led the horses up.
She told me about a little excitement with Brook the previous day (he’d gotten honest-to-goodness cast against the fence, in the deep snow, legs pointing uphill, but was a patient angel waiting for Bill and Natalie and Doug (Nat’s dad) to dig him out and right him.) Dogs came halfway out the driveway in a greeting committee, and the horses I’d left were surprised, let’s call it, to see Bully Boy back in the herd (Natalie says X had taken over pit boss duties in Pb’s absence.) Chucked them some hay and called it a day.
Chickens all seem to have survived (though their heated water dish seems to have succumbed to the snow.)
Facing a 2 foot stack of mail and a bunch of phone calls, but, as Dorothy said, there’s no place like home.
Unless, of course, your alternate choice was 60 degrees and wall to wall sunshine, sandy soil and a visible lack of rocks/holes/clay, jillions of horses and zillions of riders, and endless manicured trails …
:o)))

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Betsy Burke Parker
Hunter’s Rest
Flint Hill, Virginia
www.HuntersRest.net
BetsyP@crosslink.net
Farm: (540) 364-2929
Cell: (540) 229-2048
I cannot teach anybody anything.
I can only make them think. - Socrates

[JSwan]

Glad you made it home safely and everyone is ok.

Enjoyed your stories - hope to make it next year.

Welcome home!