The Far Turn

The Complaining Attacker

2009-07-16T03:12:00.000-07:00

I've had a client for some time now who spends most of their time either bitching about their help or setting someone up to attack them. I'm guessing that the reason is that they can't afford to pay their help so they need everyone off balance enough to be too intimidated to ask for everything. I'm in that boat and it's getting really sick.

I'd like to find a way to extricate myself from this outfit gracefully, but I suppose that if nobody can stand this individual anyway there's not much to worry about with regard to repercussions.

I know I haven't posted much, and I'll try to get back to it. I find that in the process of looking for new opportunities, I am spread pretty thin.

A Little Manifesto for You'ns

2009-06-02T03:07:00.000-07:00

I wrote this back in April but have edited it over and over since then., and only just now re-posted it. It may appear to be off - topic and uncharacteristic of me, but I needed to do it. If you are interested in Horse Racing this won't satisfy you, but If you know me, maybe you will find it at worst interesting and at best, enlightening - about who I am anyway.

April 9, 2009

Getting Back on Track After a Brief Sabbatical
Readers may have noticed my absence of late, so I will bring you up to speed. I left town to visit a friend in Utah and attend her husband’s transformational seminar titled The Fenix Event. But like many experiences, it’s difficult to keep one’s head clear after leaving the event without the support of the environment in which it takes place.

I guess this is why it’s a tough sell – the “self-improvement” seminar – sounds either selfish or needy. And at times I feel mildly persecuted for being the type (whatever that is, and surely it cannot be qualified) of person who does those kinds of things. Why this would be compared unfavorably to other types of education I don’t understand. When you need to improve your plumbing you get a plumber, right? If you want to wire a bandstand you get a skilled technician. If you want some guidance in life, you get a guide. Even if your guide is free of charge- say, your uncle or your neighbor, who cares? It just happens to be that I find my best guidance in human potential seminars.

As far as neediness goes, who doesn’t need a life coach? Who the hell knows how to do life before they’ve already done it? You don’t learn anything without either making mistakes or taking the guidance of better-informed wisdom than your own. And as far as selfishness goes, why would human potential seminars be considered more selfish than climbing the corporate ladder, open-wheel racing, being a movie star or engaging in extreme ironing?

I’ve reached a significant passage in my life; for what I am now up to, I don’t expect to find coaches in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia. I need time and money to be able to contribute to the world I love, so I am often working on my own business to create it.

What Follows is an Explanation of Who I am:

Sad to word it as though I feel that I need explaining, but I know when I proof this for the final time I’ll be saying to myself “this sounds like she’s insecure and believes that she needs to explain herself.” But of course I’m insecure! Still, I’m not so insecure that I wouldn’t admit it. I’m actually a step above whatever insecure bastard needs to point out my insecurities.

What I am passionate about is transformational technology. I don’t care whose it is. When I sought it in the horse business it was Monte Foreman horse handling. When I sought it for my own use it was the est Training. When I look toward the future, I see the value of applying it everywhere. And learning the technology and using it are essential to moving our world forward in step with other technology. It’s my passion – it means the most to me – transformational technology - - and creating language that moves people and things.

Taking a Stand:
Nobody knows what I’m up to because I never take any kind of stand. I don’t use the language publicly for fear of being ostracized, especially when I make mistakes (no way around making mistakes). I have to do this here in my blog to identify myself. Since I’m not able to speak it (articulate it) yet, I’m doing it in writing, for the purpose of moving myself forward.

This manifesto should open space for me. If you know me, and you read this, and you decide I’m a nut job or too dangerous to associate with, then get out of my road. You’ll be doing both of us a favor.

I’m OFF!
As they say before the starter hits the button, “tie on” (because the gate is about to open and you will shortly be paying me company at full pace). Everyone who knows me is about to get schooled on my internal world.

Why Human Potential Seminars and Life Coaching Beats a Vacation

The general influence of the human potential movement of the 70s, and in particular (from my perspective) the est Training is as pervasive in our culture as is that of the computer and digital technology. It is the human-advancing counterpart to the age of intelligent machines.

I can’t continue without using words now ubiquitous to our common culture that sprung from the est Training and its effect on our consciousness. To assist your comprehension of both my vocabulary and the thrust of my post here, a good analogy would be; new vocabulary generated by the computer age that has in its own way transformed our culture; expressions I will use as I write here first found use (and were ostracized) as “est jargon” but now are commonly understood.

There’s a point here; at one time est graduates couldn’t use these expressions without alienating everybody else. People thought we were all in a cult and needed brainwashing (the seventies and eighties). Enough time has passed however, for the whole world to forget who and what was behind these words, so they are now acceptable to use.

For example, “getting it”; what does that mean? It used to be that you could understand ‘getting it’ only if you were in the est cult. And if you could actually ‘get it’ (or if you said you could) about anything then you probably were in a cult.

25 Years later, people say “I got it” or “if you could really just sort of…”get it”…that (blah blah, whatever) people don’t mind entertaining the possibilities that ‘getting it’ might offer them. It seems to me that once Werner Erhard (the “Leader” of the “Cult”) was out of the equation, it was safe to “get’ things. What a joke! Maybe we’ve started out “brainwashed”.

If you had taken the Training back in the late 70s or early in its heyday, and then simply stayed close to WernerErhard’s work by way of friends or Landmark Education, you know that the vocabulary (I maybe should say language, instead) we use every day traces directly back to the est Training. And all of this vocabulary is screaming back at us here in the 21st century, and we’re wandering around with only the vaguest of recognition that we had so much to do with it.

You don’t have to like it, or him, but it’s true; people said it was all too strange back then; but now you don’t need to explain yourself when you say; “I really got it*…” It’s the language of transformation; Werner’s Transformational seminars were the human and social counterpart to the age of machines and technology. So what about all the “cults”? Consider that they were the R&D needed to produce at least one technology that would fit into the culture that artificial intelligence will take us to in the material world.

Edison didn’t make a light bulb in one day.

*or “the shift happened for me when..” “teachers need to empower their students” “somehow her art resonated with me”… “PEPSI….Transform your summer!” “Integrity; it’s what we’re all about!”

Out of the Box

The Training allowed for re-contextualizing literally any experience. That’s essentially what is meant by “thinking out-of-the-box,” so that one can, if one desires, reinvent any element of one’s life; move it forward; free oneself from a self-destructive pattern. I remember reading in the est brochure that:

“The purpose of the Training is to transform your ability to experience living so that the situations that you have been putting up with or trying to change clear up just in the process of life itself.”

That statement alone led me to choose to spend my $300 on it in 1980 (the price has remained stable through the life of the program, and you can still get it for not much more than that!). Who wouldn’t want a tool that internalizes one’s ability to remove any barrier to being completely satisfied at any and every moment of life and in any area of life?

What I mean by that is the sense of being engaged in every day as if it were new, instead of anticipating the stifling feeling of just getting along and making it through, or realizing in middle age that we not only don’t do the things we used to, but we don’t want to and we really don’t want to do anything (which is why many people die when they retire - from jobs they thought they needed to retire from).

I know you can do this without a program. And that’s what you are saying if you disagree with me. So go ahead and do it your way. I’ll do it mine.

How I would describe transforming your ability to experience life is this (although it won’t appear to be rocket science): Say you are physically unappealing – ugly, at best. This fact takes a personal toll on you, because it dictates the course of your life; it owns every choice you make and colors every thought you have. It affects your mood and personality and you find it impossible to make friends or have a good time and you don't know if you even want friends or not because you don't have a choice about it. As you’ve aged you quit venturing out except to get groceries so you wind up weighing 400 lbs.

For all practical purposes your life is over; you’ve lost your alive-ness.

This is my example of a situation you put up with, may have tried to change, and are really stuck in.

But if some people are abhorrently ugly yet still astonishingly alive, creative, curious, animated and attractive inside their ugly skin, why are you not one of them? And how come even when you try to change your outlook, it won’t change?

Don’t focus on the issue of ugly I am relating here; focus on whatever your issues are. Your kid won’t clean his/ her room; you can’t deal with large crowds; you never have enough money; you have so far failed to attain the level of your potential at whatever it is, __________?? (fill in your own blank).

How would it be to transform your ability to experience that whole sector of your life – so that you could start anew? How could you “be new”?(get along with your kid; enjoy public activities; have enough money; achieve what you so far have not? If not overnight, then, at the very least, open the door; accelerate the process? To the best of my ability to describe it, the result of the Training
is the ability to be beyond any set of circumstances. The cost is that you have to give up the excuses you use for convenience because they stop you when it’s not.

Over the two weekends, you get to shed (let go of) much of your knowledge about who you know yourself to be. But not by remembering everything from your past, although memories certainly come up, but by recognizing key choices you have made and the mechanism by which those choices have become subconscious dictators of your present choices.

That’s what keeps you from being new or feeling alive, at any (or every) moment of your life. It’s what keeps you from creating anything other than a new version of the same thing you always create; in your conversations, your behavior and your actions, and stifles whatever vision you have for you.

These are the kinds of things that, not only do you not even notice, but that your friends try hard to ignore. It's as if there's a "silent conspiracy" to avoid bringing that aspect of your personality up.

If one of these unattractive elements of your personality is accidentally exposed, it has a paralyzing effect on you. Exposure is the stuff that "interventions" are made of; the things that you thought nobody noticed about you…and then...as if you were returning from the bathroom and discovered you had forgotten to shut the door!

That was one of the big bonuses of the est Training. You were exposed to the things you felt unsafe addressing about yourself - in a room full of 200 or 300 people, all of whom are simultaneously doing the same thing. You and your group collectively witness something nobody has ever seen before; that we are all fundamentally the same, no matter how we deny to others, or lie to ourselves about what's real.

The good measure is doing this it in a room full of other people, because then it’s a done deal. There's no denying that all the convoluted rationalizations we come up with for our eccentricities are bankrupt. And there’s no reversing the absolute reality that there isn’t a human on the planet who isn’t in the same boat (their convoluted rationalizations are equally bankrupt) For me, that was the single greatest equalizer ever rendered in action, and was permanently burned to the Hard Drive of my experience.

You experience what the human experience is, and you see that there are actually levers you can pull that accelerate the process of discovering whatever has you stuck in unsatisfactory conditions of life. Suddenly all of who you know yourself to be becomes much smaller – like a screwdriver or a table saw. You see through yourself just as your friends see through you, and you drop your bullshit like it's a hot potato!

Let me qualify that as; your unworkable bullshit; the workable bullshit is something you can choose freely to keep or not, depending on its usefulness. From then on you never forget that all you have to do is tell yourself the truth and sooner or later, you will shift any barrier you have in your life to whatever fulfillment you thought you were missing, or you will choose your unfulfilled condition of life as fulfilled; and either way it works for you to return you to the passion you have for simply being in your life (its like feeling like a kid again).

Of course it’s not a miracle, and of course it has less and less apparent influence over time, for two reasons; the first is that when you return to the world as you know it, you ave also returned to the world as it knows you. All your friends allow interact with you in the same way they always have; your environment looks the same, and so on, so the effect is one of pulling you back into the unconscious state that you have spent most of your life managing yourself with.

Back to the Point:

So now, if we go back to regarding the situations that you were trying to change or just putting up with that I began this digression on, what you discover is an opportunity to intercept whatever automatic behavior isn’t working for you and begin to replace it. Simply put, whenever you are not on auto-pilot, you can return to the space that childhood innocence bestowed on you; the space of creation and self-expression that is the feeling of aliveness and wonder that we all desire and wish we were in every day!

When you first leave that seminar, or any transformational seminar, your mind gets very quiet for a while. Things look simpler, and you free up a lot of stuck-ness you were experiencing. Mostly what happens is, you go home to your really cool friends who give you such a dose of bullshit (the silent conspiracy I referred to before) that you have to be a pretty amazing person not to buy right back into it for fear of losing all of them.

From there it’s a short stretch for them to pin you back into your same old crap so that they can run their rackets on you and you won’t try to help them out of their excuses of convenience. If they had been where you had been and seen what you had seen, they would fear their conspiracy more than they would fear your revolt.

And so on goes the culture of mediocrity.

But because the est Training was experiential in nature, it sticks. It was an experience that becomes the tool in the same way that – once you have learned to fly a plane or ride a horse, you never forget. It never leaves you. So in that sense it has the power to accelerate your ability to make satisfying choices and changes in your life.

It helps that you do it in a concentrated two–weekend format. It keeps you from getting so far away from the first 40 hours (80 if your group is really resistant) that the next 40 has to be wasted on “review”.

Transformational Technology is Not a Belief System

Back to my “ugly person” example, as seen through your ability to recontextualize it; it’s more like a math equation. While you may be unattractive to others by default, you have also learned from your experiences (of what it feels like to be unattractive to others), to be (behave) unattractive. You realize that just because people called you (named you) ugly doesn’t mean you have to ‘be’ ugly. So you stop wearing your “sweatpants”, and if you like pretty dresses and makeup you dress up pretty-like and put your big lipstick smile on. You can choose to wear “ugly” like a pin you put on, not one that has been put on you.

Or, you might realize that although you thought you hated socializing because other people were mean to you, that’s really not the case. Your shrink told you it was; but what’s really true for you is that you don’t enjoy socializing with people who you hope will make you appear prettier than you are. You never were broken and you don’t need fixing. So you find people with similar interests and you suddenly have less trouble appearing pretty. Because you show up when you show up, instead of someone pretending not to be ugly showing up in your space.

Or you don’t. But if you don’t, you still know that you can, and you know how.

Your body might never look different; but your being would. You would have the space to actively choose to be alive again, instead of being the label of ugly that our culture has pinned on you. That’s recontextualizing.

It’s not believing in some new advice or religion (a “belief system); it’s not about knowing (because we all know) – it’s about “being”. It’s about experiencing being the creator of your life again, instead of a victim of it, by letting go of emotional baggage you have. It’s about not simply accepting yourself and the contents of your life grudgingly, but like choosing who you already are as if it were a great gift.

And I’m not saying belief and faith are bad or don’t work. But you live only once so if you can accelerate the rate at which your powers of belief or faith can benefit you, then it’s worth the time and beats a vacation by miles -- and money.

And that’s aliveness. It’s not about stuff that we don’t already know. But it is about being able to identify consciously those things which are healthy for you and toss the things that drag your energy down and make you sick – both figuratively and literally.

“The Sage is sick of sickness;
Therefore he is not sick.” ------- Lao Tzu

And Finally Back to the Other, Original Point

Don’t forget where I am going- I’m actually comparing vacations and Transformational seminars.

As I mentioned, in the years since the 1970s (when doing human potential seminars was considered very selfish, or needy, or brainwashed, and was nonetheless very popular) it has become common knowledge that while your brain has the capacity to do many things, it’s also a limiting factor that not only dictates your increasing fear of risk in life but ultimately your experience.

But back then, this was amazing; to have your hands on a lever so powerful was better than all the Disney Park adventures you could ever have! It was close to having your hands on a magic wand! We knew it worked even though we didn’t know why! But my friends thought I was nuts because I went for it.

What would you rather have; a week of sunshine on the beach or a permanent door to freedom? I should say opening to freedom… And I mean a permanent opening to return to being you before your reticular activation system took over and ran you on automatic like it does most of the time, like a brainwashed automaton. A lever to pioneering new neural pathways out of the rut that eventually limits you to eating, sleeping, and peeing (not my words) and waiting to die.

And if you say to yourself (or to me) I’m already free! What do you mean, freedom? Then I would have to reply that you are not free from running on automatic – that is a neurological function, so don’t give me crap. In fact if that was your immediate knee-jerk response, you just proved it to yourself. Worse, you might not even understand what I mean.

Truthfully, you’d still be automatic most of the time, but you’ll have the power of choice far more than you would otherwise. I know I am, but I also know I’m far more able to be “present” when I need to be -- my non-automatic present.

Nobody doesn’t want to be 10% more satisfied in life than they are now -- that is, if they think they need a vacation. Besides, what else are you doing while you’re here, if you don’t even have some little thing you’re working on and you only get two weeks vacation a year. I’d spend that two weeks doing something that makes the other fifty worth living.

WWJD?

And what about the larger, global issues I mentioned before-you are free to speak and free to vote, and free to give your life to whatever you see fit. Would there be anything you might be putting up with or trying to change that, by virtue of your Being, you might value clearing up in the process of life itself?
If you buy what I’ve been saying here, you can’t say you are only human. All humans are only human. What about you? You’re in the flesh, but you aren’t the flesh, so what is your extraordinary Being up to?

To quote the now famous human Being Susan Boyle: “And that’s just one side of me!” Would you like to be human or would you like to be Being?

What’s the Truth?
We say youth is wasted on the young, but there’s tremendous potential in removing barriers to having the energy you thought you lost; mainly, you still have the energy to actually live the next three to five decades with the same verve you lived the first ones.

In my earlier example, I’m saying “before the I am ugly program you chose to run (and were thrown into by the prevailing culture of ‘ugly’) that wound up making you into your own adversary and bogging you down with all kinds of baggage that you cannot see but that saps your energy, and obscures your Being.

You have to be truthful with yourself. Referring to my example the truth would be; you thought you were an Ugly Human Being, but you discovered you were a Being an ugly human. Now that you have it in the right order, you can be Being anything human (including but not limited to ugly). Once you experience it (as opposed to reading about it like you are doing here) the choice becomes whether you want to keep the ugly part.

Maybe you’ll hang on to it, but just for times when it’s useful, and not to forget -- it’s like a screwdriver-- you don’t have to use it.

BTW, that’s what’s meant by the truth will set you free - but first it will piss you off; I mean it’s a hard thing to wrestle with- the idea that you yourself could be the source of your own misery, instead of the world around you that you’ve been pointing your finger at lo these many years. But you might not have known you had any choice but for the experience of the Training. And that’s the truth, too. There are lots of things, as Werner first said (and Donald Rumsfeld later butchered) “There are things that we don’t know that we don’t know.” (And I really don’t know if Werner made up that phrase – he might have gotten just about anything he said from somewhere else.)

And that was the value of doing the Training in a room full of 200 people -- it keeps the transformational technology in place, and you use it ever after, even when it’s not comfortable. When you really see yourself in a room filled with others who would have denied you the right to be anything but ugly at one time, but who now realize what labeling others has done to themselves, you come out feeling alive in direct opposite to how you had felt since before you knew you were ugly. And you can then “recreate” the experience for yourself over and over, in any situation.

And you become a damn sight more attractive than 99.9999% of all the other ugly people in the universe who self-destruct by way of their own ignorance.

No, it’s not easy all the time. That’s why you can say about me that I’ve ‘never changed’.

A couple of other little slices of est parlance…”taking responsibility for”: until the Training and the language – and language-“ing” that it brought forth, our culture only viewed responsibility through a filter of blame and shame. The est Training allowed for responsibility to mean what it really means; willing to accept yourself as (at) cause in the matter (better known in the well-worn saying: the courage to change the things you can…) “The shift” (as in the shift occurs): not something you would say to anyone in the 70s if you wanted to have friends, and ditto for “language-ing”, “completions”, and the all-important “creating space” which John Denver devoted a whole song to (“Looking for Space”).

This doesn’t have to mean anything to you; I’m writing this for me, anyway. All I’m saying it that this kind of educational retreat, whatever you want to call it, is an excellent tool for clearing up issues ongoing-ly, and grants the user an acceleration in clearing things up whenever the shit gets too thick. I suppose others would prefer to go on a vacation, but I don’t. I want something that makes returning home feel like a brand new life.

You always have a choice about being stuck in anything unsatisfying; any little thing, and any big thing. In contrast, Getting away from it on a cruise only serves to insure that whatever it is survives in your consciousness.

The est Training was the most liberating thing I’ve ever done. I’m pleased with life as it is; simply out of being able and willing to experience all of it as my choice – at any moment – something I would otherwise not be just so certain of.

Mother Theresa claimed that she suffered a ‘crisis of faith’ her entire life. I did too until the Training, which enlightened me about Being in a Faith as a choice instead of trying to have Faith in a Being (I also spontaneously stopped Being afraid of Math - and it’s a lot less work).

Some People are Afraid of Being “Brainwashed”

This is perfect for people who think you can be brainwashed. The culture we have come up in is what our brains have been floating in for all of Western Civilization, which makes you, technically (and functionally) a Brainwashed Being. If you have a chance to transcend the world’s label of ugliness – to choose whether you will continue to float in that toxic bath or be free of it, I guess I would have to confirm one’s potential to Be brainwashed.

But I’ll take that; it looks more like a choice to me than the former.

You-can-never-remain-stuck-in-experiencing-it-the way-you-did-before, even though you can go back to looking at it, perceiving it, assessing it or measuring yourself through the filter of the toxic elements of Western Civilization without consciously permitting them. You have the choice over how you would contextualize any issue for yourself. That’s the ability that gets transformed in there; to wash your own brain of whatever you see that it needs washing of.

In the 70s, everyone thought someone else was “washing” our brains. When your whole window on the world expands geometrically, you need a new language to describe it. And if you hadn’t been through the Training, the language was alienating, even though the language of science in general is not.

People accept tinkering with science and machines, but (at least back then) few could accept that technology could be applied to the mind for anything other than ‘evil” so they called it brainwashing and cult-ism and so on. I guess some of the more hack-y “seminars” that came out of the human potential movement were, but I think it was Napoleon who said “Never suspect conspiracy when incompetence will suffice.

You could get the same results as the est Training for free if you knew how to use the Bible, the Koran, the Upanishads or any other text of wisdom, but apparently nobody’s beating down the door for it because they don’t realize what they have at stake (which is why you have to pay, either for a private program or a religious institution).

And many people were really are afraid to do it with others - preferring vacations to being witnessed with their guard down for two weekends. But that’s the power of something that becomes permanent- the witnesses.

It takes a lot longer to discover all of this unless you have the singular intent to do it, which most people are too busy focusing on their paycheck or the weekend (not even most people…about 99.99999% of people.)

There’s a whole host of powerful by-products of the act of telling oneself the truth*. And the Training wasn’t ultimately about one single thing for anyone. It was about whatever it was about for each individual, and is significant in that abstraction. It allowed for whole new paradigms that were not formerly available to anyone in mainstream culture.

Paradigm is another term, along with context that has, through the influence of Werner Erhard’s est Training and the Forum - now Landmark Forum - taken a prominent role in mainstream conversation – (and so is conversation, in some instances.)

And I don’t mean to say that the Training is the only source and catalyst for the possibilities that have been brought forth over the last thirty years; all I’m doing here is justifying my choice of getting life-coached instead of a vacation. So:

Back to the Point!(And considerable redundancy for the sake of truly resistant readers)

I’m justifying my choice of a human potential seminar entitled the Fenix Event - over “vacations”.

Why take a vacation to “get away from it all” if what you actually need is a way to be empowered (uh oh, another est jargon word) by every moment just as it is, right where you are. Granted that’s easier said than done, but only because of oneself and one’s point of view, which is what you go to one of these events to let go of.

Getting away from it all is costlier money-wise, and if there’s anything that leaves absolutely no lasting result it’s a “vacation”; so I can’t see myself spending money on a vacation when the only thing I want to improve is the quality of my life while I’m in it.

Sure one can gain insight and enlightenment all by oneself- and do it while on a vacation. It’s just easier, in my thinking, to get a guaranteed transformational experience, as opposed to packing your entire life up, dragging it with you for two weeks everywhere you go, and hoping to produce a life-altering realization with the same tools you have at home (i.e. you and your entrenched point of view) while all the time knowing that more than likely you’ll returning to the same crap and dealing with it in the same way?

Most people I know cry that they need a vacation from their vacation, because traveling is stressful, not to mention that you know when you get home that everything you were trying to escape is still waiting there to aggravate you. Because while you were gone all you did was be you in a different place, so not only hasn’t the crap changed but neither have you.

I say it too (I need a vacation….) although I do know better, and here’s my point about why it is difficult to keep the space open, and your aliveness alive…when the surrounding environment pulls for things being unenlightened, and one’s reference is so unconsciously triggered to behave the same old way, it’s the only way to share in membership of your same old milieu.

If, on the other hand, you used language that you picked up in the est Training (or any phrases from any New Age or Human Potential seminar) to describe your experience in life now, or communicate with other people, they have a tendency to distance themselves (it’s unfamiliar and creepy) from you, and the only way to get your old friends back is to be a way they can recognize.

I’ve met few people here in my little slice of paradise who’ve ever even heard of such a thing, much less considered that it might be worth a thousand vacations. And even though I took the Training in 1980 and there no longer is one, they have Landmark Education, which is the same thing as est.

Every phrase people use, on all platforms from home life to work to, yes, vacations, has its roots in, duh, the est Training, the est Forum, the Landmark Forum. Our whole world is permeated with est “jargon” that people used to claim “proves that you’ve been turned into a brain-washed automaton”. Today people who didn’t understand what “getting it” was are “getting” all kinds of things. I mean, if you could really get how absurd that conversation is, you might actually be an independent thinker, God forbid.

But enough about me, right? What about the horses? (I won’t be staying on the subject- I’m not done venting and ranting yet.) My apologies for sounding sarcastic; I’m just insecure in this area. I’m deeply afraid of being judged, so I guess I’m compensating by trying to chip my readers down a notch.

A Little Respite

Remember, I’m saying all this back in April

My horses have been doing very well. I love that! Both of Lori Dinoto’s fillies out of her mare Guilty As Charged, have won. Fantasy had 2 seconds in a row before that, and Mercy, the one I had written about that was so difficult and sore had won last winter (and got me paid up! Of course, Lori got lucky in that she can afford surgery for both of them, ‘cuz we wound up with two broken legs. Not bad breaks; just little fractures, but both could use screws.

Sometimes I wonder about the quality of X-rays here at the Mount, because I could have told you something was wrong with those legs just by how the fillies were hitting the ground and how nervous they both became. But if something cannot be seen, it’s hard to stop training; lots of times something that seems serious, especially in a young horse, is merely a case of growing pains. If it didn’t come down to dollars and survival, the horses would get more rest, but unfortunately, the economic reality is brutal.

Lori thinks that maybe there isn’t a sufficient power supply to Doc Weir’s x-ray machine- thinks maybe mountaineer outfitted the electric to only generate the bare minimum necessary to power the back side. I suppose it’s possible.

My horses of Paula’s are doing well, also. The one they call Buddha (Don’t know his name) won, the goofy galloper, Ruby Wren (we have a mutual understanding, she and I) and the chestnut filly we call Foxy went wire-to-wire her last out.

Hughie Mahan’s filly Blazinett has won two races; Maiden and Never Win Two, both Allowance. She crapped out last time but it’s clear to me that she needs a break. Whereas a Champion Race Horse will eat it all up without showing the stress, most horses, like most people, become weary of the high-pressure routine. Blazinett is a very intelligent mare and I think that racing isn’t her only bag. Hugh said something about taking her home, which would be a good idea - before she hurts herself.

Mostly people who train don’t like to hear me say that, so I avoid it. When you’re averaging twenty dollars a day (exercise, vitamins and electrolytes) just to maintain the animal’s physiological chemistry, you don’t want to entertain the possibility that the mechanical or emotional part is running rough. Too often the red meat is the only part that gets any attention when it comes to conditioning.

It’s easy to get a muscle fit- just feed it and work it, and it will make up for most of your mistakes. It’s the most resilient part of conditioning. Keeping athletes in a positive mental and emotional state is the hard part; but attending to the mental state, on the other hand, will tell you a lot about how the mechanical part will ultimately function.

There’s a million ways that a horse will tell you it’s not feeling right. Even the classiest horse will balk momentarily before loading into the gate when there’ s a bad wheel or something isn’t up to par.

A classic example is that many horses that are raced into fitness will wash out in their first race or two after a layoff, knowing that they are not physically fit enough to run a winning race. When these horses are ready, often after a race or two, they don’t break out in a nervous sweat.

Some people say that if a horse washes out regularly, as long as that sweat is a clean, white foam, then it’s only nerves and not pain. If they have a yellow, brownish or other discoloration in their sweat, it means that they are experiencing pain. I don’t know if this is true, but I honestly think it is, as a rule.

The weather is typical April here in the Ohio Valley. March is nearly always cold and mostly dry. April is the lion/ lamb month, and it’s hard telling which way it will begin or end; followed by May, which rains right through the first two weeks of the turf season. It seems to me that we rarely run those Memorial Day dashes on the Turf. Then, when the ground finally dries out, it becomes as hard as Homer Laughlin china, and the divots (that are never replaced) become dangerous holes in the ground.

At this point it looks to me as though I am going to be galloping all summer. I have decided that a job in the racing office is a waste of my time, even if it gives me the hours of officialdom that I need to get accredited. All I ever hear about is how much everyone hates the job and hates each other in there, and I wouldn’t want to spoil the party by showing up (nor do I need the aggravation myself). Chuck Lloyd is coming back with 19 horses, and I think, on Maureen’s suggestion, that I’ll ask him for a salary job.

I think I’d have to get $250 per week, and only work to the break; that way I can do whatever I want after the break so I still have a shot of making six or seven hundred a week anyway, if I want.

It’s six days, four hours a day (actually three-and-a-half hours, because we take a half hour to renovate (re-harrow) the track, just as they do between races. I could say I only work 24 hours, but when you factor in having to rest afterward and having to handle business on the phone, keeping up with news in trade publications, doing promotional stuff like baking cakes and brownies for the crews you work with, plus accounting and bookkeeping, you’re well into the 40 hour range. Many gallop people pony at night, but that’s too much for me right now, although it would be fun for a little change of pace- to be there during the races, I mean. It’s a whole new dimension, the races.

In the meantime, I’m working on making the Internet work for me, by scouting around for affiliate deals and learning about how to use SEO, PPC, Social Networking sites, etc. While I have always had an interest, I am beginning to understand how the tools work Anyhoo, I’m about to break into the reverse funnel model and my confidence is growing by leaps and bounds, so if I never become a racing official, I won’t have to.

Who wants to work for someone else anyway? I’m happy to say I have done very little of that. Being a gallop girl, a jock or a horsewoman, I’m the boss; even when I’ve had an agreement with a farm and even when I wasn’t working for freelance pay, because the bottom line is you can be fired (or quit) at a moment’s notice and suffer little, if any, repercussion (or consolation) within the industry.

Really. It’s a profession where people come and go so suddenly, and getting injured is always a possibility, so that each horse could be your last, at least for an indefinite period of time. People think they can’t work without you until you get hurt and five minutes later they have someone else doing your job. The reality in this business is nobody expects anything to be permanent.

So this latest entrepreneurial effort came about because my friend Mary Louise is such a rabid enrollment machine that I had to do this Kyani Network Marketing thing. Of course it helped that I met Steve Niumatalolo and listened to his shtick, and that when I looked at the freakin’ compensation plan (the absolute best I have ever seen- always room at the top, and phenomenally high payouts for everything you do) I got greedy.

Now I have a box full of Kyani samples sitting in the shed. I know that I am not selling my friends on the same idea. I want to keep my friends. My thoughts about Kyani were, HEY I WANT TO WORK WITH MY FRIENDS…but I never asked them if they wanna work with me.

There are people who really want to do Network Marketing. Just as I do, they want to work with their friends and use their work as a vehicle for socializing - that’s a good thing, and one of the reasons I love my day job! I satisfy three needs in four hours; occupational, recreational and social (people think it’s strange that I never go out, but who needs to when you’ve already been out?).

The only way to find the Network Marketing people in the volume that you need them, though, is on the Internet. So what I’m doing now is something I’ve previously balked at; I’m learning about Lead Capture (squeeze) Pages, Pay-Per-Click marketing, Google adsense, and Social Networking sites. I’ve been aware of them as marketing channels for a long time but always hated the matrix – especially squeeze pages.

But when it comes down to all I want to do in my life and my sincere desire to get beyond survival and up to contribution, having a regular job isn’t gonna do it. It amazes me how most people don’t already know this and they are still trading their time for money. There is no more time! We’re out of time! Literally! (in this age we’re out of doing things in TIME and into doing them in SPACE).

I need money enough not just to take care of me, but so that I have the freedom to spend time helping others. And I have lots of plans, baby! They don’t all have to become reality, but I have so many ideas I want to share, or try, or do.

I’ve imagined having an Ohio Valley Sculling Team, out of East Liverpool, or Chester/ Newell; A natural foods co-op, where we trade time, create orders and at least have a once-a-month or once-a-week pickup-dropoff, if not a warehouse or storefront. I’ve thought it would be great to have just a bread bakery specializing in the kind of bread you walk down the street to buy fresh in the morning- not too many fancy styles, just tasty fresh bread at a price-slashing price- enough to feed a small town every day. No shipping costs, so cheaper than WONDER bread (and better, too..)

What about a Recycle yard, where you drop off stuff you’re not using, and take stuff you need? kind of like Freecycle with a central location. Or a community rental system- where you rent - by point system or by deposit, community held equipment: bobcats, augers, air compressors, leaf blowers, wood chippers, etc.? Membership covers insurance on equipment and pays for experts to assist with proper use. Could even create a levy for it as an opt-in tax…maybe make it part of the Streets & Highways dept.

Have a committee for the promotion of a Big City-Small City exchange. A campaign to draw a community from a major city to relocate, by promoting the charm and advantages of small town living and work to a large corporation to get them plant one of their subsidiaries, complete with employees in, say, East Liverpool, where there’s tons of room, lots of beautiful old homes, and everything in walking distance. Add promoting the same to some artists, continue to expand on the already popular FROLF course in the Park. Presto; new city.

The reason nobody thinks any of this is possible is that nobody has the free time to dream up just how it all will happen. Where there’s a will, there’s a way; but when there’s no freedom from survival, there’s no will. Poverty creates a downward pull. A little surplus wealth could make it easier for us to spend our creative energy to source (there’s another est/ Forum inspired term) the logistics, feasibility and application of our dreams - but all of it’s do-able.

There isn’t anything that can’t be done. Can you imagine if people in ancient Egypt said; “oh, we can’t build the pyramids!” Or the Romans arguing “how the hell are we going to make the Coliseum; with all that stuff underground?” or the aqueducts; a jazillion feet above the ground, over-the-river-and-through-the-woods-at-an-ever-so-slight-angle-to-the-city so that the water runs toward it?….all one needs is the freedom to move with; and right now, for me, money is that freedom.

So since I’ve figured out I’m not going to walk into a seven-figure job tomorrow, I think I’ll take a chance on being able to create my own seven-figure income. It’s the only worthwhile pursuit.

I even have a favorite person I am following on this; his name is Jonathan Budd. For anyone interested enough to check it out, I have purposely inserted my affiliate link. I hope you have a look and wind up buying his whole “Mastermind” Course. The fact is, if you are looking for a way to make money in any Internet platform, this is, in my opinion, the fellow who will give you the most in terms of comprehensive resources, free information and assistance and honest coaching than any you will find anywhere, including (with his partner, Jason Shawver) creating a community forum of like-minded individuals to team up with and assist each other in learning everything.

I say this with the following qualifications: Since 2003 I’ve spent over $10,000 on Internet moneymaking education. I’m familiar with most applications and well acquainted with numbers of different “schemes”; I’ve been to forums where people who’ve tried them discuss what works and what doesn’t, and tried several of the simpler ones, sometimes more than once, myself. From the benefit of all I have experienced I can promise that you won’t find a more honest person who is purposefully giving you more for your money than you even think he needs to. Don’t get me wrong; there are lots of truly honest people who give you a lot for a little. I just happen to like the resources and the influences he credits for his successes.

Despite the utter turn-off to me that the tacky squeeze pages present (if you visit the link, that is what I mean by a squeeze page) behind them is someone who, at only half my age, “Got it” a lot quicker than I did. I don’t think the Squeeze page model is going to remain valid for long, because now that we have so many social networking sites we no longer need to “search” the Internet randomly to find what we’re looking for.

It’s taking me so long to get through this, uh, testimonial? Testifictional? Diatribunal?

I’m only just starting to write about what I’ve been up to since I last wrote; I still have the cold frame, the wooden chairs, the absence of practicing my violin (bad news) the asparagus roots I bought, my house, and so on, but I’ll have to do that another time. I’m going to post this with the apology that it’s less about my horses and racetrack business, but at this point, I need to handle Who I Am with a BLOG post because I have so many friends online now that I’m going to point them here and use this as a generic catch-up letter. Gotta go to work…6 a.m.

*Before then, I recall, there were things that people never discussed: one is the rather offensive truth that many people who pick their noses eat the stuff. As it turns out, in one of the “Why do (Men Have Nipples; Men Fall asleep After Sex..” books by Leyner and Goldberg, the authors explain Nature’s intentional benefit to the human immune function of this otherwise disgusting habit.
This turns the issue completely on its head,
so that now it might not be whether you do,
but whether you don’t --
because apparently if you don’t,
perhaps you should…..

Two Subjects- Deleted Post and Letter from a "Horsie Person"

2009-04-15T04:22:00.000-07:00

I) Had to delete a post (currently re-working it, but it got 1/2 wiped out by me editing it in the Web application- something I know better then to do). I have the Word document, and I am still re-working it as it was a long one and is mainly a personal Manifesto that I intend to share with my personal friends.

II) NOW, ON TO THE POST DU JOUR:

Other day I got a message on Youtube from a fellow Equestrian asking me if I could tell her anything about Castlegate (who I worked with in '04, '05 and '06). People love to hear about their horses' pre-companion careers, so by way of killing two birds with one stone I am placing my reply to her here:

Dear h*********1275-

I could tell you more if I had more time, but, briefly--

If you don't have his pedigree, here is the free one from pedigreequery.com:

He had talent, but I believe (honestly!) that he thought he was above it. I mean, how pedestrian! Running as fast as you can to beat somebody else, what's the sport in that? But he could run; at least when he was two, he showed tremendous speed. But his legs never took well to the track surface and the pounding of speed work.

He suffered problems in his racing career, but they were, as horesmen say in racing "a long way form his heart" meaning that they were nothing that a serious racehorse cold not tolerate. But he was not a serious race horse....

You can often tell when a horse just isn't racing material. Still, because of the $$ invested in the business of breeding, raising and training specifically for racing, thoroughbreds have to bear the burden of (nearly always) being tested for their ability. If you look at the top of Castle's pedigree, you can see where they put his races run, races won, and money earned. He probably never repaid the total it cost to create, maintain, educate and condition him for his first five years before giving him to New Vocations.

Lucky for him, Margaret Grimm and her partners did not need the money; they sensibly got his message early on and did the best they could for him.

He didn't like training - going around in a huge blank circle to the left and once in a while having to go fast. BOOORRRRIIIIINNNINGGGG! Sometimes he got a kick out of passing another horse, but it wouldn't last more than a moment. In fact, despite the speeed and talent he seemed to have he never caught on to the fact that running fater then other horses was what we wanted from him until he was three. He never showed any inclination for simply running.

He was laid up over his two- three year old winter to grow into himself. In his three year old year, he became a little mischievous. From time to time he would pull a stunt that would get somebody dropped or shock the willies out of you, but the point was, he would get sick of the routine, and just spaz out and do something unexpected - with a touch of sarcasm. It was his way of showing us that he didn't fit our career path for him. The sarcastic touch was, as you may have experenced yourself from time to time, the horse equivalent of "stupid human! ....I try to tell them every way I can but they just don't get it!"

That was a bit of a worry for me, because he could be very powerful and was always just a tad spoiled - he knew he could do anything to me he wanted and he knew that I knew it, too. Luckily he never did anything really serious, but a horse that doesn't want to race, a smart horse like him, can get a little mean from resentment. Cooped up 23 hrs. a day, gallop a mile and a half, get a bath, eat, 'nother 23 hours of down time....bad news. You'd get mean too. So that tongue playing didn't come without some snapping jaws, and he could step on your foot or knock you down "by accident" - he could be disrespectful.

I am sure all of that disappeared when he left the track. Horses like him usually lose that streak when teh aggravating factor is removed, so I am sure that you'll never see a sour side of him; if he is mishcievous, it won't be mean mischief. All he needed was to get away from here, and he likes to be challened - not physically, just mentally, by doing different things....

Well, finally - after being officially branded a bum (by Margaret's Boyfriend, who bet on hime a couple of times when he should have won but apparently chose not to) and being no fun to work with in general, he got shipped off. Think I might have put him on DreamHorse.com briefly (I have more photos of him, mostly his legs and feet) but Margaret didn't waste time- she wanted a guaranteed good home for him, which I am glad to know he has.

Woo, I am going on and on.. But there you go...I found only one old BLOG post about him. I nicknamed him Bigfoot because I didn't want to use my horses' real names while they were running (because they could be claimed) but for what it's worth, there is a paragraph about him here, (scroll to Bigfoot)

You can probably get a copy of his win picture by calling Finger Lakes Race Track at (585)-924-3232 and asking for the Photographer, Tom Cooley. Tom Cooley does the racing photos for Finger Lakes, Tampa Bay Downs, and Mountaineer Park. Castle won at Mountaineer, but I don't know the exact date- sometime in May or June of '05, I think. Anyhoo, you'd have to explain to Tom that you are interested in getting a photo of "Castlegate" from Mtnr. and see if he can find it. The date range I gave you will help. It probably would cost $15 or $20. Tom will be there after opening day of live racing (I don't know when that is, but sometime soon) and his hours are roughly 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Eastern time on racing days.

And best wishes, to you, Rider!

New Hope for Para and Quadriplegics

2009-02-24T03:47:00.001-08:00

For any reader who stumbles across my little section of the universe, here's a breakthrough that could mean everything for all the people I know who've been paralyzed in riding accidents.

Payday! (And other business)

2009-02-22T02:08:00.000-08:00

Day before yesterday was another bitter one for thefirst two hours, but it warmed up for the second half. I can't recall what day I last posted, but since then my most memorable event with regard to morning work has been that I had a wipe-out on the far turn, (another good example of equipment failure).

The horse I had was a strapping sprinter- one of the ones that looks like a cattle horse, with a short, thick neck placed on a stocky body. If you try to steer, the rear end doesn't follow in a path behind the nose, but instead tracks in a parallel path behind the front end -- like strafing sideways several lanes, rather then turning. It's another signature of poor management of a horse's talent and physical development. Most of these horses have no flexibility because if it cannot happen in the course of conditioning, no-one has the time, energy or money to make a special effort.

The bad thing about it though, is that it winds up costing more in the long run. A horse that carries itself poorly will not develop as well as a horse that balances itself and learns to use all the tiny muscles that support that balance. Just like the human "core workout", horses benefit from the same, and will suffer less injury, both acute and chronic, as well as have reserves of stamina that other horses lack. But hey, what do I know? I'm just the exercise girl. I don't have to do the work- I just have to get the horse around there.

I'll call the horse in question Holiday. I leave the barn on this barrel-shaped beast decked out in a newfangled bit made to depress it's tongue. I know the horse absolutely hates this equipment, as he has demonstrated before by being an asshole; running off, lugging out, trying to pull up and so on - things he doesn't do when wearing a regular ring bit or D-bit.

The track had thawed considerably, and we had had some wet snow the night before. The dogs* were up. I was supposed to jog two miles. I can't steer or stop this horse in this equipment; and actually can't in any equipment, but at least if I had a set of rings I could get his head to the rail and possibly keep him from running off the wrong way (remember he hasn't been out for several days.) Whatever; I backed up a sixteenth, and decided I had to turn and gallop.

As I began to turn him, the asshole took off. I had positioned him in the middle of the track, but the wind was blowing so hard that I couldn't keep my eyes open. Tiny needles of sleet were hitting me in the face, and I never got him fully turned before he cut, so he was headed toward the inside rail. When he almost ran into one of the dogs, he spooked and leaped over it. My right foot slipped out of the iron, but I was able to replace it, though all I could do other than that was hang on.

We steamed on down the stretch to the clubhouse turn. Denny, another rider, was galloping in the same lane I was using, and I didn't dare pass on the inside on account of the dogs. Only thing was, the horse always tries to pull up if you let him go to the outside, at least when he has to wear that contraption. But at that point I would have preferred him to pull up over hurling us over another cone, so outside I requested of him.

He was more than happy to oblige, but not to pull up; after all, four days in a 12' x 12' cubicle are hard on a human, let alone a fit and healthy animal whose main tool of self-preservation is running away, (which every time he wore that bit he tried to do, without exception....so out we kept on going, and the harder I tried to steer him, the faster he tried to go.

We passed the elbow where the six-furlong chute sits and were headed toward the ouside fence with me basically just hanging on the inside rein to no effect, and suddenly looking for a place to land. Good old Holiday chose the chute over my attempt to steer him around the turn and hooked a sharp right.

I've never waterski'd, but if you can imagine for a moment, that's probably what I looked like out there, surfing on one rein. I lost my right iron again, and although I hated the fact that my left leg was bearing my weight, I tried to bail without causing it any trauma.

I still have a little filling in it, but not enough to keep me away from work. It was barely sore at all yesterday. I'm also getting better at falling; I rolled without attempting to break the fall with a limb- that's how people break their limbs.

Later that morning I saw Kendra, who also gallops for my new outfit (as well as helping on the ground) and she said "we can't understand how or why he would have dumped you; a little girl galloped him all summer long at Fort Erie in a D-bit."

Add that's probably true; in a D-bit.

*In the old days, live dogs were placed in the infield of the track when the surface was sloppy. Their barking and runnung around in there kept the horses from using the inside portion, thereby saving it for the main event later in the day. Nowadays dogs are not allowed anywhere on a racetrack, so they use highway cones, placing them several horse breadths off of the inside rail, and they call them "dogs"

Friday; Another Ugly Morning

2009-02-07T12:53:00.000-08:00

Yes, it was sunny and bright, and yes, it warmed up quickly enough, but the knowledge of bitter cold biting my fingers, crusting my facemask and generally making it hard to move (what with all the layers) was my big excuse for being a complete jerk to my charges yesterday.

The first horse is always the worst. You trek to your first outfit, and if they aren’t awaiting you with horse a-bridled, you stand there and wait while your hands get cold. Trevor Tice told me the other day that, while waiting for the final buckle to be buckled, the trainer asked him;
“Would you grab me that tongue tie”*
“Where is it?”
“In the water bucket.”To which he replied, confidently; “I don’t think so.”

Who, in temperatures of 15 or less (farenheit), would touch their nice, dry glove to a piece of flannel soaking in a bucket, and then squeeze the water out of it? Or even remove their glove to do the same with a bare hand, just prior to heading out for a 20 mph ride into 10 mph winds?It’s f***ing cold out there!

So where was I? Oh, yeah….the first horse is the one where you freeze your hands. I have managed to cut down the pain level tremendously using mineral packet hand warmers and sewing fleece to the outsides of the fingers on my gloves, but it still hurts. I was lucky in that my first gig is for a trainer who also rides, and knows what it feels like. So I get an easy jogger. But the second one was a complete nut. First day back to the track after at least four days. It was a mistake to raise my irons.

Here’s one of my pet mantras: If a horse tosses its head a lot in attempt to shed your control (evading the pressure of the bit) take that bridle, take the reins apart and tie them to the girth on either side for long enough each day to accustom the beast to keeping its head DOWN. ANd I say "mantra" because it works like a mantra to produce peace and harmony between rider and horse, as God intended.

I mean in the stall; preferably at a time when the horse is relaxed, such as after exercise and feeding, when it’s ready for a snooze. Sensitive horses have to be accustomed to the pressure gradually, so you don’t do it all in one session.

The first time you place it on the horse so they can just feel the equipment. The next time, shorten it an inch or so and let them wear it for 20 minutes. Each time you shorten it, over a period of a week or however long it takes, you let the horse wear it until they quit fighting it and bow their neck.

You really don’t want the horse to carry its head behind the perpendicular, but you often must adjust the tension so that it is so in this phase. The whole idea is that a horse who doesn’t carry its head well to begin with needs to stretch the muscles on the crest of the neck, which it will not do without your influence.

Once the horse is comfortable with the equipment and no longer fights it, you can stop the training and enjoy the results; 9 times out of ten, the horse will carry it’s head on the perpendicular and not get behind the bit.

You won’t break the horse’s spirit. It’s not fighting you; it’s fighting itself. It will stop fighting in time. Then, when you need that control to guide and direct, you have it. At worst, the horse will learn to pull on you harder, rather than bean you in the middle of a gallop. And at best, when the chips are down and you need to be able to steer away from a spill in a race or a lose horse in the morning, you’ll get instant cooperation.

There’s something about not only being safer from a flying head; it’s the horse’s attitude. If the horse chooses to no longer evade the bit, it also chooses to make your guiding hand the authority. It is as if placing the horse’s head in an attitude of submission (DOWN) places its attitude in submission. Horses need a leader, just like dogs. When you’re not the pack leader, or the herd leader in this case, it’s much more difficult to accomplish anything, and much more dangerous as well.

Of course some horses will make a fool of me on this idea, but I will insist here that the exceptions prove the rule.

Getting back to my topic, I had a very frustrating experience with my second horse. I’m a small person; It’s fucking cold; the horses are full of vinegar; I don’t want to be tossed onto the frozen ground on my head, with my knees hyper-extended by a beast who wants to show me a better idea than my own. With her ears cocked forward, my filly was springing everywhere like a cricket and paying no mind to me whatsoever.

Every time I took hold of her mouth, she would slow down and try to back away from the pressure. If I kicked her into the bit, she’d bounce forward on rigid knees and throw her head once again. And there’s nothing to be done about it out there; you can only fix this in the breaking pen (or the stall, by tying that head to its chest!)I couldn’t have been happier that the trainer told me to let her gallop down the lane a bit. It made both of us happier, but that only lasted until we turned to jog home. Evidently not yet spent of excesses, she shied and bolted this-away and that all the way to the gap. I couldn’t wait to get off.

The third horse would have been alright if the girth and stirrups weren’t so useless. The stirrup leathers had too few adjustment holes, and had to be knotted. The girth was bereft of any stretch in the elastic, and couldn’t be adjusted to anything that translates to snug unless it cuts him in half. Add to that the fact that I was making all of the fixes on the fly, while the horse pranced all the way to the track, bounce, bounce, bounce…..I had to keep straightening him up while I was filling my hands with adjustments.

I invariably lose my patience when this happens, especially when everything slides through the frictionless grip of my gloves. So in departing from the bitterly cold half of the morning, I’d have to say I had started off badly and have to hope my animules can forgive me for the rough handling. Even the folks around me were saying “Liz, the pavement is too slippery here..”

It never pays to be angry; you have to be firm, but when you add anger you cause more enthusiastic resistance, and that can get you hurt.Later I was scheduled to breeze a horse, but something seemed wrong underneath, and he couldn’t go straight. I never let him stretch his legs. Not knowing the beast, I didn’t trust him to not run through the outside fence. We pulled up about 50 feet past the wire. I was dripping sweat. My situation hadn’t been helped by a loose horse out on the track, running around lost and without a bridle or halter (there are enough horror stories to go around about people hitting head on.)

When you’re on the rail watching (the trainer's point of view) you have to wonder what all of us idiots are doing out there sometimes, as often it’s not what we were directed to do. But, if you didn’t know that the horse would lug out; that he would steel his mouth against the bit; that you can sometimes feel like a runaway bus on a mountain ridge, plans can change a great deal on execution. It can be hard for people on the rail to see what we riders feel from in the saddle, so often we're blamed for not doing what we're told to do when we're actually trying to protect the horse or ourselves from injury.

…..But I should have, or could have just said; “I can’t wait till it warms up.” Nobody can. We’re all sick of the cold and the extra clothes and the hard track and the frozen mud. But the long version is (hopefully) more entertaining.

*A ‘tongue tie’ is a strip of flannel or other fabric roughly 12 inches long, that is wrapped in a single loop around the horse’s tongue and secured beneath the chin. Tongue ties are used to prevent the horse from pulling its tongue behind the bit. There’s more than one reason for this, but it doesn’t bear discussing right now.

Another Cancelled Racing Day

2009-02-03T02:43:00.000-08:00

We get these cancelled days back during the year, in the form of added days or added races, but in the meantime, it's a tough go for everyone, because there's no money coming in. For may people, I don't know how it's possible to survive. A decent Day Rate will cover hay, straw, grain, supplements, exercise rider or pony person and any daily care. But the person has to live also, so that day rate is feeding the human that feeds the horse. Most people feed their horses better, if they have to start parsing out money; because if you don't you can;t win a race, and if ou don't win you won't be able to pay the big bills, like the truck & trailer and your health insurance.

Woo, I got up to early- I gotta go back to sleep.

The Toe Grab Rule

2009-01-31T03:25:00.000-08:00

Well, yesterday was not intolerable, but I only got on seven horses; there’s a 50-50 chance of no training this morning, on account of it having snowed yet more, a fairly wet snow, meaning a fair amount of large clods of ice over the surface of the track. We’ll see…

The other day I had surfed on over (on my computer) to the female jockeys website of Chris Forbes’. I forget what I had originally been looking for, but I nearly always stop and check the interviews. So I was scrolling through them and noticed that Vicki Baze had one. I had never see it before, and the preamble said that she has her own business since retiring. I’m like, “oh, what business?” the name was Bon Chance Horse Shoes. First I thought maybe she was manufacturing horseshoes, but I went to the web site and what she's doing is creating decorated horse shoes.

These are really nice, and I suggest you check it out. The economy being what it is, these would make great wedding gifts, Graduations, and all-around notions to get for people when you just want to wish them luck. The stuff used to decorate them is quality stuff- beads and ribbons; as I said, you ought to check it out. (BTW, She didn't request that I place this link here, but I don't think she'd mind that I have.)

So getting back to what I was doing.. when I saw all the shoes, my first thought was Ed Burkle, my asshole boss! Because, if I haven’t already said something about it, there is a new rule in place that has affected us, as well as other tracks aross the country. Here at Mountaineer (as of Dec. 1st) horsemen are prohibited from using toe grabs that are over 2 mm. high on the front shoes.

This means that here at Burkle's Turf Supply we have a lot of obsolete shoes laying around right now. Ed keeps saying to me "one of these days we’re gonna spend a few hours grinding the toe grabs off of these.” (You know; with a bench grinder.)

I’m not enamored of doing this, mainly because I think it is a waste of time and probably something we’ll never get around to doing anyway. So when I saw all those fancy horseshoes at Vicki’s store, all I could think was “holy crap…There’s our ace! We’ll get rid of all these shoes by selling ‘em to Vicki!”

My mind even flashed to the blocks, stickers, jar caulks and other odd and barbarian-looking designs, some of which have been gracing the shop for a couple of decades. (Ed gets stuck with merchandise that goes out of favor after a trend passes. Like those freaking cowboy boots….) It’s like being in a museum sometimes.

I quickly penned Vicki an email, introducing myself and asking her about the shoes. She got back to me quicker than I thought. But the news was not the win-win situation I was hoping for;

“….I did just the same thing to help… (Northwest Horseshoe in Seattle)... They sold me at cost all of the toe-grab horseshoes. And although I don't usually use those ones, I found that I could use them in one particular design that I use the turquoise beading. I just bought a 100 pair and also stocked up last week. My main horseshoe that I use is the Victory Elite double 00 and I use thorobred's sidewinder……saddlehorse and barrel racing horseshoes.

Gosh, if I could have known earlier...”

Burkle said it was at least a nice gesture on my part. So it looks like we’re still on for the grab-grinding, unless I can think of something else.

As I was Saying before I was so Rudely Interrupted by Having to go to Work.....

2009-01-30T03:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the track was closed. Covered in ice and snow. Charles stopped over there yesterday to have a look and told me that they were working it, so I suspect that it’s going to be open today. And it will surely be a busy day.

What I was saying before, about the horse sense for people, and where our behavior is rooted. We assume that evolution follows a path of adaptation, culminating, for example, in the opposing thumb and the development of our own ability to create any number of meanings for any single object or event. So we are always looking at animals as ‘lower’ forms of intelligence. I don’t deny this, but I want to make a point about the way we look at things:

Since we see things in terms of moving in a direction from simple to complex, we refuse to accept animal behavior as something that is alike to our own. We call it anthropomorphism and argue that people who do this are wrong to think that animals can be like us.

You see how our direction points us to blindness? It is not that they are like us. No way. They don’t get their behavior and language (such as it is) from us.

It is WE who are alike to THEM. It is we whose behavior is rooted in the more primitive behavior and languages we ascribe to them. If you want to see where we came from, look at them. See the Seven Sins as the things we once needed to commit in order to survive.
I’m not advocating that we ever adjust our expectations of humans to be lower than it is now – that’s not where I am going.

I am saying if you want to modify behavior in a human, see how it’s done with the animal, and use the advanced tools at our disposal to anticipate and channel our kids and our coworkers; it doesn’t even matter if we know we are attempting to modify each other’s behavior; to understand that, one already knows that when we behave as sociopaths, we behave as a primitive organism, for which there is no space in modern society. There you go. No need for morality – just “what works” and what doesn’t.

Along the Lines of "Horse Sense for People"

2009-01-27T03:37:00.000-08:00

I am sitting here writing a letter to my new President. I hope to make it into a video. As I was writing, it occurred to me how much I see the human experience in terms of the equine one. This also brings to mind Monty Roberts’ volume on “Horse Sense for People” and the recent Flippen Group courses for educators, based on communicating with horses; for teachers to help gain respect, motivation and results in their classrooms (especially since I’ve heard this method so derided by people who are unaware of the fact* - that our own behavior is rooted in that of other animals, especially social ones such as horses).

BUT I’ll have to finish later- time to go to work again, and I have to pick up Barry in Chester, so bye for now.

*I now have to qualify that fact: Yes, I say it is a fact. But no-one need believe me. Let me put it this way, rather: Try it on for size; it isn’t necessarily true; but there is abundant evidence for it being so, and if you try it and it works then I have said something worth while.

8 Degrees of Separation - Between Jockeys and Gallopers

2009-01-25T03:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a welcome day off, as the track was not opened for training. The downside is that now we have to work today, and it’s colder than it was, by at least 12 degrees.

I asked Charlie why they cancelled racing; were the clods too big? not broken up yet? Heck, they worked the track all morning instead of letting us on. And he said it wasn’t the clods; it was the temperature.

I heard him mention on the phone to someone "Yeah, those Mexicans got together wiht each other and said 'don’t ride because we’re not riding!'" and created the deciding number of votes to cancel. Here’s the kicker; these guys are the same ones who used to be at the mercy of the leading riders; the main members of that group have finally decided to leave for parts elsewhere (because of the track conditions, and you can’t blame them.)

But now these guys are doing the very same thing that was done to them before; the riders on the best horses coercing the less fortunate to side with them - whenever they feel like taking off; resulting in unnecessary cancellations. They do this so that nobody else will have the opportunity to obtain those better mounts. How ignoble the ignoble become when they attain nobility. I thought only the already noble could be so!

Hey man, once I committed myself to something I always felt bound to see it through. I would never refuse to ride once I had engaged myself, and that for the sake of my connections and the Public. I might not offer to pick up other mounts, but I would ride the ones I was already on. I hated riding in the cold, but I never voted not to.

These guys sit in the indoor paddock till 2 minutes to post and go straight to the gate, then they ride their two minute race, spend five more minutes out there pulling up, returning and unsaddling, and they are back in the room. I know they are wearing pajamas; I WORE THE SAME DAMN THINGS WHEN I RODE.

So how come, at a temperature of 20 degrees, it’s too cold to ride? Track maintenance spent all morning breaking up clods and keeping us off the track at 20 degrees so that it would be good for the evening. But 20 degrees is too cold to ride? Fifteen was OK last week.

And now, and this is what bugs me about it so much, I have to go out there this morning, while it’s 8 degrees and only warming up to 20, tops. I was planning on having today off because it was gonna be too cold for the horses to go out and gallop.

But I’m gonna get dressed in my freakin’ snow boots, my wind shirt, sweater, hand warmers, double pair of socks and so on, all my freakin coldest-weather clothes, and work for four solid hours. And it will be four solid hours, because none of my charges went out yesterday, when it was nice enough. They'll all have to go today, regardless of it being too cold even for them.

But I'm just bitching. I wouldn't want to ride in the cold either. Only difference is I'm 50, and I don't wanna ride, period!

Feeling a Little Slack, I guess.

2009-01-23T03:11:00.000-08:00

Well, I bumped off my difficult horses from the first outfit. The wife of a fellow I met at the Stewards’ School in ’07 has two or three for me to gallop every day, and while they can be tough, they are better behaved and easier for me to handle.

One of my perrenial inadequacies as a rider is my overly sympathetic hands. I must carry some low self-esteem that, like a disease, translates into horses getting the upper hand with me. If I have control, I let go of it. I avoid taking a strong hold until it’s absolutely necessary (which is usually too late). I’m always too permissive as far as what I allow them to get away with, all the while thinking; “I should give them a little slack; they’re being good. I have to stop giving that slack, because it’s too hard to get the slack back! Hell, they can drop-kick me any time if they try whether they know it or not, so why must I offer them the chance to find out?

Though not as brutally cold as Monday and Tuesday, yesterday’s air carried the sting of moisture that is equally uncomfortable. Today is going to be wetter still, but at least warmer, like 30s and 40s. Almost a heat wave! I don’t feel as averse to going out there today as I did yesterday. I think I’ll shut my eyes for the next hour before I leave for work.

I realize this is boring to readers; I just keep devoting my first (and best) hours to replying to emails and other little diddling tasks, and I always tell myself I won’ but I do.
Maybe I’m just a slack-cutter. I cut me slack; I cut them slack.

Tuesday

2009-01-13T03:08:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, about 6 a.m.

Workedat Burkle's yesterday. Man, does he have a slew of 70's era cowboy boots. I don't know what kind of money they could bring, but they sure look good! He can't sell them in the store, so we're going to advertise them on the Internet.

Just at a glance, the two pair of Laredos with decorative stitching look to be the most popular. Teh ropers haven't changed in years. The Dingo square toes with the skinny ankle and the inside zipper are out-of-this-world cute! I'm putting an ad in Craigslist.

For the last two days my knees have been hot and swollen. I can't flex them. I looked up Rheumatoid Arthritis as a cause, and though I know I shouldn't get all worked up about possibly having this (one of my most dreaded diseases) I'm making a move to change my food sources to anti-inflammatory ones. Especialy since I blew my Health insurance on account of I can't afford it.

After my nice long and involved discussion yesterday about the horses that are so difficult to handle, the bay mare flipped me like a flapjack on to the track in front of the grandstand.

Actually, it was more like a slow motion surfing exhibition, followed by a crushing wave. When I tumbled to the ground, after five strides of escape speed sprinting I was forced into a ball. My helmet cover was pulled off from the force. But it's good to roll. When you don't you risk winding up like Christopher reeve.

2009-01-12T02:24:00.000-08:00

Written over Saturday, Sunday, and Monday…..

Wow, I’ve been up since 3 yesterday (Sat.), the track did not open for training, and now I’m up again at 5 this morning (Sun.) and it’s taken me this long to get to this entry. I definitely have too many things to do.

Now it’s Monday, at 4 a.m. ….

As an update to the Catty Shack horse (that the owner calls Hogan), What his present owner and I have found out is that McGreevy only had him for his first win. After that he injured himself in the trailer; he kicked or something and cracked a hind sesamoid bone. McGreevy sold him to Eli Betancourt, who I’m guessing gave him the needed recovery time before finishing out the horse’s career.

The woman sent me links to photos of him and he looks like a five-year-old. He’s a very beautiful horse and has kept his youthful figure, bound as it is to a well-put-together frame.

I saw Jerry Norwood a few days ago and knew he wasn’t kidding when he said that the horse was cut out to be a pretty nice horse. It was McGreevy’s loss that the horse suffered an injury. Jerry had expected Catty Shack would never race again after that.

He informed me of how to get hold of McGreevy and Betancourt, and so far, Catty’s owner has made an initial inquiry. We’re waiting to hear back.

On the home front, it looks like I’ll have to go to work today after all. The bad weather is not supposed to hit until later this morning. Come ON, bad weather! I may be broke but nobody likes to work outside when it’s only 20o all day long. Yesterday I had to change my clothes at break time because the windbreaker layer was wet with sweat and I was starting to get chilled.

In my opinion, you have to keep your eye on the weather and choose your gallop days in advance. While that’s just common sense, few trainers seem to be keen on planning more than a day ahead, at most. In this game where everything matters, you lose when you don’t pay attention. Granted, it’s difficult to plan during the winter around here. It’s bad enough that you never know if your race will go (which is a year-round problem); add to that the chance that once you’re slated to run your date might be cancelled on account of the weather, and the futility of worrying oneself about whether anything matters is enough reason to ignore the local Storm Tracker report.

The downside to all the missed days is the relative rambunctious-ness of the horses when they finally do get to exercise. I’m galloping three for an outfit at the top of the hill that a person my size and age has no business sitting on. They’re all bigger and taller than average and don’t get enough training to begin with; much less in the bad weather.

Yesterday two of them went out; the first one cooled out bad and the second one returned with a bloody mouth. In hindsight, I can count on myself to be more cautious about handling them. But to be realistic; to spoil the crap out of it, feed it buckets of grain that it’s dying to burn off in three or less miles a week and then throw a pint-sized rider on the 16+h. -sized animule is to invite trouble. Finally, commanding us to backtrack (jogging only- no running or galloping) is the icing on that cake.

So this is how things went for me Friday:
The first one, a strapping bay mare (1500 lb) wants to begin her gallop on the road before we reach the track, and my attempts to restrain her translate to priming the engine from sixty yards out. At least we were permitted to gallop yesterday, but with the caution that we hold her down till she passed the chute. What the trainer missed (as we disappeared behind the maintenance shack) was a duel for open space between myself and she.

She scrambled to break my “cross” which is a way of holding the reins so that they are crossed over each other where the rubber grips lie, creating a frictional lock that places pressure on the bit (the more they pull, the more they pull against themselves). I turned her toward the fence; she rears up in defiance of the barrier and leaped sideways; I loosed the reins, pulling the left in a line through my knee, forcing her to circle; She reacted with a sky-leap to the right to escape me, I fail to be loosed by her and circle her again to the left; she tries me one more time; I circle again, and she lets me have control until I straighten her and get her just past the chute. Then off she goes! The rest of the gallop is not so bad, after the initial .22 for the first Quarter.

The second one, another tall though not as sturdy-boned chestnut, was to backtrack (jog only – in the opposite direction of traffic, along the outer perimeter of the oval. The footing on the outside rail was littered with chunks of frozen track surface. Somehow I had to stay off of it, and still on her.

It’s common practice that when a horse is difficult to control when backtracking to cock their head toward the outside rail. At varying degrees, this blocks their relative opportunity to take off. You really have to be there to understand the difficulty in straightening the beast out in that situation, because as much as we would all like to permit them to travel in a straight line with their bodies properly aligned, all they care about is making tracks into the great wide open.

From there, it’s only a matter of who’s the strongest. Believe me if you saw a photo of teensy me on this Goliath, you wouldn’t need to worry about losing your last fifty if you bet it on the horse. So angling toward the only potential barrier this morning was essential for me.

I did a pretty good job; most fo the time I was able to stay reasonably off the fence and out where the surface was smoother, with the mare’s head still cocked in case she tried anything. Till we got to the 6-furlong chute, where my plans always threaten to unravel.

The six-furlong chute is where the starting gate generally sits, between 8 – 9:30 (7:30-9 in the summer months). This chute requires a break in that all-important rail (you know, the one I happened to be using to block attempts at flight.

It’s important to me to relax a moment when a horse picks up speed crossing that 70-100 yard expanse; avoiding resistance keeps the neck muscles supple. If I don’t do that, it’s harder to get their head cocked again, and in fact I find it easiest to sit down and loose the reins a bit while the horse guides itself. Can you tell this is the voice of Experience? I don’t know what anyone else does, but I can tell you that horses hit their teeth on the Clubhouse Turn (just after crossing the chute) more than anywhere else, so we must be doing something similar.

And that brings me back to the present, wherein I am pulling my charge back into a slow hobby-horse from an open gallop. I failed in my control to prevent her from contacting the fence with her cocked head. Often it’s the teeth, but more often the front gums or the upper lip that hits one of the support brackets and gets cut. Today was one of those days when I actually heard the little thwap and thought “that must be a lip; sounded like a lot of flesh in there.” Sure enough I could see that the front of her muzzle was bleeding as we came off the track and made our way back to the barn.

I don’t blame the trainer for being put out, but I reminded him that he has me way over- mounted. I’m 116, and she’s 1600 for crying out loud. When it’s between the safety of the horse and the safety of me, I can’t be counted on to save both of us every time. I mean this happens every time the horse goes out- not the bloody lip, but the wrestling match; it’s to my credit that we manage to avoid the same accident as often as we do.

I won’t defend myself any more on paper here than to say I will always do the best I can to keep us both safe. If I return with a C- or D+ for performance, just chalk it up to A+ effort and get someone who can do it better than me.

The jocks you see on TV in the breeders’ cup don’t have to put up with this kind of behavior, because nobody wants to be responsible for putting Edgar Prado in an embarrassing position, much less the hospital. Compared to the average rider, high-profile jockeys are spared these circumstances, and my point here is you won’t see this on TV.

To the non-horseman it may look as though I don’t know what I’m doing out there, so I’ll say it not for the first or last time in my life: I’m a feather trying to fly the bird! If the bird must be tethered, I’m not a good prospect, and I‘ll be the first to acknowledge that. There are lots of big, strong, heavy-handed people who can wrestle the beast into submission. But the reason I’m still alive and in with love this game is that I love being a feather who can fly the bird, untethered.

Discussion Board..

2009-01-05T02:37:00.000-08:00

Please have a look at my Website's News Page to get an update about the forum I'm begining. We'll be able to discuss issues here that are important to the health, longevity and popularity of horse racing, especially here at Mountaineer.

http://www.thefarturn.net/news.htm

Oh, and read my post below, about my cousin, Leah's dream of being on the USET eventing squad!

Leah's Dream of the Oympics

2009-01-04T03:32:00.000-08:00

Some really wonderful things have happened lately. The first is that I recently got a letter from a woman named Kim about Jerry Norwood. Here's the note she sent me:

Hi,
I am sorry to bother you...but I was wondering if you could help me with any info on Jerry L. Norwood who was a horse breeder? I came across your blog when I was searching his name to try to get any info on him.
I own a horse that I have traced back to him...he bred the horse. I was just looking for more information/pictures or anything on my horse from his racing days. I am not even sure if this is the same person you mentioned in your blog....he was supposedly in PA then?
My horse will be 23 this coming year.
If you know any leads I can follow...I really appreciate it!!
Sincerely
Kim

Remember my post about Jerry? (Saturday, Jan 18, 19 2008, scroll down the page )and the half-broke horses I was talking about? Well, that's the same Jerry. He's been around a long time, and this is one of the horses he bred. She calls him Hogan but his real name is Catty Shack.

This is the second instance of someone contacting me regarding the history behind a retired racehorse. I'm beginning to think that a smart thing would be to create a database of retirees and what their careers were like.

This is also the second time that photographers have been either deceased or no longer working at tracks that the horse won at. The point we're at with Catty Shack is that we have to find Jim McGreevy if we want to get his win pictures. I met a McGreevy at Thistledown when I was there, and at that time I think he was shoeing horses. Do't know if he's the same one, but anyway, Jerry sold Catty Shack to Jim for 20K and Jim trained and raced him for his entire career. The horse ran in 33 races and won 4, making about 45K. He's a gorgeous horse; she sent me links to photos of him. He doesn't look 23! He looks like he's in his prime.

I think it would be a good idea to start a Website for people who have retirees and want to find out about their horses’ careers. It is such a compassionate thing for them to do, and Thoroughbreds are so gifted at returning sensitivity and affection; what better way to honor your noble friend than to treasure his records? (Even if he retired as a maiden).

Just two days ago I got more exciting news, from my Cousin in Richmond, VA. Her name is Blair. She has 3 kids; on son and two daughters. They are my second cousins, once removed. The daughters are both horse lovers, as was Blair. The youngest, Leah, is about 10 and is evidently an accomplished rider at her age. Not only is naturally physically talented, but she also has very mature intuition with regard to her mounts. To me that's important; when you can specifially ad instantly identify subtle signals that the horse communicates, you gain the ability to make ongoing adjustments to optimize their performance. That's often the difference in a few points or ticks on the clock.

She has her focus set on making the USET and competing in the three-day eventing competition. You have to be good, but you also have to be well-mounted. For her, this could be hard, since she is far from being connected, and obtaining a good horse is a costly and daunting prospect for a family with no liquid assets. You’re always well-mounted in the Olympics; but you must be well-mounted to get to that point. She has a long road to travel and will need considerable sponsorship.

So I'm going to take a moment to advertise Leah's Website and read her very articulate descriptions of her experiences. Please donate if you can afford to; every little bit is appreciated; she cannot get there without you. Also please have a look at Leah's slideshow (you can also see it on her wesbite):

Post-Holiday posting...

2008-12-29T04:03:00.000-08:00

I sure didn’t leave much time to write. Seems like before I leave for work, I’m all up, my nerves are all jangly and ready-to go (even if it’s work that I don’t feel like going to). At that time, however, nothing has happened to write about so there’s no reason to be sitting here. My head is often empty of events and opinions about anything.

Then, when I have finished my work for the day, I’m usually full of all that has happened, but I’m also crashing from my two-cup tea habit and ready to nap. As soon as I get home, I eat something and lie down. Once I’m up, it’s all over. I’m empty-headed again.

I noticed in the results this morning that one of my earlier favorite horses, I’ll call him Phoenix (because when he had a trainer switch, he improved tremendously), finished third last night. What a gallant fellow! He’s had a lot of bad luck. He missed out on some specific care for a long time, that the new trainer (I’ll call him Cal) has managed to provide. When Cal first got the horse, he reversed his performance almost completely; after getting beaten double digits repeatedly, he ran second. Then he had an injury leaving the starting gate, and he hasn’t been 100% since. Last night he felt good enough to run third, and I am proud of both him and Cal.

I’d like to speak more openly about my horses and people, but because most of my horses run in claimers, I don’t want this column to become a place where people scout for horses to claim. I also have an aversion to being deceiving in it, because that would produce no lasting benefit for the industry, my credibility, the horse, and my friends. So as strange as my names sound to me, I guess that’ the way I have to do it. Some I will be able to speak about, I think, but certainly not all.

I’m supposed to work for Burkle today. He's been off two days and at his request, I have collected Saturday and Sunday's programs to give to him. The idea behind having the programs is to mark down who made money each evening and then see which of those people owes the tack store. It's never a bad time to ask for money. Heck, one of my own clients just won a race; and I had been so anguished over the lack of renumeration for my services that I had really become resentful. And the bad part is that it is someone I care about and really love, but I was really feeling taken advantage of. The win was a hefty gift, a Maiden Allowance with a purse of abotu 21 K. When the owner-trainer handed me a check, she staked me $100. That sure helped!
It should be a very busy day today. I have a half-dozen clients that have to go. Nobody went yesterday except for Cal, and I only galloped two. There’s a new Canadian that shipped in over Christmas. I inquired yesterday and hopefully will be able to again, early, because he’s gonna have ten or twelve horses, they say.

It sucks that his putfit is all the way at the top of the hill – it’s hard to get up there fast from Cal’s outfit.

Gallop Girl Predicts Long, Cold Day in North Panhandle

2008-12-20T04:14:00.000-08:00

It’s another cold one out there. Supposed to get up to 30 today, and then snow tonight. The last two days have been so without work I’ve been lucky to have my Burkle's job. So far I’ve made a few extra dollars dressing up other people’s boots with hair-on deer hide (see my reference to this way, way back in ’04. The proto-type was a whole set of leggings. Now I just glue the hide to an old pair of boots – just as warm, less trouble, toss ‘em out in the Spring.)

And it’s time to go now, a bit after 7. Today should be very busy. Track will be frozen mud, and hard. Jack has about 10 that haven’t trained since Sunday/ Monday; Perry Kerns is bringing 4 for after the break, and Jessie and Lori will both have something. Also I imagine Hugh Mahan will be sending. Only possible one not to go would be Pat, because he never gallops and has to finish early (for no reason - he stays here all morning regardless). On Saturdays the track forbids backtracking between 8 & 9 a.m. Cuz of the Schooling race. I'm the one for whom this call has been issued, but that's a story for another page....

Working at Burkle's

2008-12-19T02:29:00.000-08:00

NOTE:

Before I actually begin this post, I want to let you know that this is all part of my website, which has been up for quite a long time with no traffic. So briefly check out my other BLOG, the Far Turn News to see what I am up to. It sure would be nice to actually get some traffic, and start using the Forum as a place to discuss things that are related to our little neck of the woods, as well as some issues that are pertinent to horsepeople on the Track in general. With that in mind, here's the url for the site. Please navigate it a bit, with the understanding that it is, as we sometimes say about our horses, stuck in neutral at the Chute.

If it gets a little traffic around it, maybe it would find its motivation. Not only the Forum, but the other departments I have planned (which are linked, but which have no content yet.) Once you see them, you can get an idea of what's possible in them.

OK: First, the Video (I don't know how to embed it from youtube, so the quality might suck- I'm uploading directly):

Anyhoo, yesterday as I was finishing up, Ed leaned out the door of the new establishment and let me know I was gonna be working. Here's the terms of my employ, just BTW:

1) You work only when I need you (you can't count on having work, or any specific number of hours per week.)

2) You work only when I am here (You MUST adjust your schedule to fit into mine when you do have work.)

3) Your job consists mainly of:

a) putting up with a constant barrage of claptrap, balderdash, and requests for the latest gossip

b) listening to a single, repeated line from the same song (or advertising jingle - my choice, a different tune each time you are here, but the same one for the entire bloc of time you are here)

c) replying at all times whenever you hear "Liiiiiiiiizzzzzziiiieeeee.........answerme......"

d) Listening to my stories

e) Replying "yes you are indeed," when I tell you I'm brilliant.

Other tasks include:

a) stocking shelves and marking prices

b) unpacking and counting stuff

c) wearing me on your shoulder while I scrutinize every little thing you do, while explaining how I have already figured out the best way to do it

d) Choking on dust.

e) Avoiding sweeping, except for when it's absolutely necessary

f) When doing the absolutely necessary sweeping, combing through the pile to retrieve any screws, rivets, useful scraps of leather or shipping labels with the Burkle Turf Supply address on them.

So I do actually work when I'm there, but it's more like Work, Interrupted. What it comes down to is really about half the work and twice the pay. And I meant that; it's a great job! Doing it isn't as fun as telling about it, but: you couldn't ask to work for a better boss, really.

I don't have any specific hours. Usually hollers at me to tell me he needs me, which is when he expects an order in. It's my job to get the stock out of the boxes, price-marked and placed on the shelves. Lately I've been putting in about 6 hours a month, so I wouldn't call it lucrative even though the pay isn't bad. Stock prices keep going up, and even though gas is cheap again, and even after saving millions of dollars in fuel costs by routing the trucks to avoid left-hand turns, UPS shipping has never gone back down after going up.

Add to that the change in racing days for the season - four more this month, a half-dozen in January, and not many more in February; everyone will be too broke to buy anything, so why pack the shelves?

So yesterday there actually wasn't that much to unpack; I don't know how I managed to blow four hours there cuz I only emptied five boxes, mostly Numotizine that's been sitting there since the end of October. I guess it was filling out the bad check complaint packets from the Sherriff's office in Lisbon. We spent more time discussing how to fill then out than actually writing. That was fun, even though I didn't have a stool to sit on and I had to sit on the counter above the cash drawer and use a crappy ball point pen.

Oh, yeah, we did accounts payable. That's fun, but not as fun as sending out accounts receivable. Accounts receivable always brings up the great stories behind the bad checks we filled out the forms for yesterday.

Wow, it's already time for me to go to my first job. It's raining like heck out there, too. I wonder if I'm gona have to do anything. Perry Kerns was supposed to bring 4 horses in for after the break. I hope he doesn't, because by the sound of things outside I'll have soaked all my raingear by then.

Mercy Wins.

2008-12-17T03:17:00.000-08:00

Wooo, Mercy won last night. I didn't stay up to watch the race.Mercy who? you must ask; so here's my post about Mercy from early in the year. I'm so thrilled even though realize there wasn’t much talent in the race.

With her it's been one thing after another; the shin, her attitude, races being cancelled, races not going her way, being nervous in the paddock, nervous in the gate, only running half way, and so on. But after a six- week layoff this summer, her demeanor changed, from anxious and fretful to bold and self-contained.I think she was mainly suffering from pain in her shin, and the fear of pain in her shin made her difficult to work with. That layoff gave her a physical break that she needed, and probably put her finally into a more confident state of mind. She seemed able to comprehend the whole picture.

We went out to train in company with Copper, the lead pony, allowing her to run away from him, and she loved beating him. She really got better all around. Even though she's a bitch to gallop, that makes it all worth it. And here's a perfect example of what I was talking about in the last post; about working together (which by the way, that post needs a lot of editing to be understandable):

Last spring Mercy was so difficult to work with, I felt as if I had caused it in her. Maybe when I realized she was dropping her head and taking hold of the bit, I began letting her progress too fast. Then she got a shin (epiphysitis) and she and I began fighting about how fast she could go, and time dragged on. The shin didn’t get better and the horse had to run, because she had been in training for eight months or something- no sense letting her lose conditioning, right?

But the problem was, from the time the shin got bad she lost the alignment between her physical and mental states. And on top of that, the two older horses in the barn were not earning a dime, so all the pressure was on her. Worse, it wasn’t coming from Lori, the owner-trainer, but from her owner-boyfriend, who cannot feel even a little of what a horse feels. All I wanted to do was have Lori stop with her and give her six months off, just to forget all the stuff that was making her so sour and to let that stupid shin heal.

People seem to think that if they need something, the horse must produce it. But this isn’t about the modern human experience; “Tommy you must learn to earn your keep, so do your chores or be punished.”

You cannot reason with a horse that way. They don’t know why they are being asked to continue in pain; only that they are being punished while in pain. That we feed and bed them for doing so is a stretch to ask them to understand- it’s an artificial relationship, and not something they require of each other.

That’s kind of odd, when you consider what’s so for humans, at least us american ones; that our work ethic has a moral imperative attached to it is so inseparable from our Protestant legacy. We are unaware that we work to please God; we look down on our neighbors if they don’t work hard. The horse doesn’t fear god, and cannot understand the room and board exchange, and doesn’t require its neighbors to produce or be left to die; the lazy members are just lazy, without any repercussion from their kind.

So we expect them to try when they do not feel well, which to them is a threat to their survival. They can only see that we ask them to die willingly or be forced into death unwillingly. And we hate the lazy ones among them and among ourselves. The horse is the less intelligent, but perhaps not the less practical, or the less ethical. Could we take a lesson from the horse?

OK, enough of the philosophical wandering; the whole point is, Sweeny couldn’t give the horse a break, and it took Lori the incapacitating event of giving birth to force a well-needed break for the horse on an unwilling grantor of same.

Somehow, providence shines when truth and reality are aligned. The truth was, the horse needed the break. The reality was, finally, that the horse was getting a break. Horse gets a break, horse comes back renewed physically, refreshed mentally; with a new picture in her mind. She expresses it with a winning performance.

And the best part is the Providence: Maiden Special Weights pays $12,644 to the winner, including the return of the jockey fee ($1,2640) to the West Virginia resident owner, plus any breeder award for having a West Virginia bred; it couldn’t have happened in a better race.

Nor at a better time. Lori owes me so much in gallop pay (another squeeze from the owner-boyfriend) I’ve been afraid to count it all up. I’m only glad I permitted myself to be patient, and rather than getting mad and cutting her off of my services, I’ve stuck beside her, the only change being that I got my pay horses first, before getting hers out.

I’ve been so broke myself, and some days, like Sunday, have been so absent of horses to gallop, I might as well have stayed home. How can I stand in judgment of her?

So now, on a high note, I leave my readers to go about my day off, while Providence continues to bestow favors; a buyer for the Hoover Carpet Steamer I advertised on Craigslist for the second time a week ago suddenly appeared in my email. Just when I was down to my last ten bucks and a hundred dollars in my checking account.

But the bottom line is, it makes a difference when you don’t work together in the interest of the horse, just as when you do: Lori’s significant other put the screws down and it forced us to do the horse an injustice. Once that pressure was off, the horse returned to us an equal measure of what we needed. I’m only so glad I worked with her through thick and thin, testing her way of going, adjusting to her needs in the weeks after Lori’s maternity leave, because the victory is indeed a sweet one. ..
Too bad I didn’t bet, though….

So where was I yesterday........

2008-12-17T03:06:00.000-08:00

I'm gonna have two posts today, because I had an issue with my wireless and couldn't get the following column up after I wrote it. So this is my post for Dec. 16th:

So where was I yesterday? And I ran off to work only to find that none of my outfits were sending. So I got on three horses, left at 10, and went on a truly mediocre shopping trip, which included leaving one of my grocery bags at the store with 5 bucks worth of groceries inside.

I’m looking back and it seems that my last post was in March, just at the end of the long winter that everyone around here has to tighten their belts for. And right now we’re at the beginning of another. It’s like my uncle said to me once “you either have time, or you have money, but you never have both.” I hope I have both someday.

I was supposed to quit galloping on my birthday, which is on the 23rd, but I don’t see it happening. And the interesting thing is, at least to me, that for the first time I am enjoying doing it in spite fo the cold weather. Years ago I had made an enemy of the cold because my next-door neighbor used to bully me and I hated playing with her, so anything else I was aware of whenever I was with her got added to it. I distinctly recall coming in from a play session crying because my hands had frozen, and it seems that since then I have always feared that sensation (it’s a nasty one no doubt anyway). So far this year I haven’t cried once about it. Really haven’t had it happen (though we’ll have colder days in the new year than we currently have had.)

One of my trainer friends told me about their horse’s workout – a horse I worked – said they had the second fastest work of the day for 3/8ths. This is a horse I really like.

I really need to drop a disclaimer in here, because I don’t want these horses claimed (or not claimed.) Some of my friends have horses that are definitely worth claiming, for the 5K or so that they are running for. So here’s the disclaimer, for anyone who is considering taking one of the horses I mention; they all have issues, and many of them would be difficult to improve, as we’re already doing what’s possible with them. If you take one, you take the same risk as you do without knowledge of them. And I’ll take some of the credit for helping my people solve issues they have with their charges; without it, you can’t be sure how much you’ll have to fix (or be able to fix) when you get them.

With that said, I feel as though I can start nick-naming my horses (and trainers) again. I love writing about my horses; their idiosyncrasies, their progress, their strengths and weaknesses and the connection in general that I make with them.

I do all I can to meet my charges on their level. From the moment they leave the barn with me, it’s about them. Are they comfortable? How does today compare to last time? Are they quiet, signifying some internal discomfort, or quiet, signifying relief from the same? For example, a little filly I have been getting on (sharing duties with another exercise rider) for a couple months and who has tied up on a few occasions suddenly went good the other day:

The long version is, she obviously had mixed feelings about training for starters; crawling to the track slowly and trying to turn around, expressing tremendous discomfort – not a fearful discomfort, but really crabby and pissed off. When she would gallop, she would have difficulty switching leads from her right to her left. Unless she was allowed to really pick up the pace and reach out, she would bear out on the turns until she got the lead change in her back end, and even after that she would still bear out a bit while on that left lead.

I told her new groom Diana, what I had been saying about this. The trainer knew she had an ankle that bothered her, but nothing would improve about the gallop. Not that it had to, but it’s always good when a positive change appears.

This day, she went to the track pretty much the same (there is unfortunately nothing I can do to show her my sympathy except for talking to her, while I furiously kick her ribs to get her to keep walking). I went straight from the chute to pull up after the wire, a mile-as she was to run the next day. As she galloped into the first turn, she swapped leads without a hitch; no pulling on my left rein angrily for more slack, no attempting to run off as fast as she could. And the fact was, she was to run the next evening. I was amazed at how good she felt, and I told the groom when I returned.

The groom, Diana, said “well good; I’ve been painting her hocks.” “I mean she’s a different horse, Diana; she dropped her head an picked up the lead with no trouble. If you had seen her before and seen her today you’d know you did right.”

But between my sharing my experience with the groom, and the groom’s attentiveness to the horse in the stall and the shedrow produced another improvement, and that made all the difference in her performance. I even remembered that she was in, and bet $2 to Place and Show on her. She paid something like $38 to place. Not bad.

Another filly in the same barn ad a big turn around because the trainer kept working on an issue until he got it right. I didn’t bet on that one, but I should have- she was in a field of maidens in a never win two allowance, with only one other non-maiden in there. She paid a decent price, too, but the point is, it was his perseverance toward making the horse more comfortable that produced the result.

So that’s a great feeling- contributing to success, and working with the horse, and with others. I love it. And now it’s time to go to work. Ugh! 50 degrees yesterday, 20 degrees today. Later…!

In General....

2008-12-15T03:45:00.000-08:00

I'm down to fifteen minutes for writing. So never mind, I'll have to write later...

Sorry for the Hiatus

2008-06-20T03:15:00.000-07:00

Don;t mean to be gone so long- working on my house, finding a new job, etc., and not managing the web site at all.

Was gettin' ready for work this morning and caught the Senate Subcommittee hearing (part of it) on the State of the Thoroughbred Industry.

This is a step in the right direction. The url for the streaming video (2+ hours) is here:

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=206060-1

The re is no shortage of jobs in this business- it matters not how things change, so let's let them change without fear for any personal losses. Let's honor our horses.

A Little Light

2008-03-31T02:48:00.000-07:00

Friends-

I'm a little light on the website and the posts. The reason is manyfold; mainly, I have been working harder in the mornings, and on the house in the afternoons. about 4 p.m. I pretty much poop out. I'm behind in my letters and other contact stuff and I just have to catch up. I just spent the last hour writing notes to people. Now I have to go to work.

Also, with Debra's horses, I am enjoying my work once again. Her method is after my own heart; she has a complete understanding of her horses and is a good person to work for. So I make a point of getting to sleep and being fully alert for work. I'll say more about that when I have the time. That's all, gotta go to work now.

Just Stopping in To Say I'm Still ALive

2008-03-21T03:24:00.000-07:00

Why some people get themselves so busy is something I don't really understand, but I'm one of them. I really have more things on my plate then one person can do. I have at least a half- dozen projects going on at any one time, and I have to rotate them.

The bad thing is, few ever see completion. The good thing is, when I get tired of one project, I can switch to one that I haven't been doing for the last few weeks, and it feels just like a new project. I think I resist boredom even though I have two very consistent boring habits, the first of which is I never go anywhere that I don't absolutely have to and the second, that I stay parked on the couch nearly the whole time I'm here. Once I'm down I hate to get up. At least while it's cold, anyway.

When I am not posting, I am doing any one of the following things:

Working on my fixer-upper house (needs a lot of fixing up)

Writing my e-book that is supposed to make me a lot of money so I can continue to be self-
employed.

Playing my violin (which is currently slated to practise with the community Orchestra at the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center and eventually perform there.)

Reading email jokes

Sending email jokes

Reading short emails

Sending long emails that take three hours to write. This is probably the most demanding part of my day and generally a waste of time because nobody ever reciprocates to the same level of sharing, and I wonder if anyone realizes that all it takes to share is a willingness to seem like an idiot. That puts words on paper faster than talent for writing.

Writing cover letters and adapting resumes to whatever job I'm applying for

Applying for jobs that are not galloping horses.

Taking the bird for a walk

Bird watching (currently we have three ring-necked ducks in the pond on Olga's property. They'll only be here a couple days as they are migrating north and have only stopped to rest and feed.

Working in my rasperry patch

Planning and working on my website

Working on my ebay stuff

Making connections with wholesalers who have the stuff I want to sell on my website, at work, and on ebay.

Folding Origami, drawing, woodworking, or reading some how to do it book or software. I can't remember the last time I finished a fiction book. But I guess as reality TV demonstrates, real life is at least, if not more interesting most of the time. Fiction is for true literary types and readers of the same.

Dreaming about doing something or other that is not listed above.

Getting ready to go to work. Which is what I am about to do right now. So that's it for my post this morning. Oh, except I got a job working for Debra Rombis, a canadian woman who pays well and has become my bread and butter for all practical purposes. Well, gotta go. If you see no posts for six weeks, you know what I'm up to.