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Tuesday, February 11, 2003
The wonders of horseriding
I had my first true currier and ives moment this weekend when I showed up at the barn after a (for DC) hellacious snowstorm that dumped seven inches on our area and was sent out to the field to go walk Domino back and saddle him up. It was picture postcard beautiful.
However, when I got back to the barn, reality intruded. Horses hooves get filled with snow. As they walk, that snow compacts with ice. That ice has to be manually picked out. It's not easy. Nor can you just put the horse's hoof into a bucket of warm water. Tried that. Domino's response was to lift his leg into the "I'm gonna kick your *ss" position. He was punished and his foot forced into the bucket. He then simply knocked the bucket over. One hour later, all four hooves were clean and Domino was saddled. For good measure, we sprayed his hooves with "Pam" non-stick cooking spray. It helps with future snow removal. (Why was I not told this in advance, I do not know.) Considering that horses and snow have been around for several thousand years, I'd really like to know how people have handled this situation in the past. Non-stick cooking spray, as far as I can tell, has only been around for 50 years. The other choice, Vaseline, has been around for 60 tops. So when you watch Dr. Zhivago or Dances with Wolves, just remember all those magical snow moments with the coifed cast and Clydesdales probably involved several stops to get down into the cold snow and forcibly wrestle with the horse and pick snow out of its hoof. For an hour. After the lesson - which only involved one snow removal interruption - lunch was served. Chili. In a five-gallon plastic bucket. A clean one, I'll point out, but a plastic paint-or-plastic five gallon bucket nonetheless. In paintings and westerns, the hungry cowboys always dine on tin or pewter, never plastic tubs and Styrofoam. The reality of horse riding, as I continue to learn, is much less glamorous than the Hollywood fantasy. And it makes me ask: remind me - why am I doing this again?
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