Old Year, New Year Lesson

Listening to NPR's report on the Worst. Decade. Ever. yesterday, I must say, I had to agree. Wars, corporate and political malfeasance, economic chaos, epic natural disasters; it wasn't rosy. I went about my business at the stables, trying to be positive and not reflect on the negative.

The horses were in their stalls munching on their afternoon hay snack. All content, except Kitten, who kept nickering at me. She has the most alluring nicker: deep, sweet. I checked that I had actually given her hay and not missed her inadvertently. More nickering. I told her it wasn't time for grain. More nickering. I checked her water. More nickering.

I stood outside her stall with my hands on my hips, "What?" She gave me those come here eyes and I dutifully scratched her neck. Kitten is a scratching fanatic and always obliges in return. Yesterday, she wrapped her neck around my shoulder and held the back of my head with hers. I put my arms around her and we stood in the embrace for a sublime time.

No amount of hardship or pain can withstand the super power of a Kitten hug; she puts her entire existence into fighting the evil of stress, grief and despair with them. When confronted with events or circumstances beyond control, the best defense is an expression of love. I don't understand her all the time, but Kitten is my Hero.

Wishing you a happy new year,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Another Favorite Dressage Video: Andreas Helgstrand and Matinee

Merry Christmas from Serendipity

Bob Nervig driving Don Pecos put to the one horse open marathon vehicle. Happy Holidays everyone!

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Christmas from daily@delanceyplace.com

In today's encore excerpt - at the end of the 19th century, Charles Dickens' short novel, A Christmas Carol, had readership second only to the Bible's:

"If only Ebenezer Scrooge had not, in the excitement of his transformation from miser to humanitarian, diverged from the traditional Christmas goose to surprise Bob Cratchit with a turkey 'twice the size of Tiny Tim.' But alas - he did, and as A Christmas Carol approaches its 165th birthday, a Google search answers the plaint 'leftover turkey' with more than 300,000 promises of recipes to dispatch it. As for England's goose-raising industry, it tanked. ...

"The public's extraordinary and lasting embrace of Dickens's short novel is but one evidence of the 19th century's changing attitude toward Christmas. In 1819, Washington Irving's immensely popular 'Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent' had 'glorified' the 'social rites' of the season. Clement Moore's 1823 poem 'The Night Before Christmas' introduced a fat and jolly St. Nick whose obvious attractions eclipsed what had been a 'foreboding figure of judgment' as likely to distribute canings as gifts. Queen Victoria and her Bavarian husband, Albert, 'great boosters of the season,' had installed a Christmas tree in Windsor Castle each year since 1840, encouraging a fad that spread overseas to America by 1848. ...

"What is true is that Christmas, more than any other holiday, offered a means for the adult Dickens to redeem the despair and terrors of his childhood. In 1824, after a series of financial embarrassments drove his family to exchange what he remembered as a pleasant country existence for a 'mean, small tenement' in London, the 12-year-old Dickens, his schooling interrupted - ended, for all he knew - was sent to work 10-hour days at a shoe blacking factory in a quixotic attempt to remedy his family's insolvency. Not even a week later, his father was incarcerated in the infamous Marshalsea prison for a failure to pay a small debt to a baker. At this, Dickens's 'grief and humiliation' overwhelmed him so thoroughly that it retained the power to overshadow his adult accomplishments, calling him to 'wander desolately back' to the scene of his mortification. And because Dickens's tribulations were not particular to him but emblematic of the Industrial Revolution - armies of neglected, unschooled children forced into labor - the concerns that inform his fiction were shared by millions of potential readers. ...

"Replacing the slippery Holy Ghost with anthropomorphized spirits, the infant Christ with a crippled child whose salvation waits on man's - not God's - generosity, Dickens laid claim to a religious festival, handing it over to the gathering forces of secular humanism. If a single night's crash course in man's power to redress his mistakes and redeem his future without appealing to an invisible and silent deity could rehabilitate even so apparently lost a cause as Ebenezer Scrooge, imagine what it might do for the rest of us!"

Kathryn Harrison, "Father Christmas," The New York Times Review of Books, December 7, 2008, p. 14.

Edward Gal's Master Class at Olympia

This video is a fantastic class with top dressage rider Edward Gal at the London International Horse Show. His teaching is filled with humility and understanding, both of the horse and his audience. I love watching it and wanted to share it. The video box is a little wonky, so scroll down to the bottom right hand corner and click on the orange square for full screen version.

Enjoy!

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Mary Cassatt's Painting, A Woman and A Girl Driving

A Woman and A Girl Driving by Mary Cassett (1881)

This is an interesting painting from an artistic point of view. The little girl is said to be Edgar Degas' niece and the woman driving is the artist's terminally ill sister. The technical application of light and color is the hallmark of the Impressionist movement, Cassett was a contemporary of Degas, Manet and Renoir. An American living in Paris, Cassett painted this portrait in 1881, and anyone who is a fan of Impressionist art will see the influences of all three more famous painters in its application.

Now, being the art critic I am, there are things to be celebrated in this work. But being the carriage critic does raise a few trifling flaws to the vehicle and carriage. I'm glad I wasn't the one driving that vehicle, what? A Dos a Dos Meadowbrook? With a kicking strap? The position of those shafts? Lamps on the dash? I fear for the groom were they to hit a bump...

Artistic license. That would never pass a safety check today.

One Horse Open Marathon Vehicle Part II

Another bitterly cold day. Gosh this is getting old and it isn't even Christmas yet. The weather really prohibits good blogging material, as Lucy and I have been home bound for so many days and even when we do go to the barn, it is just about getting through lessons and working horses as fast as possible.

This last weekend was tolerable, so I set out to work Don Pecos and Ace. My colleague, Michael Scott was down for a visit and we got the marathon vehicle out and plowed through the drifts, braved the chilly wind and worked a new angle of cones. Ace was not wanting to settle down and bend for me, so Michael got in and took him hell for leather through the course. I tried to anchor the vehicle to the ground as best I could while still looking over Michael's shoulder to watch Ace. He was booking through those cones, twisting and leaping like a ballet dancer. It was thrilling! Afterwards, I came to the conclusion that I baby him too much. He went much better with sturdy contact and a more complicated course.

Don Pecos was up next, so I took him through the course as I knew he could: fast and tight. Michael seemed to be much more impressed with me driving Pecos, but I can not take any credit there. Pecos reminds me of a BMW 5 Series advertisement: Part Athlete, Part Genius. He is such a joy to drive through these cones courses: fuel injected, power steering, big engine. But not to diminish Ace's ability, he is a great athlete as well, he is just different, and he has not got the same level of conditioning that Pecos has.

So, we have so much work to do this winter to prepare for combined driving next year, that this weather is an even bigger bore. I'd rather be driving. Oh, well, at least I got my Christmas cookies baked. And I'm halfway through the Manual of Coaching, which should be required reading for anyone interested in hitching a horse to a vehicle. So, snuggle up next to your dog, cat or sweetie and keep the fire stoked.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

One Horse Open Marathon Vehicle

Since the weatherpeeps said it was going to be bad winter this week, I took advantage of the 'fair' weather Monday and drove outside in the snow. Packed inside my giant fake fur coat and hat with my Bog boots, I was fairly warm on the marathon vehicle and felt like an image straight out of Dr. Zhivago, when in reality, I probably looked like Foghorn Leghorn in his college get up, [minus the PU flag].

Don Pecos was first up and after some super boring walk exercises, we took up a trot. The first corner wheeeee as the vehicle fishtailed several times, but I managed to maintain composure so Pecos didn't sprint us into the next county. It was necessary to slow down, way down to avoid the fishtailing, although, Pecos didn't seem to notice this was happening behind him. I was expecting a bit of skidding, the gig does it all the time on really fast corners [think chariot racing], but with the four wheels, it was like driving the truck on an icy gravel road. Yee Haw!

I'm really enjoying the marathon vehicle, despite its incredibly rough ride. It is such rough and tumble fun, I don't mind. Ace, however, has serious reservations about what is going on behind him. He has yet to quiet down and get to work while hitched to it. He does enjoy our romps through the hayfield, a welcome change of pace from circles.

But, all that is finished for a while as Mama Nature dumped 15 inches of snow on us and is currently whipping it into four foot drifts in my driveway, let alone what is happening at the stable on the prairie. Hopefully the wind will blow most of it on to Missouri. The weatherpeeps are now saying round three of this storm will be dangerous wind chills. Hurray. Saturday will be a balmy 28 degrees, so we'll see if we can dig our way out of the barn with the marathon vehicle.

Even Lucy doesn't want to go outside. You know it is miserable when they close the malls. So, time to fire up the oven and bake Christmas cookies. Stay warm and cozy!

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Accidental Sagacity for Today: A Manual of Coaching

I just got off the phone with my friend, Harold Ault. I had called to ask if my understanding of eveners and splinter bars was correct. My interpretation was that eveners are used for draft vehicles and splinter bars are used for carriages. Of course, Harold gave me a long dissertation of how this was almost correct, but there were many instances where it was not. This included, but was not limited to and in other instances varied, whether the vehicle had a fixed or drop pole, platform gear or reach, the weight of the vehicle and the terrain and/or use of the vehicle.

So, now I know more about how much I don't know. But, I picked up some neat information that was accidental sagacity. For instance, I did not know that the leaders in a four in hand pulled from the pole head. I also learned that when you crest the top of a steep hill, you should disengage the leaders from draft or they could snap off the pole. Good to know.

Also good to know is that Harold told me just about everything I needed to know was in Fairman Roger's A Manual of Coaching. I lamented that I didn't have possession of this book, whether reprinted or first edition, as no doubt, Harold has, so I got online and found an internet archive of the book at: http://ia341317.us.archive.org/2/items/manualofcoachi00roge/manualofcoachi00roge.pdf

I also found a review of the book on the New York Times Archive, December 9, 1899 http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C05E6D91530E132A2575AC0A9649D94689ED7CF

[I heart this archive!] which says, "Small wonder is it then that when the public, to whom coaching is a lost art, and who only know of it through reading, pictures and the occasional sight of some rich man tooling his break or coach, or through the annual coaching parades of London, Paris, Newport, Philadelphia and New York, throng a building to see a coaching exhibition, a man of long purse, who is in addition a lover of horseflesh, can find keen interest in the old sport." And "In reading its pages there will come to them a feeling of older times and older manners, which is so well voiced by Austin Dobson in his lines: With slower pen men used to write, In Anne's or George's day, But now- electric light hath dazed our sight, We may not write-ah, would we might, With slower pen."

Isn't it a wonderful strange world that I should find these connections today? And that I should find a friend with the spirit of Fairman Rogers in Harold Ault? Or that the high speed internet connection allowed me to slow down, and download A Manual of Coaching. What ever needs to be done today can wait until I find the answers that are still relevant, or at times, even more so, one hundred and ten years later.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Relationships at Serendipity

Bob Nervig and I had a photo shoot a while back and I wanted to share the results. Bob and Don Pecos are developing into quite a team, as these photos show.

We have all transitioned over to the Polish marathon vehicle that Michael Scott so graciously lent us. But, I surmise that Bob's first carriage love will always be the gig.

It is my greatest pleasure to teach carriage driving to individuals and watch them develop a relationship with the horses of Serendipity. Bob and Pecos are the proof.

Bob's wife Kathy produces gorgeous scrapbooks. These photos are meant to be included in one for Bob on his carriage driving adventures. I can't wait to see her artwork when it's finished.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.