English V. Western

This is a very well done presentation of two disciplines.

Enjoy...

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Where Is My Caballo Bonito?

Accidental sagacity has paid me another recent visit and none too soon. Don Pecos and I have been working all summer to correct some issues. He wants to counter bend to the left all the time. He has been having trouble with consistency in both stride and cadence. This horse is in supreme condition, is an awesome athlete.

The problem, I knew, must be with me.

I work extremely diligently to allow the horse to be brilliant. I do everything in my power to ensure that I drive with my whole body. Still, I was doing something wrong and engaged the wonderful Theresa Burns for help. "Please watch us and see if you can see what I'm doing wrong," I told her. She watched and watched and watched.

"I can't see anything, Michelle," she said. "There are moments of perfection, but I do see the inconsistency you are talking about more often." Confirmed in my theory that it must be me, I asked her to drive Don Pecos.

Theresa is the softest, gentlest, sweetest whip I've ever known. Don Pecos loves her and responds well to her hands. He relaxes and becomes more consistent, but not the gravity defying masterpiece of equine idol that he can be. She drove, I studied.

"There is such a fine line between holding him too tightly and throwing him away," she said. "I don't know what else to tell you."

I got back on the box seat. "Where is my caballo bonito?" I asked him. "I know you are in there." I took up the reins, asked him to collect and then asked him to stay collected by using a firmer hold on the lines and added more strength throughout my entire body.

"OOOOO, yes, like that!" Theresa exclaimed. There was my horse. Burnished copper gold coat covered sinew and grace, dancing in the sunlight. There was Don Pecos.

The morale of the story: I wanted to be soft, gentle and sweet like Theresa, but what Don Pecos interpreted was a passive partner. When I took more responsibility by increasing my participation, we became in sync.

"I was wondering where you were, bella senora." Don Pecos said. "I knew you were in there. Somewhere."

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Whipping the Horse Into Shape

Don Pecos, I am happy to report, is only leaping out of his skin when I touch his sides with the whip about 15% of the time now. Usually this only occurs at the start of our sessions. I can get him to lengthen his stride and guide him almost exclusively with the whip after the initial freak out in each gait. Because it feels different when I touch his sides at the walk, jog and trot. Apparently.

To regular readers and those who know and love Don Pecos it will come as no surprise that he is a conspiracy theorist. "Human! Alert! That bridge in the middle of the grassy park has no reason at all to be there! It is a trap! Abort! I will run for our lives 90 degrees in the other direction!" Don Pecos doesn't have a problem with bridges that go over water. "What clever humans they are. I don't like to get my feet wet, so they build a bridge. Sweet of them, really."

"Human! Alert! There is a nefarious pile of ground poles at letter C that wasn't there yesterday! It's an Ambush! Activate Hyperspace!" When I assure him it is only pile of ground poles, he eyes it, still suspicious, and after a great deal of snorting, walks off remotely resembling quietly. But every time we pass "C", he picks his feet up very high, just in case the bandits hiding in the pile of ground poles shoot laser beams that can cut off his legs.

Thus, I amused myself trying to stay in the gig today with Don Pecos's 0-40mph shape shifting avoidance tactics. Oh, how I love that little lunatic, but it really helps that he is outstandingly beautiful, athletic and sweet.

I hope you had time to enjoy this gorgeous late summer day, too.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

The Voice of God

The Grace of God: The Major General

I am not a church going person. I'm too sarcastic for organized religion. Intelligent design does not make sense to me. I like Buddhism a lot, but I'm too lazy to practice it. I think Jesus was a really cool guy, but as far as virgin birth goes, well, I'm not sold.

However, if you distill religion down into its basest denomination: belief, then I can be very devout. Some people believe they can hear the voice of God in music and I'll agree. I hear the voice of God through the horses.

Before you hit Unsubscribe, or label me a heretic, let me explain. In God's country you will usually find horses. If you own a horse or two or five, you will often need more money than God. When you have to say goodbye to them the final time, you will know God's will. See what I mean?

If you have a relationship with God, it might be guided by a pastor/priest/rabbi or other such spiritual leader. The horses are my spiritual leaders. All my greatest joys are as a result of their teaching. They carry me and my burdens of life with grace. I see a different world when I look at it in the reflection of their eyes. "When I bestride him, I soar."

[Wm. Shakespeare channeling the voice of God.]

Because I work so closely with horses, I can read them and sometimes even communicate with them. I open up my mind, heart and soul, ask the horses for help determining the solution and quite often, it comes. Sound crazy? "She's gone all Freaky Animal Communicator on us!" Imagine those words coming from your pastor/priest/rabbi/etc and replace 'God' for 'the horses'.

Teaching and training horses and their people is not a job to me. It is a calling. It is what I was born to do. It is not easy and God knows I'll never get rich doing it. But he also knows that is not why I do it. I'm not zealot material [ see paragraph one: too sarcastic & lazy], but I do my work religiously. There but for the grace of God go I.

I hope you can find the 'voice of God', however you define it, somewhere, today.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Driving the Whip

Another excellent weekend of carriage driving lessons in Cedar Rapids spoils me for choice on blogging material. Not even Mother Nature's attempts at dampening [with a morning of showers] the spirits of the participants could prevail over the wide eyed, beaming smile AHA moments. A couple of seasoned whips attended for some experience with the Michelle Blackler Method of Reinsmanship and left with what looked like inspired to moi.

I used a teaching tool that has become indispensable: driving the clients. I give them the ends of the reins and ground 'drive' them around with and without contact to demonstrate the process from the horse's point of view. Then I turn it around and have them drive me, reacting as a horse would to their cues. If they cross their mid-line with a turning signal, I cross over with my legs, not 'bending'. If they are too heavy on the reins, I pull back. If they loose contact, I rush forward. If they don't support the outside rein through the turn, I slice it.

The exercise really opens the whips' minds to their own responsibility in balancing and supporting the horse and coordinating their cues. Add to that a great deal of hilarity about the 'naughty pony' [me] and the lightness with which their own horses responded and you have the screenplay to Whips Dancing With Equines.

Ahhhhh. I love my job.

Lessons are available during the week at our home barn in Granger and again in Cedar Rapids, hosted by Laurie Renda on September 3rd and 4th. Come add some polish to your reinsmanship for Villa Louis and New Moon Carriage Classic, or just as a gift for your horse.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Tandem Driving Fools

"I always look upon a man who drives tandem as a fool; he makes two horses do the work of one and most likely breaks his silly neck." ~Major General Sir C. Teesdale, R.A., V.C., K.C.M.G. remembering the birth of the Tandem Club

But when two women drive tandem...

Theresa Burns came to the barn to play today and we hitched Don Pecos and Ace as a tandem. I might add that it took three attempts to actually get to the barn as a torrential downpour was working its way towards washing out all roads leading there. Which meant we were stuck in the small indoor arena with a tandem, not enjoying the open air. Still, driving tandem at all is an impossible, intoxicating treat, and after the first harrowing few minutes, things were going rather well.

I was driving with one hand and as Ace tends to get a bit too heavy on the bit when I drive in this manner and I was tiring, I passed the ribbons over to Theresa, who adopts a two handed method that I absolutely must learn, because Ace settled right into her hands softly. We ventured out into the sloppy, saturated driveway when the rain subsided and both horses made great strides through the naturally occurring water hazards [enormous puddles] and stepped out like a seasoned tandem.

"Oh. Gosh!" Theresa pronounced. "They have power steering!" Quite unlike their performance in the pair configuration, where they are way too strong and way too forward. "This is Great!' Said the beaming Theresa. "This is just Great!"

"There is no reason, however, why a tandem should be a particularly dangerous or useless mode of conveyance...Nothing could well be more pleasant than for two great friends who do not quarrel more than three times a day to make a tour through a hilly district...and all the elements of open air enjoyment." ~Major General Sir C. Teesdale, R.A., V.C., K.C.M.G.

I should like it said that Theresa and I are great friends in the making and on no account would either of us see fit to argue more than three times a day, if at all.

"If there be a small degree of danger connected with the pastime, and a man must needs be a fool for liking it, long may there be many such fools in England to keep up all its sports and exercises as well as tandem-driving." ~Major General Sir C. Teesdale, R.A., V.C., K.C.M.G.

Suffice it to say we spent a damp, humid morning smiling like fools, driving darling Morgan horses tandem in a cornfield that is Iowa: a long, long way from England and a long time since the Major General's words first gave credence to the sport. If you have the nerve and a good instructor, you should try it sometime.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Sexiest Carriage Driving Competition Alive: Iron Horse 2010

Under the Illinois Sky: A Competitor on the Cones Course

The Poster Boy: Chester Weber, Making Four In Hand Everyone's Dream

Eight Fours

Just trying to catch my breath from Iron Horse: stunning, stunning, stunning. The Venue. The Obstacles. The Show. The Competitors. The Horses. The Appetizer for the World Equestrian Games. Mmmm.

Sexiest Carriage Driving Whip Alive: Chester Weber. Sexiest Carriage Driving Event Organizer Alive: James O'Rourke, III. Sexiest Carriage Builder Alive: Todd Frey. There is nothing left to be said, except, get out your wallets and send each of these men a check so they can keep doing what they do best to promote the sport of carriage driving. Nobody does it better...

There goes my breath again.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.