Montana: horse heaven (at least in July)

I saw a sign posted at a horse barn in Montana a couple of weeks ago: The Best Color for a Horse is Fat.

Apparently, the horses have taken this to heart. After a cool and rainy spring, the job of a horse in and around Bozeman these days seems to be to stand chest-high in gorgeous lush grass and just keep chewing. Right now, the grass is winning. The horses may disappear entirely in August, only the tips of their ears visible above the stalks.

Horse/Not a Horse

I'm always interested in the way horses respond to almost-horses that they encounter. My old horse Turbo had an intense fear and dislike of donkeys, and brought shame upon himself at his former boarding barn by beating up the pet donkey.

I've been lucky enough to ride in areas with game in Africa...this picture of zebras was taken from horseback in a game reserve in South Africa, during a six-day riding safari. I was riding a young horse who was so amazed at what he was seeing that he stood stock-still, so I was able to get a pretty clear picture. Though he stood so still, he was shaking all over. What was going through his mind?

J. and I did our first-ever cross-country course at a farm in Naivasha with loads of game. On a hack around the property the day before, J. had quite nearly lost her mind at her first close encounter with a giraffe, so I was worried about what might happen on course. No worries, though...she was so thrilled about the course that she just focused on her fences and went for it, paying no attention to the zebras, impala, etc. running off to either side. As for me, amid the terror of that first time, I had a distinctly fun feeling of being in the middle of an "Out of Africa" out-take.

Another riding landscape

A few times a year, the owner of a farm outside of Nairobi invites local riders to come and school over a cross-country course that runs through his property. It's in one of my favorite parts of the area around the city, Tigoni, which is mostly tea plantations.

This farm also produces organic lettuce, arugula, and herbs.

Tigoni is often damp and cool when the rest of the area is dry, and there is a lushness about the landscape that is very far from what most of us imagine when we think of Africa and Kenya. What will often remind you that you are NOT in, say, Virginia, is the sound of colobus monkeys commenting on your passage.

Riding in the land...

Across the road from where J. is stabled, there's a large area of shambas (small-holder farm plots) and behind that a large coffee plantation. We hack out there a couple of times a week, and for a place right on the edge of big-city Nairobi, it is an incredible landscape of greenery, wildlife, livestock and people.

When the rains have been good, low-lying areas turn into shallow seasonal ponds or marshes, which attract blue herons, African crowned cranes, and other birds.

Horse Dreams

I can tell I'm really missing my horse when I start having weird riding dreams. I love the ones where my horse starts to fly... Is that the best 8-year-old-girl fantasy or what?

Last night's version started out like a pretty standard horse-show anxiety dream...driving to a show somewhere, hauling a two-horse trailer, running late. That feeling of rushing to tack up, rushing to get on, rushing to warm up, is one I dread but seem doomed to repeat, in dreams and in life.

I pulled up at the show grounds...and it turned out not to be, strictly speaking, a horse show. Some people where riding horses. But my friend A., an awesome dressage rider, was mounted on a fine long-horned cow, preparing to ride the Novice B test.

The little pony-clubbers were doing some kind of complicated relay with flags on long sticks, on sturdy but muddy sheep.

When I pulled down the ramp on the trailer, inside I found, not my mare J., but a zebroid (zebra-horse cross). These really do exist (see photo), though I've never heard of people riding them...they have been used for packing loads and hauling wagons.



So I tacked her up. She was fatter than the fattest pony, cross and opinionated. She wasn't wearing any shoes and she simply refused to accept the bit. This being a dream, I was still able to finish and mount up, but I was nervous that someone would notice there was no bit.

When we rode up to the warm-up ring, the only comment from a show official was to ask me why I wasn't wearing a hairnet. (Since I've started riding and sometimes competing, I've found myself buying a lot of weird gear, but for some reason it's owning hairnets that seems strangest to me. I think it's because the only other time I ever wore them was when I scraped plates at my school cafeteria as my work-study job back in 10th grade.)

When the class started, the Z. and I found ourselves in the ring with a couple of really nice-looking horses and one camel. The judges asked for a canter, and the camel took off at speed. My Z. followed close behind, and then in convenient dream fashion, the arena fence disappeared and we found ourselves galloping across a grassy plain, being left further and further behind by the camel....

There's no resolution to this dream, of course. I woke disappointed and hope that the next one I have will reunite me with J. rather than some other hoofed animal.

Fitness when horseless?

As I cope with my six weeks of no horse, I am trying to stay fit for riding. And I'm wondering how J. is doing on that front...she is a little bit of a hard keeper, and when I first got her she was skinny. (See photo!)

By the time I left for the states in June, after more than a year together, she was looking GOOD. Nice neck. Nice butt! Even, sometimes, a nice smile. Plus that shiny avocado oil treatment coat.

Now I worry we'll both have a lot of make-up work to do in August. We may need our own version of bootcamp fitness, someone to yell at us while we work our abs, glutes, cores, etc.

So, right now, I'm trying to avoid the worst by running (about 3 miles four times a week), doing push-ups (I'm up to 20!) and crunches (except I hate crunches, so I'm not going to tell how many).

Are there secrets to staying in shape for what is, after all, a pretty weird and specific form of athletic endeavor...especially after 50? Would love to hear from other riders! And how do you keep your horses fit when you can't ride?

The up side of not riding?

My riding life is on hold right now while I visit the U.S. and while my horse J. undergoes the annual ordeal of her horse sickness vaccination. I didn't know about horse sickness before I started riding in Kenya -- it's a terrible illness, often fatal, and the vaccine is no joke either. It's a live vaccine, and horses receive two injections three weeks apart. For three weeks after each injection, it is important that they avoid raising their internal temperature. So no riding above a walk.

Every year I get a little frustrated about the inevitable loss of fitness for J. and, for me, the inevitable loss of that fragile sense that I know what I am doing on horseback. Somehow, after this longish break from riding, every fence seems higher, every shy out on a hack seems bigger, my legs seem to swing like pendulums (pendula?), and that lovely sense of being deeply, securely in the saddle evaporates.

But I need to remind myself that J. and I both need our vacations. It's easier for me to be here in the U.S. visiting family and enjoying reconnecting with friends when I am not also thinking, "I could be galloping through the coffee fields right now." And yes, I am that petty. But the fact is, the best J. and I could hope for if I were in Kenya right now would be a quiet walk down our road, keeping pace with the dog walkers and the moms pushing strollers. A pleasure, certainly, but one that can easily be deferred.

As for J., when I'm able to keep to my ideal riding schedule (5 to 6 rides a week, including 1 dressage lesson, 1 jumping lesson, 2 to 3 hacks and 1 to 2 schools -- an ideal I manage to achieve at least once in a millenium), I'm pretty sure that there are days when she sees me coming and the thought in her mind would not translate to "Hooray! More work!"

So, it's kind of nice to think of her loafing around grazing in the boma with her best friend B., or snacking on the avocados that are falling from the trees right now (and let me say that free access to avocados makes for a very shiny coat and some very interesting bright green slobber that will challenge your laundry skills to the max).

Back story, part 1

Who was the first horse you ever loved?

I admit, I'm easy...I have loved almost every horse I've ever really known. Brady, a mare "of a certain age" that I half-leased when I first started getting seriously sucked into this horse thing. Zippy the wonder horse with his small brain, large appetite. But for a lasting relationship, I think of Turbo. He was in his 20s, I was in my 40s. Which made it a December/September relationship, I guess. He was a "gift horse," in that he had been given to a friend of mine and I for free (I hear you laughing, yes, I know, if there is no such thing as a free lunch, there is TRULY no such thing as a free horse).

Three years ago, I had to leave Turbo behind when I moved to Nairobi with my family as what is called a "trailing spouse." Gotta love that label! Like the tail on a comet, following my shooting star...right.

So it was great to discover a lively riding scene in Nairobi. An AFFORDABLE riding scene, at least for those of us accustomed to spending a lot more on shoes for our horses than shoes for ourselves. Right now, I pay about $250 a month for full board, $15 for a visit from the farrier...this is one-half to one-third DC area prices.

The situation, then, was this: in a new country, not working, no work permit, and cheap horse life on offer. What would you have done?