Are you a truly intelligent person?

So if you've been reading this and are not yet on the list of "Truly Intelligent People" -- could you join?!?! Can use a fake E for all I care (if it even asks for one? I don't know -- I just see the names), I'm just *really* curious who I'm writing to!!! Let me know :) *edited later -- ok as silly as it seems to follow your own blog, I just added myself. It's a relatively painless procedure...*

Mr. Cayman met the cowboy today -- seems to be a really great horseperson w/ an interesting combination of natural-horsemanship and practical usefulness :) One horse he's working w/ on the farm (who actually has *very* similar issues to C -- maybe that's why the reaction to C's behaviour was more dramatic than perhaps otherwise called for?) Anyways -- he was riding her out and when she started acting up he just rode it through till it was a non-issue (this after 2 wks of training). Clearly willing to deal w/ the issues mounted etc. But w/ Cayman today (being the first day) he had him free in the ring and w/in a few minutes had him chilled out and following him around. No drama, no props, entirely body communication. But was really brilliant to watch. N he seemed to have a pretty good read on him too. Anyways -- hopefully he can help us figure out what's going on and if it's 'fixable'. Fingers crossed. After all "it's the difficult horses that have the most to give you" -- or is that just wishful thinking on the part of all people w/ difficult horses?

Jumping today -- FINALLY! Theory was mostly about the differences between jumping position and dressage position and why... The whole form follows function thing. Tight, short leg for stability and strength in jumping. Soft, long leg for suppleness and subtlty in dressage. Lower leg forward jumping for defence/strength, lower leg directly under for dressage for precision/suppleness. etc etc

Now not only has my HORSE been banned from lessons, but so has my jumping saddle! :( So sad. Was informed that it's making it impossible for me to ride correctly (hmmm this conversation sounds sorely familiar in ref to my dressage saddle. Sheesh) and there's no point to me coming to lessons if I don't even have a *chance* to do it right. Upon mentioning that it happens to be my ONLY jump saddle (sorry -- still haven't won the lottery) I was told to try one of his (or several till I find one that works)... Which is great and yet not, cause the last time I borrowed a saddle from my coach it got taken away from me at a show to be loaned to somebody else and I was left w/ nothing (thankfully I have great friends who bailed me out!), so I'm def a little gun-shy on that one. But that being said, no shows for 5 mths, so no real need to worry... Of course the other catch is that if I find the perfect saddle for me here, I'm toast, cause I could never ever afford one. But for the moment at least, I'll be doing as I'm told :)

I got a little frustrated in this lesson because I was being asked to make the horse canter a course in a fashion that yesterday was deemed to be too hard for him (@ his current level of fitness) for more than about 3 strides... N I'm thinking, if we can't do it on the flat, how are we supposed to do it over fences...? Basically got told, "yes well do it anyways" >;-P Needless to say, it didn't work out very well. :( Ah well -- such is life eh? Horse I was riding today has quite a cute jump though -- was happy w/ that.

So this morning I got "you're a techie person -- want to help me w/ my computer and maybe do some typing?" hahaha now WHERE did he come up w/ the idea I'm a techie person...??? I certainly didn't tell him :) And nobody else here should know... And yet again, I seem to be destined to become the barn secretary *g* hahaha has happened at every barn I've been at since highschool. Sheesh. Just as well I don't actually mind eh? It's a good mental change from normal barn chores, and sometimes you get to find out kewl stuff too :)

On a completely different note -- finally posted more random farm pics if you're interested: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=168608&l=449e0&id=823765365