And this is for Susan

Mestizo (left), Quarter Horse x Andalusian, and Barbiche (right), Quarter Horse 

"Are you riding yet, or are you still rolling?"

I found this at Wu Wei Verlag's website, a German publisher specializing in, among other things, publications critical of our culture's increasing violence and abusiveness in the field of equitation, which especially the "Rollkur" *) - which means forcing the horse to bend his neck to a point where his nose almost touches his chest, an unnatural position and extremely damaging especially to the horse's upper vertebrae (though in a broader sense damaging to his entire body and soul) - is an expression of.



The text says: "Are you riding yet, or are you still rolling?" It reminded me of what one of my trainers used to say, that the motto of dressage competitions should be "Look what I'm NOT able of!"

Any parallels to the mh system? Well, if you ask me, the whole mh system is an expression of what its professionals are NOT able of, and one could ask them: "Are you helping people yet, or are you still oppressing them?"

Via Camera-Obscura
_______________

*)The English term is hyperflexion.

Pot8os

I've always been convinced that using figures instead of words must have been invented at about the same time as text messaging became popular. Until I saw the pedigree of my thoroughbred mare: Pot8os. He lived from 1773 to 1800. A son of famous Eclipse.

Filly power

I promised Susan a post about Rachel Alexandra, who won the Kentucky Oaks by 20 1/4 lengths, and was the first filly to win the Preakness Stakes since 1924, if she won the Belmont Stakes too. Well now, although Susan let me know that Rachel Alexandra won't run at Belmont Park at all, I thought I'd do a post about the filly's amazing performance in the Kentucky Oaks and the Preakness anyway. Here she is, winning the Oaks in a fashion that almost reminds of the Belmont Stakes 1973:



The European in me likes both the journalist's pink and the stable pony's rider's classic English get-up in a western saddle... - No offence intended. Just having a little fun here ;)

Well, and here she beats the boys, the Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird included, in the Preakness:



That's filly power!

spring - and something about the Frederiksborg horse

Extensive areas of forest in Northern Sealand are surrounded by dry-stone walls, like the one in the picture below. They were established for about a thousand years ago, when the Danish kings started to breed horses on the basis of imported Spanish horses. The walls were built to keep the farmers' less noble, free-range horses out of the fenced areas, and thus from covering the royal mares, not to keep the royal horses inside the fenced areas. The breed of the Danish kings later became famous as the Frederiksborg horse, the world's oldest, documented horse breed.



Bent Branderup on Frederiksborg stallion Zarif Lykkesager (picture stolen here - and actually taken in our indoor riding arena)

all ears

foals

Inisheer (Induc) with his mom Inosta (Caprimond - Consul, Trakehner)


Lord Tennyson (Mago) with his mom Lorna Doone (Tshainik - Sif, Thoroughbred)



Lord Tennyson on his own

Lorna Doone with her mom Fantasia Ligré (Sif - Forethought, Thoroughbred)

Marco with - yes, it's a goat. But it's not his mom!!!

Diversabled

Yah, I know. I haven't been posting anything here for almost a week now. Not even a music-vid. And it's not that I don't know what to write about. The list of possible subjects is long, and it gets longer and longer for every day, that I don't get a thing done about it. Well, at least I do get done a lot about it at my Danish blog, and that's one of the reasons why this one is left a bit unexploited, for now. The other reason is that I promised myself, not to engage in the production of any major piece for this blog, before I haven't made a certain phone call. A phone call, yep. A frigging phone call, I've tried to make for the past, uhm, how many months?... The thing is, I loathe having to make phone calls to people I don't know, and I especially loathe having to make phone calls to authorities. And this is a phone call to an authority. That I will have to make in order to get a translation finished, that would/should/could have been finished, yeah, months ago... "Disabled"??? Did anyone say "disabled"? I'll show you "disabled"!

Well, in the meantime, here are some pictures of Bibi and her son Sasha.

"Monika and Filur"...

...is the title of a really beautiful video on YouTube, showing a student of Bent Branderup, Monika, riding his Knabstrup-stallion Filur in an outstanding way. A horse and a rider found each other. Enjoy!



I took the above picture in December 2003, while I was a trainee of Bent. It shows Filur doing the compliment in front of a dogcart. My co-trainee, Kristina, wasn't quite happy about having to join Bent for the ride this particular day, so I could take pictures. Was she afraid, that Filur might try to do the capriole as well??? ;)