A gravitational shift at Rolex, courtesy of one courageous iconoclast named Allison Springer

Many people are aware of my stand on wearing helmets while riding. For those who don't, it's easy-peasy. Never, ever, throw a leg over a horse without an approved helmet strapped on.

Pro: might save your life, or better--prevent a devastating, permanent NONfatal head injury.
Con: umm, you will have helmet hair

Yes, I'm aware that things can happen, especially with horses, that helmets won't protect you from. Yes, I'm aware that just walking down the street has its hazards. But please reference the list of "cons" above. So??? No-brainer, pardon the pun.

Eventers are probably farther along than most groups of riders in terms of wearing helmets, but something that's puzzled and completely irritated the hell out of me for years is the "fashion" of putting on fake helmets for dressage, awards ceremonies, and other times when helmets are not strictly mandated.

Yes, I'm aware that most riders don't, in fact, wear helmets. And on that topic I can only muse on the veracity of the old axiom that "there's no cure for stupid" and on Darwin.

So today at Rolex, the premier competition in our sport, and its pinnacle on American soil, a singular and unprecedented shift in the gravitational field of the "world" of horse sports occurred, in the unassuming person of one Allison Springer, a lovely rider who is knocking on the door of greatness. What she did was throw tradition and "fashion" to the spring breeze and trot down the center line wearing an approved helmet, defying the (literally) centuries-old tradition of wearing a bowler or top hat. An anachronistic relic that has long since needed retiring if there ever was one!

Doesn't she look great? And to emphasize how much dressage judges do NOT care about what's on top of your head, she is solidly in second place in a large field. I'm rooting for her to win, although she has already achieved a gigantic victory in my book and a singular place in the eventing pantheon. Brava!

Take Manhattan, just gimme that countryside

Actually, I love Manhattan. I've always fantasized about having a really cool little apartment right there in the middle of everything, and spending six months living in the city. Just six months, no longer. I'd be hating it by then and I don't want to hate NYC, it's the playground of my youth.

But living on our little farm is the greatest. THE GREATEST. I love the seasons, (well, three of them) and how the deer and the turkeys and the foxes and the coyotes and all the other varmints keep right on living here like they always did. I love every inch of the place, and even though we've only been here 3.5 years, I feel like I know every inch of it, too. There is nothing like spending a day doing stuff around the place, and finishing up and not wanting to go inside. Late, late sunsets (and it's not even summer yet!) really help to make the days seem endless and like there's plenty of time to do everything.



The current herd is settling in well and getting along: Daisy the pony, Keebler, and my farrier's wife's mare Heather, who is gigantically pregnant and staying here to foal. A win-win deal--I had a mare to keep the pony company all winter and someone to eat all the hay I bought last year AND I get free shoes and trims while she's here, and Mike and Kim get their mare looked after. This will be my third foal--the foaling stall is all ready (one of today's projects), the video camera is ready, and it's almost time to start the big countdown. She's due in early May.

Bonnie is spending the summer at GLEC and Erika is going to compete her, get her past that "almost Training level" point for me. I miss having her here; she's the real boss of this place and looks around in a more proprietary manner than I do when she's "home". There's not a turkey that walks out of the woods that she isn't aware of. The boss mare. Keebler has cheerfully adopted the duty of "stallion" and feels like it's his job to herd the two mares around with his head snaking along the ground and ears flat back, chasing the potentially horse-killing barn cats away from the herd. They humor him, both the cats and the mares. It's good for his ego, which actually needs no stroking.

Last weekend we went to Kentucky to the Spring Bay Horse Trials and he performed very admirably for a horse who hasn't gone cross country in almost two years. Turns out he's extremely agreeable out on cross country and perfectly easy in stadium. Dressage remains a work in progress, but we have definitely gotten somewhere these last few weeks. I need to find a dressage show somewhere. He'll love it.

OK, now I will get to the new horse

To continue the saga . . .

I have been an active member of the Chronicle of the Horse bulletin board for, well, sort of forever. They know me there, and there are dozens of people I see at shows that I "know" from COTH; it's always fun to meet up with people at shows and exchange code names. Sort of like a secret society. Anyhow, in my typical fashion I got to musing out loud over there about being at sort of an eventing crossroads and wondering if I should find another schoolmaster.

Enter Seema, a fellow COTHer, fellow (although former) Michigan eventer, fellow medical person, fellow eventer, and owner of a little spotted horse named Keebler who has as colorful a pedigree as he has a personality. Part Holsteiner, part TB, part Appaloosa. All boy--what was I going to do with a GELDING? She was looking to place him in an eventing barn with a really good trainer and my barn and trainer certainly fit the bill, if I do say so myself! Was I interested in a year-long lease on a little horse with all the jump in the world and (to quote his owner in her introductory note) a little bit of an Appy-tude?

(I didn't realize before I met him that the part between the ears for Appies is generally more colorful than their hides)

Sure I was! Gwen came to me completely in a spur-of-the-moment decision, nudged along by another eventing buddy. And the horse had never met a jump he didn't think was meant for jumping--just like Gwennie, and PRECISELY what I needed. The deed was done, and late last fall Keebler arrived up north after spending lots of time in Florida and Alabama--just enough bunny fur and plenty of warm blankets to see him though a real winter.

Excited, I tacked up for our first ride--first check: Bonnie's girth SWAM on him, hmmm, so do all my saddle pads and boots and coolers. Luckily he came with bridles and lots of halters--I will explain why later--and I borrowed a little girth and off we went. I realized within a few minutes that I now had the ride on two horses that are as opposite as opposite could be, in almost every way imaginable . . .

Bonnie: girl, big horse, little gaits, must be pushed to use herself and big, free movement does NOT come naturally. However, she is obedient, easy to ride, and cheerful about almost everything. Although not athletically gifted, she is always ready to go for a ride. A good egg, easy to have fun with but hard to get a great performance. Not entirely her fault. Nature endowed her with big, sturdy hooves and limbs and a great temperament, but not with glorious gaits.

Keebler: boy, little horse, big gaits, uses every bit of himself all the time but no aversion to sending each of his four limbs in random directions. Supple does not begin to describe him--think "gumby". Big walk, big stride, lots of movement in a small package. However, how shall I say it--NOT obedient, NOT easy, and decidedly NOT cheerful about dressage! Plenty of go, but a little light on submission and cooperation. Verdict? Bruce Mandeville had him pegged in 30 seconds: "there's a lot going on in there". Smart, smart, smart, clever, clever, clever. Opinionated, prickly and makes you figure things out on your own.

I was going to learn a lot from this one.

And this is Bonnie as a grownup, her 2nd-ever Training level HT in Kentucky in 2009. She totally has the capability, but doesn't always remember that--every time we go XC I get the feeling that she is "this close" to totally getting it and becoming bold and confident. "This close", however, can be a fairly large gulf when the rider is lacking in courage.

The other photo is of the incomparable Gwennie, age TWENTY, ripping her way around another cross country course, clean, fast, and flawless. EVERYONE needs to have a ride on a horse like this once in their life--or preferably many, many more times than once!

To continue introductions

This is Bonnie, a few moments after she was born. Her mama is an OTTB I bought as a rising 5 year old in 1993. She is a pretty, fancy mare and passed on her easy, sweet temperament to her daughter.

So, this new horse I'm riding.

I won't try to put the past 10 years of my horsey life down in one big paragraph, but I'll just list the highlights:

2000: the birth of my homebred IDSH mare, Seelie Court, fondly known as Bonnie, my first attempt at breeding and if I do say so, rather a successful one. She's no superstar athlete, she's not going to the upper levels, but I bred her to be a sensible, easy horse to have fun with. She fits that description admirably.

2001: my son Evan was born, I was in the last year of my cardiology fellowship, and I hardly got to ride at all. Bonnie hung out and grew.

2002-2004: New job, young kid, lots of work, Bonnie growing and seeing the world. Her mother Kelly has decided at this point that she no longer wants to jump over things and I'm not quite ready to give up on eventing!

2004: Enter Guinevere, an opinionated chestnut warmblood mare who had been there, done that, all the way up through multiple CCI*s with amateur riders. I'd known her and her owner for years and--long story short--one day I just up and decided to buy her, never having so much as sat on her.

2004-2007: Had some of the greatest years and rides of my life with Gwen, starting out at Training level, moving up--beyond my wildest dreams--to Preliminary and even having a good crack at a CCI*. She tied up before phase D, which was heartbreaking, but just being there was an amazing ambition fulfilled. Tried to breed her, unsuccessfully, at the age of 19 (it was a long shot, well worth the try but not meant to be) and at the age of 20 she came roaring back and finished her competitive career with a slick, fast XC at Maui Jim Horse Trials, followed a few weeks later by a whole pile of ribbons at a hunter/jumper show, just to show she could do anything involving jumping and do it really, really well.

Later that year, she came down with EPM and although she recovered "pretty well" she was never quite right again and she never jumped again. She went out a winner, her last class winning me the first (and probably the last) blue equitation ribbon I'd ever seen.

2008: All grown up now, Bonnie had crept along slowly with me to "almost Training level" in eventing. Good but not great in all 3 phases, we had good days and bad days. She's a good girl, an easy ride, but not blessed with terrific movement nor great athletic ability. So when matched with the human version of the same limitations in her rider, (those being a lack of courage and riding ability) our progress was sort of glacial.

2009: An OK season with Bonnie, just not quite getting it done at Training level, although Novice has gotten to be very solid. We had some pretty nice scores in dressage, and the mare is actually really very fun in that phase, just sort of earthbound and always limited movement-wise. Still, it's pretty cool to have a horse that was born in my lap doing all that fancy "dressage stuff" like half pass and lengthenings. I'm easily impressed, and (I like to think) a realist. She's a darling horse to me but not going to Rolex or beyond 2nd level dressage. She and I have a lot in common.

At the end of last year, Gwen took a gigantic turn for the worst and I had to have her euthanized in early September. It was heartbreaking, but she'd had a long happy life with much love throughout, so letting her go was as hard as it ever is but she had earned her long rest and will always be there in the center of her favorite paddock.

So with a hole in my heart and room for another horse, after a while I started wondering if I could ever find another schoolmaster or schoolmistress who could teach me as much as Gwennie had.