{"id":942,"date":"2010-11-28T14:01:21","date_gmt":"2010-11-28T20:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=942"},"modified":"2010-11-28T18:20:47","modified_gmt":"2010-11-29T00:20:47","slug":"old-horse-pictures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=942","title":{"rendered":"Old Horse Pictures"},"content":{"rendered":"

I tried to link to these in a comment,\u00a0 but the links didn’t work.\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0\u00a0 The only pictures I can find of Ky, the horse who was my model for Paks’s paladin horse, are the ones my webguru had on one of her computers.<\/p>\n

Surely the links will work here.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Both are from the same stable schooling show, the first show I was ever in,\u00a0 and the class was adult novice over fences.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I sure was!\u00a0\u00a0 That was 32 years ago.\u00a0 It was the first time I’d jumped “in public” (in front of a crowd), the first time I’d jumped eight fences in one round, the first time I’d jumped a triple combination, the first time I’d jumped a hogback, and the first time I’d ridden Ky in that kind of crowd.\u00a0\u00a0 I was still leasing him at the time.<\/p>\n

Many horses that day refused the hogback;\u00a0 Ky had no doubts about it at all and took it on the first time around very smoothly.\u00a0 Next came the triple combination.\u00a0 I’d ridden in-and-outs, of course, and fences with two strides between, but never the triple.<\/p>\n

Here we are coming over the last fence of the triple:\u00a0 my expression is relief and glee, and the horse’s expression is “I have this under control, just stay in the saddle.”<\/p>\n

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Experienced horse people will notice that he’s on the left lead and preparing to turn left.\u00a0\u00a0 (And they’ll have things to say about my form, too!)\u00a0 After this we had a diagonal line over a low wall, and then turned back right to the original line–the hogback and then crossed rails–to finish.\u00a0\u00a0 I made a mistake in judging the turn back to the right, and put him in a very bad position for the next jump–coming in at an angle and without room for a final balancing stride.\u00a0 So I did what his then-owner advised: closed my legs on him firmly and said “GO!”<\/p>\n

He jumped from way out, straightened over the middle of the jump, landed softly and cantered right down the middle of that line to jump the crossed-rails.\u00a0\u00a0 The jump was big–an enormous takeoff shove–and the turn he made in midair caused my (inexperienced) left leg to get out of position.\u00a0 But he saved my bacon.<\/p>\n

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My expression in midair is pretty much a mix of terror and amazement; the horse is clearly focused on doing his job and saving his rider.\u00a0\u00a0 His takeoff point is out of the picture to the left.<\/p>\n

But you can see why he became the model for Paks’s paladin horse.\u00a0\u00a0 And got lots of carrots after this class.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A bold jumper like this is a wonderful experience for a novice to ride; I had experience with hot horses, so that side of him didn’t bother me, but in jumping he knew way more than I did, and gave me the feel for what it should be.<\/p>\n

(EDIT: She just found one more picture!)<\/p>\n

This about two years later, after our move to our present location, in a field of bluebonnets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I tried to link to these in a comment,\u00a0 but the links didn’t work.\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0\u00a0 The only pictures I can find of Ky, the horse who was my model for Paks’s paladin horse, are the ones my webguru had on one of her computers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[90,112],"class_list":["post-942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-horses","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":948,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions\/948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}