Santa’s Thursday News & Notes from Devoucoux

ENxmas.bmp

From the top-secret diary of Leslie Wylie, age 10.

I didn’t find a horse under the tree that year. Mom suggested that my letter to Santa got lost in the mail. It takes more than a little rejection, however, to shatter Leslie Wylie’s holiday delusions. Undeterred, my wish-lists have only grown more outlandish with every passing Christmas. This year, for example, my letter went something like: “Dear Santa, I’ve been SUCH a good girl this year. You should send me a four-star event horse, the deed to a luxury equestrian estate in Wellington, and world peace.”

Probably, my letter will get lost in the mail again. But that’s OK, because one thing I’ve come to realize over the years is that if you’re lucky enough to have horses in your life, you’re lucky enough. In my more jaded moments, I try to send myself back to that place where I’m 10 years-old and everything about horses is drenched in magic. When even the simple things–petting a pony’s nose or jumping a crossrail–were enough to make me weak in the knees.

That 10-year-old still lives in me somewhere, but it’s easy to lose her in the grind of day-to-day life with horses: mucking stalls in subfreezing weather, suffering through soundness issues, sucking it up after a less-than-successful event.  The magic always reappears, though, when you least expect it. Like today, when I was flatting my horse at dusk, and it was just me and him and the sound of his hooves splashing through puddles and everything just felt right. Moments like that make me want to shred every letter I’ve ever sent to the North Pole.

Another thing I’m grateful for is this opportunity to present your Thursday news-and-notes:

Who’s your (horse’s) daddy? The World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses has released its 2011 sire rankings, based on the competitive results of each stallion’s offspring. This year’s top stallion is Heraldik xx, who knocked up Butts Leon’s mom and is also the grandsire of 2010 World Champion La Biosthetique Sam. The first runner-up is Master Imp, whose progeny includes Tiana Coudray’s Ringwood Magister and Karen O’Connor’s Mandiba. In third place is the Hugh Hefner of event sires, Cruising. At least he doesn’t have to pay foal support. Read the full list here via Leslie Mintz at the USEA.

No horse farm is complete without a bunch of rug-rats running around, doing the dirty work for minimum wage and loving every minute of it. I’ll always cherish those days, doing odd jobs around the farm for a bit of extra money–lots of us did it as a fun alternative to mowing lawns or baby-sitting. Proposed new child labor regulations, however, would place limitations on the ability of young people to work on farms not owned by their parents. Because it’s healthier for kids to sit around watching Hannah Montana reruns than it is for them to go outside, get their hands dirty and learn about the world, I guess. Today the American Horse Council stepped up to oppose the rule, pointing out that “Young people don’t go to work on horse farms and ranches only for a pay check, but because of a desire to learn about and be around horses.” Amen to that. [From Horsetalk.] 

What do Madonna and Martha Stewart have in common (besides the fact that they’re both outrageously wealthy celebrities)? They’re both closet horsewomen.

The “Material Girl” digs eventing, having trained in Britain with the likes of William Fox-Pitt and Daisy Trayford. Despite a couple nasty spills she’s continued her flirtation with the sport, most recently purchasing a $9.6 million farm in the Hamptons last year. Though she doesn’t seem to be actively competing stateside–I ran a rider search for “Madonna” on the USEA website and it returned no results, surprise-surprise–I did discover that if you run a Google image search for “Madonna” and “Horses,” it’ll turn up photos of her swinging a riding crop around in her stable, wearing tall boots and not much else. Since I’m already on EN probation, I’ll let you go hunting for those photos yourself.

Martha also has a swanky-pants farm in New York, where her five Friesians live in borderline ridiculous luxury. “Every good stable has a buffet,” Martha explains in this video, in which she takes Conan O’Brian on a tour of her farm. Hilarity ensues. Thanks to our hunter-jumper friend Carley Sparks at www.getmyfix.org for bringing the video to EN’s attention, and be sure to check out her latest post, “A Bit of Horse in Your Holiday,” for some Martha-esque ideas on recycling horse-show ribbons into holiday decor.  Apologies for the commercial at the beginning and if the movie doesn’t show in your browser click here. Always wear your helmet.

   

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments