Today Max and I participated in a PR event put on by a local TV station for the Warhorse and Militaria Heritage Foundation, the equestrian group that I regularly practice with. This was arrange was to promote the group in general and in particular for the Tournament of Roses Parade, which the group will be participating in on New Year's Day.
The basic format was that they would film a series of live segments that would feed into their ongoing news broadcasts. Basically, I was part of the background and Max and I were part of a formation maneuvering in the background. They wanted to start filming around 4:45 am so that required me to get up at 3 am, quickly dress in my uniform, and then head to the stables to saddle up Max. I arrived at 3:30 am and Max gave me the look of "what the hell are you doing here?" and promptly nickered for food. I threw him a flake of alfalfa to keep him occupied while I got everything together. It was difficult because a lot of this was being done in the dark (I was hoping that nobody would mistake me for a horse thief and call the cops :-).
I managed to get Max groomed and tacked up and by 4:15 am we were heading down the wash- it was going to be filmed in a field not too far away from the stables so the ride wasn't very far and most of it was in the wash so I didn't have to deal with streets. Since I was wearing a black Hussar uniform, it would have been bad to have met up with any half-asleep drivers...
I arrived on time and was soon joined by the rest of the group. Initially, they filmed us using very bright lights and combined with the dust we were kicking up, it made for an interesting situation, especially since we were being asked to work withing a confined area due to the cameras.
Max was completely on his game and once he got used to the situation, he completely got into the game and was doing maneuvers with the rest of the group just like it was a typical Saturday practice. We took turns calling out the commands for the maneuvers and the dust didn't make it easy.
We did a pretty good job and things even got better once it began to get light. The weather was nice and cool and by this time, the horses were working together as a group- they actually know a lot of the maneuvers and it doesn't take much to cue them to do what's required. A couple of the other horses were initially a bit nervous but Max seemed to calm them down by his presence and he just did his job. He's really come a long way in the past year. Now if we could only get him to be that way with a crowd and all the energy from a big event... :-)
We finished up about 8:30am and we headed back to the stables. Max got a nice bucket and the rest of the day off. I went home and took a long nap... :-)
Click here for some television footage.
The basic format was that they would film a series of live segments that would feed into their ongoing news broadcasts. Basically, I was part of the background and Max and I were part of a formation maneuvering in the background. They wanted to start filming around 4:45 am so that required me to get up at 3 am, quickly dress in my uniform, and then head to the stables to saddle up Max. I arrived at 3:30 am and Max gave me the look of "what the hell are you doing here?" and promptly nickered for food. I threw him a flake of alfalfa to keep him occupied while I got everything together. It was difficult because a lot of this was being done in the dark (I was hoping that nobody would mistake me for a horse thief and call the cops :-).
I managed to get Max groomed and tacked up and by 4:15 am we were heading down the wash- it was going to be filmed in a field not too far away from the stables so the ride wasn't very far and most of it was in the wash so I didn't have to deal with streets. Since I was wearing a black Hussar uniform, it would have been bad to have met up with any half-asleep drivers...
I arrived on time and was soon joined by the rest of the group. Initially, they filmed us using very bright lights and combined with the dust we were kicking up, it made for an interesting situation, especially since we were being asked to work withing a confined area due to the cameras.
Max was completely on his game and once he got used to the situation, he completely got into the game and was doing maneuvers with the rest of the group just like it was a typical Saturday practice. We took turns calling out the commands for the maneuvers and the dust didn't make it easy.
We did a pretty good job and things even got better once it began to get light. The weather was nice and cool and by this time, the horses were working together as a group- they actually know a lot of the maneuvers and it doesn't take much to cue them to do what's required. A couple of the other horses were initially a bit nervous but Max seemed to calm them down by his presence and he just did his job. He's really come a long way in the past year. Now if we could only get him to be that way with a crowd and all the energy from a big event... :-)
We finished up about 8:30am and we headed back to the stables. Max got a nice bucket and the rest of the day off. I went home and took a long nap... :-)
Click here for some television footage.
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