Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

We in the US tend to take this more seriously but Happy St. Patrick's Day!!! :-)

Back from the Front...

Here are a couple of pictures from a recent WWI-themed party. This was the first time I've put on my complete officer's uniform and everything seemed to come together right. :-)

Stunt Horses at Work

I picked this up off YouTube. This was posted as what can only interpreted as a display "reel" by a AlphaStunt, Bulgarian stunt group. Most of it is concerned with horses although towards the end they abruptly shift to a number of vehicle stunts (hint to AlphaStunt- if you are doing a "reel", it's probably a good idea to focus on one theme).

The training and use as Medieval warhorses is especially interesting and a bit hazardous (as it probably was then). The scene of the man catching a rear hoof in the face from a capriole kick is pretty amazing- hard to tell if that's a stunt or accident. In any event, I wouldn't want it to be me- no thanks!

Some of the stunts could be considered questionable from a "humane" standpoint- they look a bit rough on the horses but I'm no expert. Then again, standards tend to be a bit "relaxed" in that part of the world...the fire on the back of the horse really gives me cause for pause. At any rate, enjoy!

Let's Try This Again...

Early today, the shoer came by and worked on Max so I decided that we would get in the saddle time we missed last night ;-).

Max was a bit stiff on the front legs at the start and I was beginning to wonder if he wasn't' suffering a flare-up of arthritis but as we warmed up (or maybe it was just the new shoes?), his gait improved. We focused on canter/walk transitions and some lateral work to include leg yields and shoulder-ins. On the canter/walk transitions, I was able to hit the right level and Max picked up pretty quickly on what I was trying to do and we got in some pretty good transitions. I find that in the warm-up process for Max that it's best to do a lot of walking, some short trotting, go into the canter and then return to the trot- his trotting tends to improve after cantering for awhile.

Because he started out stiff, I didn't do any one gait for a long time and I also did some lateral work to give him some flexibility- mostly side passes and some leg yields, then moving on to shoulder-ins. I find that Max does the best shoulder-ins at the sitting trot and I even tried a few at the posting trot.

After about 45 minutes, I walked Max around to cool down and to give him a break. Finally, as part of his post-work bucket, I gave him a dose of Bute. With weather threatening to rain this weekend and possibly snow, I'll have to keep an eye on Max because of the arthritis situation- I don't need a repeat of what happened in December.

Well see how the weather goes in the next few days... :-)

The Unshod

With rain predicted for the weekend, I decided to get out to the stables tonight and get some saddle time in with Max. As I'm cleaning his hooves, I noticed that he'd thrown a show...no riding tonight! The good thing is that he's due for shoes anyway so I can get it all taken care of in one shot.

Sometimes I think Max does things to get out of work...I had the last laugh though- I turned him out and lunged him for about 20 minutes. :-)

Maybe tommorow...

USS Connecticut

To commemorate the Great White Fleet's completion of circumnavigating the world in 1909, here's a couple of pictures of the USS Connecticut, the flagship.

USS Connecticut undergoing speed trials.


USS Connecticut leading the fleet.

Roman House

Here's something you don't see everyday. This is a full-scale recreation of a Roman house (perhaps more accurately villa) located in Wroxter in Great Britain. Wroxeter, or Viroconium Cornoviorum as it was known then, was a center of Roman settlement and now there's a reconstructed house to give a sense of what might have existed there.

Click HERE for more about the reconstruction. It's part of Wroxeter Roman City, an open-air museum.

The house itself...

The house as part of the site...

Long shot of the site.