Tag: sports

A Horse Is a Sport, of Course

What are your favorite sports to watch and play?

My favorite sport to watch is, by far, American football. I’ve watched it my whole life, so it’s part of me, I guess, even with all its myriad of flaws and issues (high school boyfriend’s dad played in that last championship Detroit Lions team, and I now realize his odd behavior later in life may have been affected by blows to the head, for example). But, it was fun to watch football with my dad, and now it’s something Lee and I have in common. Note that I also enjoy baseball, which my dad played and took watching very seriously. And I actually enjoy watching golf. I just can’t believe how well people can get tiny balls into tiny holes. The only sports I’m not fond of watching are basketball and hockey. Just not part of my history, I guess.

What sports do I like to play? Well, as a kid I played football and baseball with the neighbors. If I weren’t so stubby and slow (and female) I would have played longer. I’m not exactly talented. I liked tennis in college. But the sport I do now is our version of working equitation, which is an equestrian sport. I think it’s a sport, I mean, there are competitions and prizes, so sure. So yes, my horses and I do sports.

Speaking of those powerful beasties, I got to enjoy them a lot today. That was a nice change from it mostly being too cold or wet to interact much. I took two work breaks to de-bur Drew and Apache, but I could not get them very clean. They keep rolling.

Tarrin came here for lessons today, which is always a treat. I really needed her to look at Apache and help me with his issues. Sure enough, the first thing she did was find where his abscess was hiding! It was under a flap of sole.

It’s in the white area.

She did a lot of scraping, then we rummaged through all the stuff in the tack room and found Betadyne to disinfect it, an antibacterial spray to treat it, and the mud stuff I bought to protect it. I can repeat when the mud disappears.

Tarrin also measured his feet for boots. Note the feed dish full of burs.

Once he was treated you could tell he felt better, because he lifted his other hoof for the first time in a month. That meant he could stand to lean on the sore one at last. We took him out and lunged him a bit, too. He had a harder time going left than right, but was happy to trot around. He seemed so happy to do stuff again.

And my hair looked fun.

What he wasn’t happy about is that Tarrin figured out a way to get his pills in him with a syringe. I’m so happy to have a large supply from the lady who sold us our horse trailer. Now I just have to keep shoving them in.

As for Drew, he started out acting really odd, like trying to nip when I groomed him. He seemed to have a stomach ache. That scared me. It probably was because the horses ran out of water. I didn’t know the water had been turned off again. My poor fish. Sniff.

I was too busy to photograph Drew, so here are three of the hens. They enjoyed the sunny day.

But he improved as I worked with him on the ground, and we ended up having a really good lesson. He did so well at things that had been frustrating earlier. I’m getting able to relax more when riding, and it’s almost getting to be FUN.

And finally, here’s the sofa as I found it this morning. They are exhausted from barking at coyotes.

So yeah, those horse buddies are my sport. They are also so nice to be with. They are now both patient for bur removal, so it’s our bonding time. Ahh.

Yes, There Are Athletes I Admire

Name the professional athletes you respect the most and why.

Many of my friends aren’t fond of professional sports or the players. Trust me, I won’t argue that there are plenty of negative aspects, like head injuries, young people being taken advantage of, ridiculous ticket prices, gambling, drugs…etc.

But I can’t help being impressed with what some very wise athletes have done with their fame (in addition to making funny commercials and getting oh so wealthy (I see you Mannings and Mahomes). So, here are a few I admire.

Billy Jean King. It’s hard not to admire her. She took her platform as a tennis player and has not stopped using it to promote women’s rights and health. She’s still doing good work, with her weirdly brown hair for someone age 79.

Dak Prescott. Not only is he my favorite player on my favorite football team (Dallas Cowboys, for anti-US sports readers), but he won the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year for his extensive charity work. He has a good sense of humor, but seems very intelligent and willing to share his ridiculous income with others. He doesn’t seem busy only buying bling, dressing weird, and putting shiny stuff on his teeth (OK, I’ve seen his outfits; he does wear some unusual fashion). But heck, he’s exactly one month younger that my son, so he’s still a kid.

Me and my Dak Bobblehead.

Kareem Abdul Jabbar. I’ve always admired him as a human being, even when I was very young. Yes, he was one of the greatest basketball players ever, but he’s also a brilliant thinker on history, race relations, religion, and more. He is a great speaker and writer, too.

So that’s the answer to the prompt. For those of you who don’t know me personally, I thought I’d share my rough afternoon. Here’s my Facebook post:

  1. I get so tired of being weak and wimpy.
  2. I’m very grateful for my kind horse.

I overheated riding today because I’d convinced myself it was “cooler” outside. I didn’t realize it, but I guess Apache did, because in the middle of our exercises he broke free and zoomed to the tack room and stopped. I was thinking, ooh, he’s not listening, so I need to get him to pay attention before I get off, so I tried to walk a few steps then stop. After the second time, he zipped to the round pen, where his halter was, walked a circle for me and stopped.

As we stopped I realized I was shaking all over and dizzy. When I dismounted I was nauseated. Apache walked slowly with me to the shade and just stood by me as I sat down to call Lee to come get me.

Here he is hanging with me

We both got hosed off, which helped. Now, maybe Apache had his own reasons for acting weird, but I appreciate that he got me to get off sooner than I’d planned. I wish the promised cooler (previously there was a “coojer” typo that was pretty funny) weather would show up! I’m hardly able to get anything done with the horses other than feeding and ground work.