All over the country, people are planning what to eat on Sunday afternoon while the Superbowl is on. I've given some thought to it, and will expound on Into the Kitchen, but I'm more concerned about what to do tomorrow.
Equine Affaire is this weekend at the Los Angeles County Fairplex. It started yesterday and runs until Sunday. I haven't missed it in years. It's a great place to go shopping, and if I time it right, I can also hit the enormous Broken Horn Saddlery on my way out there.
But....
Penny Chenery will be at Santa Anita Racetrack tomorrow to present Jerry and Ann Moss with the Inaugural Secretariat Vox Populi Award for Zenyatta's amazing effect on the popularity of horse racing during the past year. Zenyatta's already in Kentucky awaiting her first breeding to Bernardini, so I've read she'll be there on camera. There's a gorgeous poster of portraits of Big Red and Zenyatta that will be sold, and Ms. Chenery and the Mosses will be signing prior to the ceremony. I am so tempted to go, even though I hate crowds. Besides, Santa Anita has a great gift shop where I've purchased some fun jewelry in the past.
Unfortunately...
What I really need to do is go back and finish the last load of boxes to empty the old house, so that will no longer be hanging around my neck like a millstone. I want to be finished with that annoyance, so I can enjoy the new house.
Decisions, decisions.
Showing posts with label Equine Affaire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Equine Affaire. Show all posts
Friday, February 4, 2011
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
A Little More Blanco
All gray horses start out dark and then go "white" as they get older. Blanco, one of the two horses who portrayed Shadowfax in the Lord of the Rings movies, looks like he may have had a blaze and four white socks when he was a baby. If you look closely at the photographs, the skin appears pink down the middle of his nose and above his hooves, but the rest of his skin is dark under the white hairs. It would be very interesting to see his baby pictures.
The woman with Blanco at Equine Affaire is Cynthia Royal, who, I guess, purchased Blanco when he went on sale in 2006. I did a Google(R) search and found reference to an asking price of $40,000. Not bad for an animal which some sites describe as an Andalusian/Thoroughbred cross rather than a purebred Andalusian.
Demero, the other horse which portrayed Shadowfax, died of melanoma in 2003. Many gray horses develop melanoma at an early age because their color gives them less protection against the sun, I think. Many times the tumors can be removed, but the owner of a gray has to be alert to the danger.
Cynthia Royal is planning to use Blanco in a Las Vegas show featuring at liberty horses. Here is a link to a video of her with Blanco. This falls into the "don't try this at home" category. Working barefoot with horses is a DUMB IDEA. One of my trainers lost her toe when she was a kid because her horse stepped on it while she was washing him/her down. So it's a better idea to wear proper shoes unless you want to have a rude awakening from your fantasy ride. I'd also add that you shouldn't be on a horse without a helmet (I wouldn't dream of it), but I understand that a helmet also gets in the way of a fantasy. Some people don't value their brain as much as I do.
A few years ago, a show called Cavalia came to L.A. It featured a lot of big gray horses, a lot of liberty work and it was just magical. I was lucky enough to get a back-stage tour with other people from Pierce College when Ron Weschler, the professor in charge of the equine program, made the arrangements. It was up close and personal with a lot of really well behaved and pampered stallions--virgins, said our tour guide. They don't travel with mares, which makes things easier. It's not a cheap evening, but I can't recommend it enough if it's in your neighborhood. Here's a link to Cavalia.
I'm most impressed with the fact that Blanco can be left standing by himself and he will stay. In a couple of the photographs below, you can see that he's not tethered. I probably wouldn't do this with my horse in a trafficked area, but Blanco handled it very well. I think they did a great job of desensitizing him on LOTR.
The woman with Blanco at Equine Affaire is Cynthia Royal, who, I guess, purchased Blanco when he went on sale in 2006. I did a Google(R) search and found reference to an asking price of $40,000. Not bad for an animal which some sites describe as an Andalusian/Thoroughbred cross rather than a purebred Andalusian.
Demero, the other horse which portrayed Shadowfax, died of melanoma in 2003. Many gray horses develop melanoma at an early age because their color gives them less protection against the sun, I think. Many times the tumors can be removed, but the owner of a gray has to be alert to the danger.
Cynthia Royal is planning to use Blanco in a Las Vegas show featuring at liberty horses. Here is a link to a video of her with Blanco. This falls into the "don't try this at home" category. Working barefoot with horses is a DUMB IDEA. One of my trainers lost her toe when she was a kid because her horse stepped on it while she was washing him/her down. So it's a better idea to wear proper shoes unless you want to have a rude awakening from your fantasy ride. I'd also add that you shouldn't be on a horse without a helmet (I wouldn't dream of it), but I understand that a helmet also gets in the way of a fantasy. Some people don't value their brain as much as I do.
A few years ago, a show called Cavalia came to L.A. It featured a lot of big gray horses, a lot of liberty work and it was just magical. I was lucky enough to get a back-stage tour with other people from Pierce College when Ron Weschler, the professor in charge of the equine program, made the arrangements. It was up close and personal with a lot of really well behaved and pampered stallions--virgins, said our tour guide. They don't travel with mares, which makes things easier. It's not a cheap evening, but I can't recommend it enough if it's in your neighborhood. Here's a link to Cavalia.
I'm most impressed with the fact that Blanco can be left standing by himself and he will stay. In a couple of the photographs below, you can see that he's not tethered. I probably wouldn't do this with my horse in a trafficked area, but Blanco handled it very well. I think they did a great job of desensitizing him on LOTR.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Celebrity Horses at Equine Affaire
I felt like I had a whirlwind visit to Equine Affaire in Pomona, California on Saturday. Usually, I go to do some shopping along with watching some of the clinicians. My time was really limited this year because I could only go one day and I had to get home in time to take care of the Arab prince and change to go to a concert.
But once I saw the schedule, I knew I couldn't leave the fairgrounds before 4 P.M., giving me the opportunity to see presentations of two of the "Celebrity Horses" present at the event. If they had celebrity horses in past years, I must have missed the notice. Or maybe they weren't from a couple of my favorite horse movies.
The notice that clearly caught my attention was that one of the horses who portrayed Shadowfax in the Lord of the Rings would be in attendance. I'm still not sure how he came to be owned by someone in the States when the LotR:TRotK extras video indicated that Blanco was in happy retirement in New Zealand, but there he was.
I decided against carrying my digital SLR because of the weight, but I almost always have my point and shoot Nikon S1 in my bag and that camera is not so good for shooting still photographs, but it isn't bad as a little video camera. So the first video above of the gray horse is Blanco as he's led back in to the exhibit hall to show off some of his tricks. He's a well-trained liberty horse, as the LotR video showed, and a really sweet Andalusian.
The second video, of the black horse, is TC Bey Cedar, the stallion who portrayed Al Hattal in Hidalgo. He's a stunning Arabian, a son of the famous Bey Shah, black except for a coronet ring of white on his back left foot. He's tall for an Arabian at 15-3, which, with his lovely personality, is how he got the gig for the film. He's got a gorgeous head, which I don't think you really see in the film (I watched it again on Saturday night) because it is somewhat obscured by his tack.
Both Blanco and TC Bey Cedar demonstrated rearing on cue. A way to teach this move was demonstrated by the trick training clinician. I'm not so sure it's a great idea to teach this trick to the average horse and TC Bey Cedar's trainer kept saying to people it is a trick best left to professionals. Rearing is somewhat less controlled than the airs above the ground moves of classical training. Personally, I'm happier when Ace keeps all four of his feet closer to the ground. I'm not even thrilled when he decides to do "the flamingo" where he bends one of his front legs and holds it up for quite a while when I'm sitting on his back. I usually wonder what it is he's trying to tell me is bothering him.
I must say I was disappointed I didn't run into Viggo Mortensen. It would have been cool if he dropped by to visit two of his equine co-stars. Cooler yet (well, nothing would be quite as cool as running into Viggo, I suppose) would be an appearance by T.J., the paint that played Hidalgo and whom Viggo now owns and keeps somewhere in nearby Topanga.
The other neat thing about this year's Equine Affaire was that the horse on exhibit at the Region 2 Arabian Horse Association booth turned out to be a close blood relation to my boy. I noticed the animal's name (I think it was All Flame) and immediately thought, hmm, sounds like it could be. Then I saw the pedigree--a Bask Flame son. Bask Flame is Ace's maternal grandfather. So the chestnut horse on display was Rocky's (Ace's dam, Flames Sirocco) half-brother (technically, a half-sib in the horse world comes from the same mother with a different sire, and different mothers mean a designation of "same sire," but I'm a human) and Ace's half-uncle and they did bear a familial resemblance. Ace has more chrome (white markings.) I did wonder whether Cody had inherited the hot Bask Flame personality that Rocky got or whether his dam had cooled him down. Since Cody's owned by a 12 year old girl, I'm guessing the latter. Cody's actually a few years younger than Ace.
I didn't do any shopping worth mentioning, unlike the years when I've come home with new riding pants or helmets or DVDs. I spent $5, on a 2007 Breyer Christmas ornament to give to a friend. Cheap date.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Social Whirl
It's been a long weekend.
On Friday night, we went to the Reprise! production of "Sunday in the Park with George" at U.C.L.A. We've been subscribers for years, and our season tickets are in the first row, just off center.
My husband is a Sondhead. I am not. I rather like "Assassins" and have grown to enjoy "Company," but I really dislike "Sweeny Todd" and "Into the Woods." Eventually, I found a place where I could relate to "George," but it took a while. The production itself was engaging, as these small-venue productions often are, but quite different from the Broadway original in tone, according to my husband who actually saw it in person years ago. He did pull out a DVD of the Bernedette Peters-Mandy Patankin version to show me a couple of things. In doing so, he discovered that the person who created the dress worn by "Dot" in the opening scene (she manages to step out of it while it stays in place and she dances around) and the "chromalume" of the second act was someone we had dinner with a few years ago: Bran Ferrin.
Bran was the head of Disney Imagineering for many years. He lives in a house full of amazing toys: it has two Enigma Machines from WWII, a cracked ruby laser on his dining room table, a soft-ball sized sphere of tungsten (impossible to lift off the table, it is so heavy), and the space suit of the second Russian cosmonaut. There is also a fantastic collection of art and a professional kitchen to die for (his significant other is a professional chef and she likes to cater the large parties they have at home.) I've read a piece by Bran where he talks about how, in the future, artists will be truly appreciated. I sure hope he's right. One of the ironies of "George" is that George Seurat only produced about 8 paintings in his short life and never sold one. The other irony, at least as presented by the analysis of George's work with light in the play, is that he would have revelled in a world where images are produced by pixels.
When we got home Friday night, I made the mistake of opening "Bella Poldark" the last volume of Winston Graham's Poldark series, and I read too late into the night for someone who needed to get up early on Saturday.
I managed to get out of the house in time to drive to Pomona for Equine Affaire before it opened at 9 a.m. It is an annual 4-day event where people get to go to lectures and demonstrations about horses and riding and SHOP. It's a geat place to look for a horse trailer, which, of course means a semi-truck length mobile home with room to bring along your three favorite equines. There are smaller, day trip type trailers, but the overwhelming majority are monsters that I could live in for the rest of my life. There was a time when I thought that would be a great way to retire--drive a little, photograph a little, and go on to the next place. Then I had to crawl up the Rocky Mountains behind some of these monsters. Not likely to happen. I don't own a horse trailer, although sometimes I think it might be convenient, because you also have to buy the truck that goes with it. I can pay for a lot of hauling before I'd ever come close to making a year's worth of payments, let alone pay it off. Ace hadn't been in a horse trailer for over two years when we moved him to Chatsworth in December after everyone was evicted from the Pierce College Equestrian Center.
(Your tax dollars at work: the two beautiful barns and the only covered arena in this part of the San Fernando Valley are occupied and defiled by pigeons, black widow spiders, and mice on the pretext that construction along El Rancho Road would be disturbing to the horses--some of whom lived quite happily through the actual construction of the new buildings--and that it would begin right after January 1. As far as I know, the construction planned has not been bid or awarded and the head of the Agriculter Department at Pierce College says he's been promised no work will begin until after the annual Farm Walk at the end of April.)
I managed to avoid making any high-ticket purchases, although I really wanted to get a girth and leathers for the saddle I bought last year. That's got to wait a few months because of the computer purchase. I'll live. I did buy a DVD by Julie Goodnight on mastering the canter, a gait which scares me. I took a clinic with Julie last sprint and enjoyed it. She's not Harry Whitney, but she's the first woman I've had the opportunity to work with in a clinic. That's a different perspective on things.
I also got to Equissentials to recycle two pairs of my full-seat britches. Recycling means I get new tights and they reuse the leather, at a price of about half a new pair. Equissentials are made in a place called Oneonta, in upstate New York, about 27 miles north of where I grew up. If I ever visit there again, I must see if they've got a factory outlet. Equssentials use deerskin for their full-seat leather breaches, and they are soft, pliable, and can be cleaned in the washer. I love them. They also do a great job of keeping you in the saddle. I wish I had started wearing them when I started riding. It probably would have saved me the experience of the broken arm.
I ran into a few friends and acquaintances at the event. Usually, I see a lot more people I know, but I didn't attend any of the presentations and I tried to get out by mid-afternoon so I could take care of Ace and maybe get a ride in. I got to the barn too late to actually ride, but we went for a walk and he got a chance to roll in the sand of the dressage arena. The turnouts are still too wet to risk a bad slip, but the arena is functional again. I'm looking forward to a lesson on Wednesday.
I was pretty tired by the time I got home, but again I spent too much time with my friends the Poldarks on Saturday night. I'm enjoying the visit, but I do worry that the ending will be rather anti-climactic, as was often the case with the previous books. But Graham did know how to get a reader to move on into the next chapter, rather than close the book. (James Patterson's Alex Cross novels, which have very short chapters, do an excellent job of making you think "oh, just one more chapter" and you find yourself unable to put the book down until it is finished. The Poldark chapters are much longer, as are the books. Eventually, I do have to go to sleep.)
On Sunday, I did a quick pick-up of all the things I had in the living room so it would be ready when friends arrived for the Superbowl viewing my husband had planned. This is not a party for which I have any responsibilities, so, after we went to Henri's in Canoga Park for breakfast, I got to go up to Chatsworth to play with Ace.
It was a lovely day, with an occassional gusty breeze, but the temperature was in the 80s. Sunny California as it should be.
I was planning to clean Ace's waterer. There was a dead rat in it. Fortunately, I knew it hadn't been there on Saturday evening, so I can only hope it hadn't been there very long. We fished it out and I cleaned the bucket. I noticed Ace was a bit reluctant to take a drink, but I'm sure he'll get over it when he's thursty enough.
We had a nice walk and a little trot in the arena. He's still sore on his left front, so I'm not pushing it yet. The vet figured it would take about 12 weeks for recovery, but light work would be o.k. The lameness doesn't really show at the walk, but the new trim is changing how he walks. I also decided to be brave and ride up the hill from the arena back to the stall. This is a big deal for me, and frankly, for him. It went well enough that I'll keep at it on days when he's calm and collected. He did have an issue crossing the little gullet of water created by people washing horses. He needed to walk around it (good thing he had that option) rather than step over it (we're talking about a 1" active stream of water and 5" of mud track.) He doesn't like getting his feet wet, but he's getting better about them getting a little muddy.
After I got him ready for the night, I headed home for the party. I stopped at zPizza, a new place in Tarzana which makes excellent pizza and will make me a personal favorite, a pizza margarita with grilled or roasted eggplant. Quite wonderful. I picked up a vegetarian pizza and one with sausage and pepperoni for all of those people at the house who don't like eggplant (pretty much everybody except me) and I'm looking forward to having leftovers for lunch.
For a group of people who watch exactly one football game a year, it was quite a loud group. Truth be told, we watch mostly for the new commercials, which were a bit disappointing this year. There weren't that many made exclusively for the Superbowl. My personal favorite was the faux Dalmation for Anheiser-Busch (which sadly didn't have any featuring the Clydesdales this year.) Others liked the robot who almost lost his job on the assembly line. My husband favored the rabbit and (I think) guinea pig using a real mouse to get on-line. I had no emotional committment to the game, but I had once photographed the Colts playing the Browns, so I nominally supported them. Most of the folks in our living room were rooting for the Bears. I just felt sorry for everyone in the rain.
I finished up the day with a bit more time with the Poldarks. If it wasn't a school night, I might have tried to finish it.
February is going to be party month. We've got two next Saturday, one the following Saturday, and we host a party to watch the Oscars on February 25. I liked it better when the Oscars were at the end of March or beginning of April.
On Friday night, we went to the Reprise! production of "Sunday in the Park with George" at U.C.L.A. We've been subscribers for years, and our season tickets are in the first row, just off center.
My husband is a Sondhead. I am not. I rather like "Assassins" and have grown to enjoy "Company," but I really dislike "Sweeny Todd" and "Into the Woods." Eventually, I found a place where I could relate to "George," but it took a while. The production itself was engaging, as these small-venue productions often are, but quite different from the Broadway original in tone, according to my husband who actually saw it in person years ago. He did pull out a DVD of the Bernedette Peters-Mandy Patankin version to show me a couple of things. In doing so, he discovered that the person who created the dress worn by "Dot" in the opening scene (she manages to step out of it while it stays in place and she dances around) and the "chromalume" of the second act was someone we had dinner with a few years ago: Bran Ferrin.
Bran was the head of Disney Imagineering for many years. He lives in a house full of amazing toys: it has two Enigma Machines from WWII, a cracked ruby laser on his dining room table, a soft-ball sized sphere of tungsten (impossible to lift off the table, it is so heavy), and the space suit of the second Russian cosmonaut. There is also a fantastic collection of art and a professional kitchen to die for (his significant other is a professional chef and she likes to cater the large parties they have at home.) I've read a piece by Bran where he talks about how, in the future, artists will be truly appreciated. I sure hope he's right. One of the ironies of "George" is that George Seurat only produced about 8 paintings in his short life and never sold one. The other irony, at least as presented by the analysis of George's work with light in the play, is that he would have revelled in a world where images are produced by pixels.
When we got home Friday night, I made the mistake of opening "Bella Poldark" the last volume of Winston Graham's Poldark series, and I read too late into the night for someone who needed to get up early on Saturday.
I managed to get out of the house in time to drive to Pomona for Equine Affaire before it opened at 9 a.m. It is an annual 4-day event where people get to go to lectures and demonstrations about horses and riding and SHOP. It's a geat place to look for a horse trailer, which, of course means a semi-truck length mobile home with room to bring along your three favorite equines. There are smaller, day trip type trailers, but the overwhelming majority are monsters that I could live in for the rest of my life. There was a time when I thought that would be a great way to retire--drive a little, photograph a little, and go on to the next place. Then I had to crawl up the Rocky Mountains behind some of these monsters. Not likely to happen. I don't own a horse trailer, although sometimes I think it might be convenient, because you also have to buy the truck that goes with it. I can pay for a lot of hauling before I'd ever come close to making a year's worth of payments, let alone pay it off. Ace hadn't been in a horse trailer for over two years when we moved him to Chatsworth in December after everyone was evicted from the Pierce College Equestrian Center.
(Your tax dollars at work: the two beautiful barns and the only covered arena in this part of the San Fernando Valley are occupied and defiled by pigeons, black widow spiders, and mice on the pretext that construction along El Rancho Road would be disturbing to the horses--some of whom lived quite happily through the actual construction of the new buildings--and that it would begin right after January 1. As far as I know, the construction planned has not been bid or awarded and the head of the Agriculter Department at Pierce College says he's been promised no work will begin until after the annual Farm Walk at the end of April.)
I managed to avoid making any high-ticket purchases, although I really wanted to get a girth and leathers for the saddle I bought last year. That's got to wait a few months because of the computer purchase. I'll live. I did buy a DVD by Julie Goodnight on mastering the canter, a gait which scares me. I took a clinic with Julie last sprint and enjoyed it. She's not Harry Whitney, but she's the first woman I've had the opportunity to work with in a clinic. That's a different perspective on things.
I also got to Equissentials to recycle two pairs of my full-seat britches. Recycling means I get new tights and they reuse the leather, at a price of about half a new pair. Equissentials are made in a place called Oneonta, in upstate New York, about 27 miles north of where I grew up. If I ever visit there again, I must see if they've got a factory outlet. Equssentials use deerskin for their full-seat leather breaches, and they are soft, pliable, and can be cleaned in the washer. I love them. They also do a great job of keeping you in the saddle. I wish I had started wearing them when I started riding. It probably would have saved me the experience of the broken arm.
I ran into a few friends and acquaintances at the event. Usually, I see a lot more people I know, but I didn't attend any of the presentations and I tried to get out by mid-afternoon so I could take care of Ace and maybe get a ride in. I got to the barn too late to actually ride, but we went for a walk and he got a chance to roll in the sand of the dressage arena. The turnouts are still too wet to risk a bad slip, but the arena is functional again. I'm looking forward to a lesson on Wednesday.
I was pretty tired by the time I got home, but again I spent too much time with my friends the Poldarks on Saturday night. I'm enjoying the visit, but I do worry that the ending will be rather anti-climactic, as was often the case with the previous books. But Graham did know how to get a reader to move on into the next chapter, rather than close the book. (James Patterson's Alex Cross novels, which have very short chapters, do an excellent job of making you think "oh, just one more chapter" and you find yourself unable to put the book down until it is finished. The Poldark chapters are much longer, as are the books. Eventually, I do have to go to sleep.)
On Sunday, I did a quick pick-up of all the things I had in the living room so it would be ready when friends arrived for the Superbowl viewing my husband had planned. This is not a party for which I have any responsibilities, so, after we went to Henri's in Canoga Park for breakfast, I got to go up to Chatsworth to play with Ace.
It was a lovely day, with an occassional gusty breeze, but the temperature was in the 80s. Sunny California as it should be.
I was planning to clean Ace's waterer. There was a dead rat in it. Fortunately, I knew it hadn't been there on Saturday evening, so I can only hope it hadn't been there very long. We fished it out and I cleaned the bucket. I noticed Ace was a bit reluctant to take a drink, but I'm sure he'll get over it when he's thursty enough.
We had a nice walk and a little trot in the arena. He's still sore on his left front, so I'm not pushing it yet. The vet figured it would take about 12 weeks for recovery, but light work would be o.k. The lameness doesn't really show at the walk, but the new trim is changing how he walks. I also decided to be brave and ride up the hill from the arena back to the stall. This is a big deal for me, and frankly, for him. It went well enough that I'll keep at it on days when he's calm and collected. He did have an issue crossing the little gullet of water created by people washing horses. He needed to walk around it (good thing he had that option) rather than step over it (we're talking about a 1" active stream of water and 5" of mud track.) He doesn't like getting his feet wet, but he's getting better about them getting a little muddy.
After I got him ready for the night, I headed home for the party. I stopped at zPizza, a new place in Tarzana which makes excellent pizza and will make me a personal favorite, a pizza margarita with grilled or roasted eggplant. Quite wonderful. I picked up a vegetarian pizza and one with sausage and pepperoni for all of those people at the house who don't like eggplant (pretty much everybody except me) and I'm looking forward to having leftovers for lunch.
For a group of people who watch exactly one football game a year, it was quite a loud group. Truth be told, we watch mostly for the new commercials, which were a bit disappointing this year. There weren't that many made exclusively for the Superbowl. My personal favorite was the faux Dalmation for Anheiser-Busch (which sadly didn't have any featuring the Clydesdales this year.) Others liked the robot who almost lost his job on the assembly line. My husband favored the rabbit and (I think) guinea pig using a real mouse to get on-line. I had no emotional committment to the game, but I had once photographed the Colts playing the Browns, so I nominally supported them. Most of the folks in our living room were rooting for the Bears. I just felt sorry for everyone in the rain.
I finished up the day with a bit more time with the Poldarks. If it wasn't a school night, I might have tried to finish it.
February is going to be party month. We've got two next Saturday, one the following Saturday, and we host a party to watch the Oscars on February 25. I liked it better when the Oscars were at the end of March or beginning of April.
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