I seem to be settling into a pattern now of blog-writing and picture editing in the morning and riding in the afternoon. After a session photographing the mountain views morning mists lifting off, I had a whole pile of pictures to sort through after the previous day's wildlife encounters which took me right up to lunchtime. Over lunch I met a very lovely young Brazilian woman who turned out to be a qualified vet, despite looking like she had just left school. Like many other people who care about animals, she had heard about Monty and decided she had to visit and find out more about the man who listens to horses (and people, and deer, and just about any living being on the planet).
Over lunch the conversation ranged from the political situation in the U.S. and the 'Tea Party', to the alternative medicines that Monty uses to stay healthy. The most interesting of these is a recently discovered protein extraction taken from a bush that grows in an part of Uzbekistan where the animals and people all seem to be bigger and stronger than in other areas where this plant is not present. It's not on the market yet as it's still in the experimental stages but somehow Monty has become part of the trial. It comes as a white powder that has to be taken sublingually as it is rendered ineffective by acid.
I'd really like to see how things develop with this and whether it has any effect on the connective tissue and collagen in particular. I have some sort of connective tissue disorder which may or may not be Ehlers Danlos syndrome but whatever it is, there's no 'cure' for it and all that modern medicine has to offer is painkillers and braces. Ehlers Danlos is quite a rare genetic disorder, its most common forms affect 1 in 5,000 people through to the less common forms which affect 1 in 250,000 and a few extremely rare versions that are only found in a single family lineage. However when you apply the 1 in 5,000 to a population of millions that's still quite a lot of people. So if this protein has any kind of strengthening effect on collagen it could potentially change many people's lives in a very dramatic way. Bendy Girl would be first on my list of trialists if I was in charge of things.
After lunch it was time for a ride and I had Celebrity in the Dually Halter again. The others set off for the track via the shortest route but I decided to take Celebrity the long way round to see whether he had any of the separation anxiety he had shown out on the trail but he was absolutely fine, possibly because we were still on familiar territory that he knows well. Out on the track I spent some time practising my transitions and, insipid by the dressage clinic I'd watched on Tuesday, I thought I'd see if he knew how to do side passing using just neck reining. I started off using a bit of leg to encourage him to move sideways and at the same time applying the rein to his neck and he seemed to pick it up quite well. After a while I lessened the leg pressure and just used the rein, but each time more and more subtly. We wouldn't have won any prizes in a dressage competition but for a 3 year old horse that has only been in training for 7 months, he did really well.
I'm also starting to feel like my own very rusty riding skills are beginning to come back a little. I can now canter without hanging onto the pommel for dear life. I keep thinking about a documentary I saw featuring Lee Pearson, a multiple gold winning Paralympian rider who has even less leg strength than I do. He was talking about the way he tunes into the rhythm of the horse and the different paces, with the trot going up and down and the more backwards/forwards rocking motion of the canter. I'm trying to think less about grip and more about rhythm and getting my heels to stay down and make use of gravity.
I hadn't realised that Monty had been watching what I was up to, thinking he was busy talking to other people but after I got off he made a comment that I was improving so he had noticed after all. I only wish I was as fit and as fearless as I was at 14, with an unshakeable seat and toes that pointed in the right direction. It's been hard at times to be around so many really good riders, knowing that once I could have kept up with them and would have quite happily galloped around that race track all day but now I have to congratulate myself on doing a full circuit at a sedate canter.
I spent a good hour or so before dinner out the back of the house watching the sun lower itself into the surrounding mountains and taking pictures. There's so many pictures to take here, every different angle presents a yet another image to capture, it's really a photographer's dream as well as a horse lover's dream.
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