Riding is an empirical art. When we witness that rare round or freestyle, we know that we’re watching something beautiful. But how do we know?
“One of the most dramatic demonstrations of concern and affection for GMHA took place following the flood of 1973,” wrote former Green Mountain Horse Association President Eileene Wilmot in Green Mountain Horse Association, 1926-1990s. “We all met to view the disaster and destruction, some of us with faint hearts. I never will forget Wilson Haubrich, who quietly said, ‘We have 120 children arriving in two days; we must get this fixed.’ Friends and members came down from the hills and up the valleys… In two days we were ready to receive the children.”
In London, 1961, authorities announced the discovery of a clandestine Soviet spy ring. In Liverpool, little-known skiffle group the Beatles first gigged in the Cavern Club’s cellar. And in Leeds, an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease left sportsmen dismayed that the annual three-day event at Harewood House, home to the Earl of Harewood, would likely be canceled.
Stand beside the finish line of any racetrack in the world and dare yourself to remain unflapped. I’ve tried; it’s futile. The pack rounds the turn, and involuntarily your pulse quickens, eyes darting from hooves to outstretched necks to flying manes and tails as the hijinks of the bettors beside you intensify, the final moments igniting in a blaze of speed so fast it almost takes your breath away. You ask yourself: horsepower? Have I just felt the physical effects?
"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words." Anna Sewell, Black Beauty, 1877.
It was a dark and stormy afternoon at The Chronicle office. Lightning flickered outside as gunpowder gray thunderclouds rolled and boiled over the Blue Ridge Mountains toward Middleburg. Fall is my favorite time of year in Virginia, and the bright assortment of colored leaves against the darkening sky created a striking backdrop on my drive home from another day buried in the tombs of equine history.
The Chronicle’s attic is one of my favorite places in our office. It smells like dust, it's hot in the summer and freezing in the winter, and it doesn’t necessarily have any health benefits to it aside from climbing the three flights of stairs from the bottom floor where my desk is, but it’s well worth the climb and the sneezing.
Can you believe the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games are only two days away? It’s crazy, right? It seems like we’ve been working nonstop here at the Chronicle for months on end to prepare for the WEG Preview Issue (which we published on Sept. 17, so don’t miss out on your copy), and now we’re packing camera bags and suitcases and loading cars so we can make our own “Journey To The WEG.”
Of all the sports at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, I’m most excited to see vaulting. While I have either competed in or covered all of the other disciplines, I’ve never actually witnessed vaulting at a world-class level. Years ago I attempted to vault at summer camp, and I mastered standing and flying re-mounts, but my career as a vaulter was fairly short-lived.
A few theories exist about the roots of vaulting.
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