_Reckless: Pride of the Marines_

All the hoopla over War Horse brought back my childhood memories of Reckless, America's real life equine warrior of the 1950s. Unknown to most horsemen of today and long forgotten by those of a certain age, the little mare now has her own Facebook fan club as well as a website and a statue in the works. 

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She deserves it. No mere cavalry horse, the little mare, whose story unfolds in Andrew Geer's 1955 book  Reckless: Pride of the Marines, served in the Korean conflict, earning two purple hearts, the rank of Marine staff sergeant, and a long retirement at Camp Pendleton as the equine embodiment of Marine courage and service.

Touching, terrifying, amusing, and exhilarating without need for padding or theatrical exaggeration, her story's all the more remarkable. I vaguely remember first checking out our library's copy of Andrew Geer's 1955 book when I was nine or ten and its pages were new. I scanned it again online last year, and I'm going to read it once more this week. 

While I remember her intelligence and willingness to work in detail, I need to refresh myself on her bloodlines. Anyone with even a shallow grasp of conformation and breed type will wonder about her being called a Mongol pony. Looking at photos of Reckless reminds me more of Theodore O'Connor, America's ill-fated eventing Super Pony, than of some stout little Mongol nag. I vaguely remember something about Japanese race stock heritage. That I believe. Perhaps still fresh memories of World War II made Mongol descent more palatable. But Mongol stock is hardly known for refinement, and Reckless--more than a little ironically--added refinement and feminine good looks to her image as the consummate Marine. 

   

I'm delighted to see she has dedicated fans promoting her story. Hollywood really needs to film this one. It's totally Disney but it's one no one had to invent.

"Big Lick" Licked?

"USEF Bans Action Devices for Gaited Horses"

I don't follow the gaited horse scene, so I don't know if these folks typically show in USEF classes. If they do though, I'll bet they'll secede so they can continue torturing horses. 

There's a YouTube video here. This schoolgirl's haltingly read yet otherwise excellent presentation of the problems with "action devices" should show my I don't follow the gaited horse scene.  

I'd like think the USEF licked the "Big Lick," but I doubt it'll die so easily.  

Horse Auctions

Most horse auctions in the United States depress me since they send old, injured, and unwanted horses off to sad fates in foreign countries. However, at the other end of the spectrum, auctions of elite Thoroughbreds bring out buyers securely in the ranks of the super-rich.

Here's one example:

The Ever Shrinking Hay Supply

This morning I found among the many news articles on horse abuse one from Minnesota giving a reason why hay prices skyrocketed:

A ton of hay costs $220 -- nearly double the $120 it cost a year ago, said Krishona Martinson, equine extension specialist for the University of Minnesota. The rising costs are attributed to drought and farmers' reluctance to grow hay, which cannot be insured through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Growing soybeans and corn is less expensive and less of a risk, Martinson said.

My hay supplier here in Colorado told me many of his resources shifted to corn or other crops last year. Considering the drought, I wondered why. Crop insurance. That explains much.

The extreme drought in Colorado also explains why $220 a ton sounds cheap to us. Local hay supplies withered. Wyoming hay was over $300 a ton, and top quality hay much more than that. I can vouch for that.

The "Poodle Trot"

German riding master Waldemar Seunig (1887-1976) called a trot where a horse loses the parallelism of front and rear cannons "a poodle trot."  This short, clear video featuring German veterinarian and certified rider/trainer Gerd Heuschmann shows exactly what Seunig meant.

Anyone who's ever been to a Saddlebred show or maybe watched Arabian Park horse classes will recognize this flashy trot immediately. High, flailing front feet, dragging butts, and caved-in backs come from poor training and poorer understanding of conformation and biomechanics. Ever wonder why American Saddlebreds suffer from so much lordosis?  

On rare occasion, a horse with the build to lift the front and match that lift with drive from the rear finds a great trainer who can develop that talent and bring up the horse's back. For example, some Tom Bass-trained Saddlebreds showed stunning front flash with matching drive from the rear. Unfortunately, not many people have Tom Bass's ability. Most front flash means the hind end drags and the back sags, the antithesis of the engagement described in classical dressage texts.  

So I stopped watching upper level dressage rides when this trot started winning in competitive dressage classes. For example, watch Edward Gal and Moorlands Totilas setting a Kuer record at Hickstead.

Below are a couple of screen captures from this ride. The horse's front end flies high and mighty, the rear end lags behind. 

Several friends disappointed me by loving this ride. Bigtime judges horrified me with their scoring. Is Toltilas not closer to "a poodle trot" than an engaged trot? 

Happily, classical dressage may be on the way back. Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro, 2012 Olympic dressage winners, show no traces of rollkur or the "poodle trot." 

Compare Totilas and Valegro. Unlike Totilas's rear, Valegro's hind end is well under. The result is a beautifully matched pair of cannons--or cannon and shannon, if you're old school in nomenclature--and a hind foot well under his belly. Even this still gives an impression of flying forward. The stills of Totilas show a hind foot barely up under his sheath.

I hope Velegro's triumphs mark a trend back to classical dressage.

Man o' War at 22 at THE Stud

Man o' War at 22.  Still supple and powerful.

This short but valuable view of history also has another feature that interested me.  The narrator says Man o' War was "retired to the stud." Few people--except me and a few diehards--use the word this way anymore, but this use from a more animal-oriented era gives the hearer more information than the current use as a synonym for any intact male horse.  The word once meant a horse breeding farm, and on such a farm would be stud horses and stud mares.

Not only a superb runner, Man o' War went on to become a top sire, even though his book of mares was restricted by his owner. Had he been on the open market, his name might be even more prominent today.

Wild Horse Soap Opera Continues

My, my. I expected the BLM mess to continue, but I hadn't expected Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to threaten an investigative reporter who dared to inquire about the issue.

Of course, Secretary Salazar wasn't expecting to find himself on the   viral video carrying his threat.

That led to a "sincere" public apology that even hit the New York Times: "Colorado: Interior Secretary Apologizes to Reporter."

The posturing and rhetoric is likely to continue.  The welfare of the horses is unlikely to improve. Too many cattlemen want the horses gone. Too many companies want to extract the last ounce of minerals from the land the horses occupy.

9 December 2012 -- UPDATE

Well, well. "Interior Secretary Moves to Tighten Rules Over Sale of Wild Horses."