Oh, So That's What People Mean By "Roan"

[dr_pretentious]

Today I spent about three hours hanging around a dressage stable, filling my brain up with horses. I haven't been on a horse since I was six years old. That's three decades now--how about that? This evening, my dad said, "You spent the day where? If I were to name the top three hundred kinds of places where I'd be likely to find you, a dressage stable would be nowhere on the list."

But the protagonist of the prequel spends spends several years with the Beltresin cavalry, so I can't get away with being stupid about horses. During Nanowrimo, I was willing to use flagrantly silly placeholders in the one scene where I did attempt to write a bit of riding. During Nanowrimo, it was kind of amusing to say, "Screw it, a horse is just a bicycle with legs." At one point, the horses Stisele and Harentil are riding have brakes and pedals. I think there may also be gear shifts. That's the beauty of placeholders in a zero draft: if you make them absurd enough that there's no danger you'll overlook them in revision, you can get on with telling the damn story. That was the right approach for a fragmentary zero draft. It's not the right approach anymore.

Today, I made my peace with the fact that the Stisele manuscript won't be in complete working draft in time for Seattle. If I want to produce the kind of book that I myself would pay money to read for pleasure, it's going to take me another year to do right by the research and then fill in the gaps. There are fast writers in the world--anghara wrote her 200,000 word first draft of The Secrets of Jin-Shei in, what, three months?--but I'm not one of them. I envy her the ability to turn out good product at that pace.

jaime_sama is the only local horse person I know. She's been urging me to come visit the place where she rides for months, but this is the first time our schedules have worked out. Bless jaime_sama for her patience. I asked the name of every artifact in the grooming stall. I was skittish around the horses for fear they'd be skittish around me (because "skittish" is the adjective most commonly paired with "horse" in the fiction I've read). I took notes about absolutely everything I noticed--ten pages of notes. Did you know that horses' lower eyelashes are about three times as long as their upper eyelashes? No? Well, I'm quite sure that's a detail that will never be used in my fiction, but it's in the notes, along with the angles at which the seventeen-hand chestnut fellow twitched his ears while we brushed his flanks.

Next week, I'm going back for a lesson. There's some risk that this lesson might involve me actually sitting on a horse. Do you have any idea how wide a horse is? They're enormous. It must be like trying to straddle the dining table.

__________________

In completely unrelated news, I love that in this New York Times article about the newly discovered fossil of the transitional fish/land animal thingy, we see proof that Gen X folk are coming into their own in paleontology: In an interview, Dr. Shubin, an evolutionary biologist, let himself go. "It's a really amazing, remarkable intermediate fossil," he said. "It's like, holy cow." Like, holy cow, indeed.

Comments

[annathepiper]

Horses scare the bejeezus out of me. I mean, I get that they're bright, intelligent animals, but about all I can think every time I get near one is that if I piss it off, it can crush my teeny head with one good smack from one of its feet. O.O

Fortunately I have horse geeks on my Friends list who I can hit up for clues when I need them, though eventually, someday, maybe, I might actually try to get on an actual horse.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

jaime_sama had useful advice like, "As long as you keep making a little noise so he knows where you are, you'll be fine." From which I concluded that a horse is a big rideable bear. "Our priorities just don't interest them as much as their priorities do. They know their names, but they don't really care about answering to them." Oh. So a horse is a big rideable cat? "What he's saying now is, 'Give me a treat.'" Ah. A horse is a big rideable dog.

I'm still not really settled into this whole horse concept, but at least it's progress from my previous feeling that a horse is a quadrupedal bicycle.

(Now I want "quadrupedal" to be a verb about tandem bikes.)

[anghara.livejournal.com]

I did get on an actual horse. WHich then bolted with me. Oy vey.

(However, I have to say that I stayed on the damn beast. Until, that is, it came to a halt in its own back yard... and I slid off it like a sack of potatoes...)

[annathepiper]

Funny, "slid off it like a sack of potatoes" is about how I got off the one equine I have ever sat upon, which was a pony in my Aunt Eileen's yard in Gravel Switch, Kentucky. There I was, sitting on the little beast, wondering how the heck I was going to get off of it...

"Fall," says my beloved solarbird, and I, naive inexperienced person that I am, took her at her word.

However, I am pleased to say that at no point did the pony actually bolt with me. I think it might have been snickering to itself the whole time.

[annathepiper]

A big rideable bear-cat-dog, perhaps?

I at least have been specifically trying to make sure that all horses ridden by main characters in Lament not only have names, but that I'm paying at least some level of attention to how far they can get in any span of time, and that their riders remember that why yes, they DO need to stop and TAKE CARE OF THE HORSE every so often.

And I am totally with you re: "quadrupedal".

[susanwrites.livejournal.com]

Hey - congrats for going the extra mile with your research. Sure it will take you longer to finish the book but you'll be glad and your readers will be even happier.

I'm just getting ready to dive deep into research myself. Mine involves taking flying lessons. Gulp.

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

Horses.

OK, I have a friend who rides. Has his own horse stabled near his house. So one day, we all go to the stable to celebrate his horse's birthday. (Horse got carrot cake, natch.)

So I'm looking at these horses. Really looking at them, 'cause that's safer than riding one. And I find myself fascinated with their tails. See, the hair doesn't just grow long in one spot, like a human "ponytail." There's no big long thing going down the middle with short hair around it, like a cat tail. Instead, there's this stumpy little doohickey shaped like a little cone, and all that long hair comes out of that little cone! It's really different!

So I describe it to myself using the referents I have from life experience. "I've seen that before! It's just like when all the nerves to the legs leave the base of the spinal cord! Hey, it's just like the cauda equina!"

My brain then helpfully cross-references the Latin anatomical term back to its English meaning --- and I start laughing out loud in the stable. People moved away from me. All I could do to explain was say, "A horse's tail is just like the horse's tail!" which made them move away farther, faster.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I watched the proprietor of Chestnut Ridge narrowly avoid getting rolled off the side of a horse when it spooked at the sight of a wheelbarrow. She clearly knew what she was about, so I guess that can happen to anyone.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Oh, my. And here I thought a riding lesson was a chunky expense with a side order of danger. Good luck.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Every time I try to come up with a witty reply, the story cracks me up again. You've struck me witless, Jen.

It just occurred to me to wonder where M&P keep their horse. I'm in the habit of thinking of them as geographically inaccessible, but now that I've been to their place, it no longer seems like they live at the ends of the earth.

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

flying lessons are safer than most other recreational lessons. the planes are docile, the instructors tested and certified, and (around most flight schools) there are designated places for students to practice w/o having to worry about regular air traffic.

the only frightening thing is the cost. :/

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

I haven't been around horses in years. I rode ponies as a kid (not ours, I hasten to add; my sister's still patiently awaiting the lottery win that will enable Dad to finally get her the pony she asked for when she was 3), and really loved it. They smell good and are warm and should be treated well. The Grand National is on today, and my parents are watching it. Ever since I went to the course out of season, I've been horrified by it; the whipping of horses seems to be very much frowned on these days, thank goodness, but the deliberately huge obstacles that lead to so many injuries and executions (most of the horses aren't being euthanised because they'll never recover, but because they'll never be able to make their owners pots of cash in races) are as terrible as ever.

You know what? My reaction to the "missing link" was "holy cow!" I feel all intelligent and academic now.

horse colors

[jaime-sama.livejournal.com]

By the way, Googling "horse colors" will get you all the information you could possibly want, plus some lectures on genetics.

For example, if you wanted a clear explanation of bay, chestnut, etc.: http://www.equusite.com/articles/basics/basicsColors.shtml

But note that Cremello, perlino, champagne, etc. are fairly uncommon. I'm not sure I've ever seen any of those in person. For that matter, I'm not sure I've ever seen a real white horse, as opposed to a light gray.

Lisa has a red dun though. :)

I hardly ever get to share the horse thing with my friends; it was fun giving you the tour.

Yesterday afternoon Tynan (the not-yet two weeks old foal) discovered that he has teeth and started testing them on everything. THe fence...the water bucket...his mom... Lisa came to find out why she was squealing so much. Her son was biting her. Little brat.

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, horses are pretty... at a distance. Or from the ground. Kinda scary to be on one. You're so... far off the ground. The one time I was on a horse, I was too scared to actually enjoy the OMG! I'm finally on a horse!!

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, M&P keep their horse stabled in taht part of NY which is closest to NJ, not far from the RenFair site at Sterling Forest.

Friend mentioned in story above keeps his about 10 miles from New Hope, PA.

But central NJ is full of "horse country." The US Equestrian Federation has its headquarters in Gladstone. Back in college, I was part of a 30 mile bicycle tour that started in Pluckemin; one of the stops along the way (it was a tour rated for beginners, with many stops) was at a horse farm. A horse breeding farm. One of the semi-official stops on the tour was a very informative and, well, entertaining chat with the woman whose job it was to -- how shall I put this? -- obtain semen samples from desirable stallions. We got to see the equipment that the stallions were encouraged to use to assume the proper semen-donating postures, and the buckets in which the very expensive horse semen was collected.

Re: horse colors

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

That was a wonderful afternoon. I'm looking forward to Wednesday. Oh, the suspense! Can I get through thirty minutes without injuring myself or any larger mammals?

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

One of the things that impressed me about Chestnut Ridge is that they have some rescued horses, at least one of which they're investing time to retrain in the hope that she'll be more adoptable.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Oh, my.

That reminds me of an old friend of my aunt's who teaches and does research at an ag school. The guy always likes to tell people that he impregnates pigs for a living.

[jaime-sama.livejournal.com]

I actually think it makes total sense to be somewhat afraid of horses. The people that worry me are the ones who think they are fearless natural born cowboys...get on, kick the horse hard, and go galloping off. Probably sans helmet too. That's a good way to get hurt. Getting some lessons makes you safer, and also the horse more comfortable as you learn not to bounce around so much.

Re: horse colors

[tracyandrook.livejournal.com]

At the Long Valley place, I noticed that horses bred for color tend to lose a lot in the brain department. Palominos get cranky and are more likely to kick and bite, now that they are a recognized breed. This makes them even more like dogs.

[annathepiper]

That's a comfort! Something akin to how I can hear musical flubs on recordings and think, "Y'know, if the professionals do that, it's OKAY if I screw up!"

However, I have not yet applied this same ethic to words.