I'd like the Anne McCafferey/MZB joke explained. I think I get it, but I also have an incredible ability to miss the most obvious of points.
@kaziusklasterzoroaster
Sorry about the delay, but the joke is that McCaffrey has out and out eroticized rape in one Pern book (? At least one, I'm sure a Pern fan will pop out of the bushes with a detailed explanation so I don't need to go find a Pern wiki) and other books of hers have other Problematic sexual relationships, including a big age gap in the Pegasus series iirc, and other le problematique stuff, like her approach to gay people. Infodumps are not something I'd considered as part of the problematicness tho.
MZB was a big name fantasy author, important to Second Wave Feminism and New Age Feminist spiritually... And a child molester.
In celebration for the seventh book of Green Riders being translated in french, I dusted off my OC, Lamb!
Tragic backstory ahoy, she fought against her family (who belonged to the Second Empire) when she first heard the Call and that toughened her up pretty quick.
Her horse is called Needletail and its a little shit that loves to do the "wanna get on? Haha, gotcha, I'm escaping ~" joke on her often (though it knows not to do it when it's important or when she's in danger. Smart horsie)
She's rude, unruly, sometimes a bit rough over the edges (and tries to go around orders/laws whenever she can) and had a habit of not seeing people as worthy of her time (because of trauma~) but she mellowed real fast after her behavior nearly cost the life of her trainer. She has an excellent memory and a keen instinct that makes her be a good lookout and messenger, even if she still struggles with weapons. She likes bitter foods and isn't much of a sweet tooth, she often forgoe brushing her hair because she 1) can't bother 2) forgets to do it. When she's upset she tap the ground with her foot and her lips wobbles a lot. She's an angry crier, an upset crier too and she goes pretty quiet when she should be yelling and shouting. Her brooch gives her the gift of languages.
Quick Green Rider doodle I didn't try to depict someone special so it's some undefined Green Rider, probably from the time before the new uniform (I didn't include a plaid patch), and without the greatcoat because I imagine it's summer. Since I headcanon most Greenie horses as similar to Akhal-Tekkes, I tried to match the horse's exterior to that. The tack is inspired by baroque tacks because that seems sufficiently medievalish, and I based the saddle on the general form of a stock saddle - it seems a sensible option between western saddle (heavy but stable) and long distance saddle (lightweighted but not exactly fit for saddle bags afaik).
Should you buy an unstarted young horse? They’re a lot less expensive than trained, adult horses with some show experience.
So, should you?
While I am all for people with the DIY approach, you have to be absolutely cold-blooded about your skills before undertaking this project. Being "able to ride" does not mean "capable of solving problems" or "capable of training a horse".
Also, riding a broke school horse in a ring is not the same as taking your four year old (just backed, been ridden about three times in the driveway, goes forward, turns left/right, has a one-rein stop, can kinda trot) across the hard road to ride him in the hayfield. By yourself.
Can this starting of a green horse really and truly be done by adult amateurs whose first job is not "horses"? Yes.
Can this be done by an amateur who does not have a trainer, a ring, or a round pen? Yes.
Can this be done with an indifferently-bred backyard ayrab as the horse? ... Hard mode it is!
I am probably not exactly what you want to be (I am not exactly what I want to be either), but I am out here Living The Dream.
I'm a middle-aged rider (age 46) who has a non-horses day job. I have started and trained my Young Horse all by myself over here in Greater Rednecklandia.
I got a baby arab, named him Bird, and raised him up. You can follow along in pictures here and get an idea of the absolute classiness of my life by way of our Shitty Horse Trailer and Muddy-Ass Fields and Antique Tractors and Junk About The Place and so forth.
The area where I did his ground work and first got on him is crowded with guinea hens, random wandering calves, dead farm machinery, kids on dirt bikes, an unhelpful border collie, people running woodsplitters/chainsaws, etc. If it's annoying, distracting, dangerous, stupid, or inconvenient, we've had to work around it. Turns out that facilities like arenas and round pens are only important if you let them be. (They're nice, but they're not essential, trust me.)
And yet here we are, floppy adult ammie and baby green arab, in a wilderness of our own making. How's it going? Good.
Illustrated Recap of Bird's First Year Under Saddle This takes us from first-backing to fall-2015. There's video of floppy middle-aged ammie and clueless baby arab. So Exciting!
Right now he's five. He is a passable five year old horse. He knows leads, does w/t/c capably on request, backs, leg yields, sidepasses, knows turn on forehand and turn on hq, is sane in groups, has been to a hunter pace where he jumped most of the 2'6" jumps (except the post-n-rail ones because his floppy ammie owner is a great big pussy and didn't aim him at them) and placed fifth, has been to Adult Horse Camp where he clinic'd all weekend and learned to be sensible in an indoor arena, did a minitrial at 2' "very green" wherein I discovered that stadium fences in bright colors need to be practiced ahead of time (oops) even though we can jump all the BN (2'7") fences on the xc course, did a dressage schooling show wherein I got "nice rider -- be more effective" in the comments and got a 64.something in Intro B and a 55 in BN-A (w-t-c eventing dressage test for beginner novice).
But still, there’s a lot of “Right now....” going on with him. Right now, he's still growing and building riding muscles. Right now we have no left lead because he's butt high (again) but the lead will come back in a month or two once he's leveled up from the current growth spurt. (He's done this before and I know what it looks like.)
Is this fun? I am having an Awesome Time (tm).
Is this for everyone? No. I see WAY MORE people failing at this sort of project than succeeding even for the "pleasant trail horse that won't kill me" level of riding ambition. (I am assuming your level of ambition is above that because you're horse shopping with your trainer. Most trail riders don't get a trainer to help them shop.)
(MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION EVER) Is Bird the first horse I have started under saddle? No. He's about the twelfth. This is, as it were, not my first rodeo. Thing is, it's not a rodeo at all -- he's never bucked, never reared, never offered to be bad outside of a spook or two.
Depending on what you want to do with your horse, getting a wee baby horse (and here I mean a four year old)... you've got like three years of Stupid Young Horse Crap to get through before you start winning things or even Being Able To Win Things. Are you interested in "young horse is at new show grounds, loses mind" and "young horse spooks at all the dressage letters" and "young horse feels polka-dot jump fill is alarming NOPE NOPE NOPE" or are you interested in "And in first place, we have number 213 riding LovelyAmmieHunter..." ?
Lots of people SAY they want to do the journey. Not so many people actually want to do the journey. See, it's a long journey and it rains a lot. There is a lot of mud. Sometimes you don't think you ARE making progress. The directions suck -- you can only read the parts of the map you have already fumbled your way through in the dark and rain. A lot of the landscape is covered in briars. If there's a path, you can't see it. It feels like everybody else is going faster than you.
If you want to learn to train horses and do not care that you will have three years where riding is work (hard damn work) for you but not much fun, buy an unstarted horse. You will, in the course of those three years, spend as much money as you’d have spent for a 'ready-to-ride' horse, but you'll be spending it getting the greenbean ready to ride and show instead of actually riding and showing a horse.
If you want to ride and show and 'have fun' at any time in the next three years, buy a broke horse that is already doing what you want to be doing. Then you can spend the next three years doing what you want to be doing instead of taking, basically, an associate's degree in Starting Horses Under Saddle, said degree taught mostly by a quadruped instructor who springs timed pop quizzes a lot without warning.
Goodness...... Don't think I've ever read a book that fast, good thing I checked it out for 21 days on e-book, not that I needed to. It's already finished and I got it last night and started this morning(Thursday) when I got on the bus....
Kristen Britain, you better not wait four years for the next Green Rider book... Karigan and King Zachary need to be together and Estora tossed aside... And don't kill anymore Green Riders! Yates was too precious to lose and fucking give Estral back her voice. That brat of a child Lala does not need the voice, plus those fools of the Second Empire are morons for not realize who their "God" was that spoke to them.... And they call themselves loyal to Mornhavon the Black. My ass... especially if they couldn't figure out that it was him and not their "God."
Just bring the book out soon! I'M AN IMPATIENT PERSON AND WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO KARIGAN!!!!!
With their pedalling behind them and the delights of Bali awaiting, the Green Riders can recall their achievements from a brightly coloured green point of view.
With all those countries traversed and so many environmental causes affiliated, you'd think Jamie and Kenny would be worn off by their stocking tops. NO, they planned to ride up Mount Bromo in East Java. See how they managed it in this video:
Meanwhile they have spent the last six weeks entertaining us, as follows:
Biking over 1327km and filming episodes of their bamboo bike trek for 53,000 supporters.
Ecotourism was one of their first visits we covered in South Thailand.
Recycled tires formed a school playground in Krabi.
Tree planting at schools was both encouraged and carried out!
A university group in Malaysia who made THEIR bikes from scrap and rode them 700km was encountered. Akmal Azfar must be congratulated on his wholesale approach to recycling!
The youth rangers of Kelab Alami in Johor were visited to investigate their mangrove conservation.
Lots of sustainable local initiatives and NGO activity in Singapore.
And Yogyakarta's socially responsible business and cafes were visited and invited to take part in reducing carbon footprints.
Gear reviews for everyone provide ideas on what works in the story of our pedalling pair of heroes.
Now they are well on the way to reducing their own carbon footprint ($1750 has already been donated), they are seeking to extend the success of their journey and encourage others in environmental, sustainable development is this precious area of the world. So much diversity of forest fauna and flora depends on their personal and others' public appreciation of this task facing all of us, but particularly the inhabitants of SE Asia.
