Horse Stories 1

So my friend Sarah Monette, who is also Katherine Addison, posts dressage stuff and horse stories over on her Patreon, and I figured, you know what, Ormr and I are taking dressage lessons now, maybe folks will find that interesting.

I'm trying to expand my base of Horse Knowledge both for writing purposes and because it's fun. Ormr, by the way, has a cameo appearance in "The Red Mother," a novelette coming out at Tor.com later this year.

We're a LOT less advanced than Sarah and Tito, so it's gonna be a very basic view of what we're learning. (Ormr has discovered leg yield*, which is now His Favorite Thing and he does not wish to do anything else. Ormr, like many horses, thinks he's funny. Horse senses of humor are about on par with the average eleven year old. What's funny to a horse: poop, farts, being obstinate while pretending to be helpful, and pratfalls. BIPEDS ARE SO TIPPY.)

We're both rank beginners at dressage work. I have a hell of a time posting on the correct diagonal when riding the trot, and Ormr only believes in cantering on one lead (like when you're skipping, which is what a horse's forelegs do in canter, and one foot is always in front of the other. A lead change is when you skip while alternating which foot is in front. Anyway, he canters on the wrong lead going to the right, and when he loses his balance he just falls into pace, because he's five-gaited and he can do that. This is one reason he's going to Summer Camp with a trainer in July and August!).