The Cloths of Heaven

The Cloths of Heaven

I have for some time been trying to buy a saddle for my horse.  It sounds a relatively simple thing, but like trying to find a comfortable pair of shoes (the ladies will relate here) it can prove quite a challenge.  Horses are not fully physically mature until approximately seven or eight years of age so are constantly changing as they grow up.  So one tends to go through a succession of temporary, usually second hand solutions until your horse settles into their adult shape and you can finally reach for the holy grail that is your first ‘real’ saddle.  Something shiny.  Something new.  Something English.

The point is that by the time you are finally ready to hunt down the coveted object, you and your horse have spent a few years together.  You’ve gone through all the baby stages, initial training and teething problems and you’ve started to form some ideas and ambitions for your steed.  So that saddle represents more than just a lump of leather that goes between you and your horse.  It encompasses all your future hopes and dreams and holds the promise of great future show success.

I currently have a rather frustratingly built horse.  It seems that no saddle maker in history has ever come across such a fantastic creature and thus an appropriate saddle is proving difficult to find (if indeed such a thing exists at all !).  While my consumerist heart is annoyed by the lack of available options for my hard-earned cash, there is another part of me that feels my future riding happiness is somehow being held ransom.

Anyway, I’m nothing if not persistent, so am sure I will find a solution eventually.  In the meantime I have satisfied myself with a posh set of bridle numbers and a bling browband instead.  Just to keep me going, you understand…

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Racing Dreams

In the same way that my saddle represents my competitive equestrian ambitions, my silks represent my racing ones.  I grew up on the race course, always hanging over the fence enviously watching the glamorous people in the parade ring and promising myself that one day that would be me.  I wanted to stand under the trees in a pretty frock, looking serious and talking tactics with my trainer and jockey.  I don’t know why – some people want big houses or fast cars – I’ve always wanted a race horse.

So over the years I invested untold hours poring over books, magazines and websites reading up about breeding, foaling, training and racing.  I might not be the next Cindy Crawford, but I tried to design matings so that my horses might be !  I have seen my foals being born and watched them grow up.  I have paid my dues and had some tough times as well – the horsey game is a hard one and things don’t always go according to plan.  I’m a little superstitious about things and tend not to plan too far ahead ‘just in case’, so I left off applying for colours until my trainer indicated that my horse might be worth having a run.

And then I did some more research – into famous horses, famous colours, which combinations are good for evoking a competitive edge, which colours appear to be the most successful.  There is quite a lot of psychology in designing uniforms you know and there is a very good reason that a lot of successful team uniforms happen to be red.  And with racing silks one still has to factor in practical considerations such as visibility and being able to pick your set out of a bunch.  I think it’s fair to say that I tried the patience of the good people at the NHA design department, but we got there in the end.

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The clothes maketh the man

There is a reason we dress nicely for work, or wear our Sunday best to church – all those expressions about the clothes making the man hold true.  What we wear represents our opinion of ourselves as well as our aspirations about who we want to be.  So my colours aren’t simply a tool to pick my horse out of the bunch – they represent my mares, my foals, my family and friends, my trainer and grooms and everyone who has ever shown any interest or had a hand in getting us into the parade ring.  They are also a little bit about that girlhood dream and a symbol of the fact that I have finally achieved it.

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Dirty Laundry

A childhood riding instructor drilled it into me that no matter where I took my horse – be it a graded show or a pony club gymkhana – we were to be plaited up and turned out to perfection at all times as it showed respect to the show organisers and (in a muttered undertone) if we had a shocker on course, we could go home safe in the knowledge that if we failed on the day, at least we’d looked good doing it !

So I laughed and cringed simultaneously at Paul Lafferty’s jibe during a recent interview at the state of a jockey’s silks.  I think there was a mention of irons or lack of them…  It was kind of amusing, but what an advert for the stable to send out on national TV.  And how devastating for the owner !

And I’m not necessarily having a go at the trainer here.  Most trainers I know are meticulous about preparing silks for race meetings, often arriving with the requisite sets carefully arranged on hangers to ensure that they will look good in the post race TV interview (hope springs eternal !).  It therefore shows a distinct lack of respect and professional courtesy when the person in the weighing room simply crumples them into a ball and stuffs them into the nominated jockey’s cap.  No man !  If our owners and trainers are making the effort, it would be nice if the weighing room staff would repay them in kind.

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A Great Escape

Most leisure activities are a bit of a folly or an indulgence.  We go to the movies or racing or play sport for the fact that it gives us a break from our regular day to day existence.  We want to shut off the world and just indulge ourselves in a little escapism from time to time.  And along with that, we want it all to be ‘nice’.  We want to airily point out a beautiful, gleaming steed and be able to say ‘That’s mine’.  We want to glide up into the stands, shout our horse home and celebrate with a good glass of champagne and generally feel good about ourselves for a bit.

So again, I watched in horror as a jockey went on TV recently and was horribly disparaging of the little horse that had just carried him across the line to victory.  While the comments may perhaps have been honest and there is something to be said for managing expectations when it comes to a modest horse, the post race interview is perhaps not the best place to do it.  Considering that the winning jockey is usually interviewed before the owner, I found it an incredibly thoughtless thing to have said about the horse and an exceptionally unkind way to deflate the owner who then had to follow and make his acceptance speech.  As owners, we are all too aware that the odds are against us and usually painfully aware of our horses’ limitations.  That’s why it’s so much fun when we do get a win and victory is even sweeter when it comes on the back of a modest horse.  I just keep thinking of that poor owner sitting at home watching his race replay and having that eternal reminder that his horse is a cockroach.

So I guess my thought for today is to be a little more gentle with each other.  We’re all in the game for a bit of fun, a bit of escapism and the chance to dream.  Willliam Butler Yeats once wrote