Usually when I get the opportunity
to do something really exciting and special, there’s some kind of back
story. That back story comes up over and
over again when we reminisce about our horse experience, i.e., the clinic where
I misread the directions and went to the organizer’s house in a downtown
Washington DC subdivision instead of the barn, the show where I was 4 hours
from home with 2 horses to show and no girths in my trailer, the dead bird story, well, you get the idea.
These stories also make great
fodder for the blogs.
As I was thinking about this
weekend and organizing the amazing lessons I enjoyed with Debbie McDonald, I
thought I would tell the story of my boot saga, complete with me somehow
agreeing to be part of a fashion show.
Us crazy dressage riders, in
addition to putting ourselves up against the impossible standard of “the
perfect 10,” with the equally impossible standard of trying to not stain really
expensive white pants in a very dirty barn, insist that our very tall boots are
much stiffer than the boots of our other equestrian friends. Much, much
stiffer. Like you can bang on them with your knuckles and they sound wooden
stiff.
The boots are all leather, and
like all good leather shoes, there is a break-in period. The boots are fitted
so that when they are new the leather hits the middle of the knee cap, so that
when the ankle area softens (the only part of the boots that will soften, by
the way) and the boots “fall,” they are still tall enough to come to the back
of your knee. Needless to say, until the ankle softens, walking around,
mounting, and riding is painful, often bloody torture. But once broken in, they
mold to the legs like chocolate on caramel.
So, obviously, we dressage riders
will go to great lengths to avoid breaking in new boots. We will repair,
resole, replace zippers, anything to delay the break-in period. I bought my
show boots 10 years ago, when Silly was 5, after Dressage at Devon. I was SO STUPID EXITED to get to ride at
Dressage at Devon. After 4 years as a
poor, hard-working working student, I was finally getting to ride at A BIG
SHOW.
We arrived the night before, and
my old boots didn’t have zippers. I put them on to ride, and because it was
evening, my legs swelled. I couldn’t get them off. On the advice of Silly’s breeder, I laid on
my back in the barn aisle with my legs in the air to try to get my swollen legs
to un-swell enough to remove my boots.
Yea, this is big time horse showing at its best.
My next pair of tall boots had
zippers. I didn’t want to go to the
expense of full-custom, so my semi-custom options were really tall or just at
the knee cap. I went with the knee cap
size. Once they had broken in, they were a tiny bit on the short side, but not
floodwater geeky-kid short, and they were broke in, so in mind they were
perfect.
As they aged, the ankles got a bit
softer. I replaced the soles. Then I replaced the zippers. Then I did the the
soles again. Then the zippers. A few
years ago I lost a bit of weight, and I needed to have them taken in. My boots came back, well, not my boots. The
widest part of the boot wasn’t really lined up with the widest part of my
leg. But they were still better than
breaking boots in, so I wore them.
The advantage of boots with
zippers is they are much easier to get on and off, but the zippers need regular
repair. Sometimes it’s the zipper that gives out, sometimes it’s the stitching
around the zipper, which lies against the saddle, and therefore is subject to a
lot of friction. Plus leather is
weakened by the stitching holes. So
after much riding and zipper replacement, the time comes when the leather is
just too weakened, and the boots just need to be retired. Since my faithful
boots also had developed holes in each ankles (I was dumping sand out of them
daily), it was time.
So it was time to start the whole
cycle over again. Again I had the choice
of a little too tall or just at the knee, and this time I went with too
tall. But of course that size was on
backorder. No biggie, show season had just ended, I could easily come up with 4 or 5 weeks between October and April to break them in.
Then Secret and I got selected for
the December Debbie McDonald clinic at Hassler Dressage. And I had boots with big holes in the ankles
and zippers that were failing.
I called the store, and they
promised to have them drop-shipped as soon as they could, but no promises as to exactly when I would have them.
As I couldn’t very well ride for
Debbie McDonald in my sneakers, I took my boots to my cobbler yet again. He
said he would patch the holes and replace the zipper, but he wasn’t sure the
stitching would hold.
I picked them up and sure enough,
on ride 2, the leather gave out. Of
course it did.
But good news -- that day the tack store called. My boots were in. They arrived Thanksgiving week, giving me a whole whopping 2
weeks to get them broke in enough to ride effectively in front of 100
auditors.
Did I mention that I ordered the
extra tall boots?
I added heel lifts, and walked
like the Tin Man to the mounting block until my thin
chestnut-mare skin needed a few days off. Linda reminded me of the “sponge
trick,” putting small, round tack sponges at the back of my knees to soften the
stiff top edge of the boot.
This helped a lot, but I really
didn’t want to ride around with yellow discs at the back of my knees in front
of auditors, then Maddy came up with the idea of using the black foam
poll-protectors. Perfect! I was still mounting with something far less than grace, but by the Friday before the clinic, I could bend my knee enough to move my leg back without grimacing.
My Tin Man days were over. Or so I
thought.
As part of this clinic, Hasslers
was having a Christmas Shopping Extravaganza on Saturday night. Susanne Hassler
asked for volunteers to help. I, of course, offered my services, hoping she
needed someone to refill wine glasses. But no, she needed people to
model clothing for one of the venders.
Me, who lives in fear being called by “What Not to
Wear,” modeling clothing? All of us at the barn were quite entertained by the
idea. But the shop owner agreed to let
me wear that brown tail coat I have been drooling over for 2 years, so ok,
fine, I’d do it.
Then she hands me the boots to go
with it. They looked great with the coat – they were tall, chocolate brown, a bit of
bling on the top, and just looked expensive.
And they are really, really, really tall. Like over the top of my knee
tall.
And I am supposed to walk down
stairs in them.
Um, well, ok, I guess.
Just to make matters all the more
comical, the DJ starts playing “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” just as I begin my lurching, rail-clutching descent. It was all too much, I burst out
laughing.
I
did my loopdy-doop around the audience, and then I was supposed to walk back UP
the stairs.
Remember,
I couldn’t bend my knees in these boots.
So
I elegantly, in the most awesome runway-models strut, I crab-hopped sideways up
the steps, hanging onto the banister for dear life.
I
don’t think the runway holds much of a career for me.
The rides? Yep, they were awesome.
I’ll give you the low-down as soon as I get caught up enough watch the DVDs -- we ended up spending another night at Riveredge,
since the snow came early causing traffic mayhem (my students who came to watch
made the 90-minute trip home in a record 5 ½ hours).
More later.
