Thor & Horses on October 14, 2010

Just so everyone knows, 14 is my lucky number. I decided that 14 was my lucky number when I won two cakes during two separate cake walks at South School during a fundraiser when I was a kid. It's hung around ever since.

Today, Thursday, October 14, 2010, Thor Hushovd finished 14th at the Giro del Piemonte. In his second to last race of the season, he donned the World Champion's Rainbow Jersey and rode a respectable race. It's looking good.

In two days, on Saturday, October 16th, Thor will race in the Giro di Lombardia. Maybe Universal Sports will show it somewhere down the road. In any case, I'll be waiting to see how he does in his last race as a Cervelo Test Team rider.

Cervelo Test Team is no more. They sure did well in my book. I'm sorry to see them go. Kudos to everyone at Cervelo for two amazing years of racing.

Today, I also went to the Hippotherapy facility and started my duties as a volunteer. I'm too happy and stinky for words.

I got to meet Harley, Poco, Calvin, Big Red, Scatman, Ice, Tia, Elsie, and Rover along with Jill, Judy, Elaine, Sandy, Carrie, and Kristi. Pretty awesome. I got a refresher course in grooming from Sandy and Elaine. I ended up grooming Harley, Poco and Tia. Do you know how happy I am?! I hung out at the stables for about four hours. I'll have to say that they are the sweetest smelling stables that I've ever been in. The horsey smell that I was looking for only appeared every once and a while; mostly when I was cleaning hooves and had my nose down in the "lower regions" of horsedom. MMmmmmm. Silly, I know.

There I was with my nose about a foot away from a pile of horse poop, cleaning Harley's hoof, thinking about how great it all was. Harley was the first horse that I groomed. He was pretty good about having a "newbie" handle him.

I used to groom horses when I was a kid, but well, it's been so long ago that I'd completely forgotten the whole process. I'm happy to report that after grooming Harley, I moved on to Poco. Poco is a sweetheart. He really boosted my confidence. From there, helped got get Elsie and Tia from the corral. Then I learned how the horses are put to bed and took care of Ice and Big Red. Basically, all I had to do was give their hooves a bit of a cleaning and take off their halters. From there, I went on to groom Tia. I think she'd already been groomed, but practice makes perfect. Besides, Kristi told me that since she's retired, she can sort of get forgotten about. It was good to just hang with her.

Just like people, each horse has their own personality and quirks. I could go on and on, but there will be other days to write about because I'm going back tomorrow and many more days to come.

I will say that Calvin is a striking white/rust paint horse with beautiful blue eyes. He's really commanding even though he's a bit on the smaller side. He's a rescue horse. He was one of about twenty horses that were left out all winter without any food by their previous owner. Not all of the horses made it. Calvin did, though. Thing is, he doesn't like people in his stall especially when he's eating. I can understand.

I'm not ready to handle Calvin, yet. Someday I'll be ready, but first, I'm going to have to tackle Elsie because she hates to be groomed and puts up fits; Big Red is a real jerk when it comes to cleaning his hooves, too.

Tomorrow I'll learn the skills for working with the riders who come in for therapy sessions. I'll also help Kristi take the horses out to graze. If I never get to ride, it's fine by me.

Think of something you love doing and are perfectly comfortable doing. Feel how relaxed and happy you are. I had four hours of that today. Four whole hours. Wow.

OK, off to watch "Perry Mason." Kudos to Thor, again! Kudos to me, again! :D Let's hear it for Horses and the People Who Love Them!