Ode to a Cheffrey

Upon a recent foray into the neighbouring country, what was meant to be yet another life-changing adventure and possibly a week’s worth of stories, turned into a song of sorrow for my poor friend. During a valiant rescue mission to save a friend from the local “po po”, my good friend broke his foot and then (idiotically) walked on it for two days before being able to attend a hospital. Although I admit I hope they put a hot pink cast on, I just know he’d rock it to spite me.

Since his job requires him to be on his feet, it’s come to the conclusion that he might have to take a break in order to recover. This is not only a financial conundrum but my friend happens to lead an energetic and active lifestyle – while somehow being the most laid back person I know.
While working a 12 hour nightshift, I found I couldn’t get it off my mind, worrying about what he was going to do. So I compiled a list of possibilities:
- Join an interpretative-crutch dance group
- Paint waterfront scenery canvases
- Become a crippled buskar and put on entertaining sock puppet shows (crippled buskars make the best money)
- Begin writing a cooking course to teach, for future use
- Join World of Warcraft (oh wait…), or better yet, Dungeons and Dragons
- Hang out at the playground, just to rile up the local parents
- Consider writing a memoir – well maybe write it, instead of consider it
- Sketch caricatures for cash
- Sell the over abundance of “stuff” you have falling out the doors and windows of your apartment
- Become a sex-line operator… or a suicide operator but seriously which one would be more fun
- Gain lots of weight and become morbidly obese – it is considered a disability and you could have your own nurse!
- Win the lottery and get chauffeured around like Driving Miss Daisy
- Teach 4-H, you have enough experience
- Have more Arts and Crafts days with me!
I can’t wait for the day that my friend can look back and laugh, but knowing him that’ll probably be tomorrow. Not being able to imagine what it’s like, I figure I’ll just watch my step, leave my friends to the po po’s and try to cheer up my busted buddy.

How to NOT Sell a Horse

I have a bit of an addiction -aside from sorbet ice cream- and that's watching horse sale videos. To be able to watch dozens of horse videos, one after the other when in the past you had to send away for one and only if you were a 'serious buyer'. If technology has done one thing, it's fuel the horse lovers obsession and enabled us more outlets to watch and learn.

While some videos make us envious and wish we had room for "just one more!" other videos leave us shaking our heads and wondering why someone would take the time to make a video if that was the end product.

Maybe that's a bit harsh but it's like those raggedy, thread-bare sweatpants that you love to wear around the house. You may love them, but you don't admit to owning them, let alone put them on the world wide web.

Here are a few if my latest horse sale video pet peeves:


Wearing shorts in a riding clip - Umm no. This is one of those "sweatpant" examples. You may love to ride in shorts, but never admit to it, let alone use it in your sale vid. No only is it unsafe, it's unprofessional. It says to your potential buyers "This is a backyard pony that I trained myself wearing shorts the entire time. We also wear camoflauge during duck hunting season."

Wearing flip flops/running shoes/barefeet or even better Crocs - Although this is a great way to show how well your horse moves off your leg, this is like wearing a hollowed watermelon as a helmet. My horse is very good about staying out of my space, but I couldn't blame her if she stepped on me while wearing flipflops. That would be her way of telling me I'm an idiot and I'd have to thank her for it. In a training video, it says I couldn't care less about this video so I didnt take the time to put proper shoes on.



Standing on your horse's back - This occurs mostly in horse pictures, not videos. I realize it's supposed to be impressive but my camera takes less than 5 seconds to take a photo. You may be trying to tell me that your horse is bombproof but all that I'm getting from that picture is you were able to stand on your horse 5 seconds before he blew up and threw you off. Congrats though, maybe you should take up bronc riding.




Not grooming the horse first - Really?? Should I even explain this? Let's start at the beginning : you take the time to charge your camera, you make sure it's a sunny day, you get your friend to help you take the video, you sit down and upload it to your computer, you even put some pretty music to your horse flouncing around the ring... and you didn't take the time to get the mud off him? I love ads that say " This is a stunning, fancy red roan" It is? Looks mud-coloured to me. Maybe if I turn my head to the side.... Nope, still brown.

Riding said horse in draw reins and/or other training implements - Your horse may go beautifully in draw reins... but how am I to know that everything won't fall apart the second they're taken off? Doing a sale video with them on says to the buyer "These are a crutch, I don't know how to ride without them and neither does the horse". Another example is "greenbroke 2yr old, easy to train and practically finished." then the poor 2yr old is shown riding in an 8inch shank bit with rockgrinder spurs... in those videos I feel the damage is done and although you could 'undo' it, it's painful to think that the horse would be so much further ahead if it had never been 'trained' that way.

Lunging a weanling or yearling around and around and around - Ouch, ouch, ouch. Jeez, that's great they lunge... but they could have learned that when their knees were properly closed. People forget there are lots of other ways to teach foals the basics without making their growing legs suffer. Not only that but when you see a foal in a sale video, you know it's a foal. You're not expecting to see a video of it winning Congress for HUS. All that is necessary is a vid that shows its movement, it's conformation, the foal interacting with people and maybe some clips of the dam. The best way to do most of that is to get the mare moving and have the foal follow, preferably in a larger field and not a 7 minute clip.

Palestra-Tan-Servizio Lavanderia

THEY'RE BACK and this season looks like it'll take the cake over all others and what's better than guidos and guidettes showing the way they roll? Throwing them in a country that won't understand the way they roll. Hairdryers are blowing up and the girls are straightening their hair in the kitchen which makes me wonder: what will Pauly do without his blow out??

After just one episode, The Sitch is already breaking his rules and stirring the pot and surprise surprise Deena has decided that now Ronnie's single, she's not interested and would rather have Pauly... which she does in the most disgusting face-sucking way.



So now what do we have to look forward to? At least one trip to the exotic Italian cop shop, a few sparring matches and probably one knock-out, three-way kissing (Blech!) and a season full of random pick-ups. Of course, let us all pray that the inevitable doesn't occur and hopefully Sammy and Ronnie can avoid smushing.

This season's tag line will still be G-T-L but with the Italian twist of Gelato-Tiramisu-Linguine. Maybe bad-ass Jenny will gain back some of her tough-girl body on the GTL.