Blog
August 2008
Political correctness is going to hurt horse breeding in the end
I saw a forum post recently where the poster said something like “I should apologize for stereotyping the entire breed...”
I actually laughed. Good thing I wasn’t at work. But seriously: breeds are stereotypes. That’s the entire point of a breed. It defines what the horses should look like, how they should move, sometimes even what their temperaments should be like. Breed requirements basically say, “When you think of an X horse, you should think of a horse like this.”
Of course every horse is an individual and no horse is going to exactly meet the breed standards, but when people reach a point where they are selling X breed horses and their marketing tactic is “these horses are nothing like what you’d expect of X breed!"… well, then what’s the point of calling them X breed? Similarly, when someone says “X breed typically does not do well in Y discipline,” this is not mean or offensive when X breed’s standards and Y discipline’s standards are complete opposites. Really. It is okay for a breed to be good at one thing and not good at another. It is not slamming a breed to point out they are not built to excel at the highest levels of a particular sport.
Most gypsy vanners will not make great cutting horses. I am not a great, big meanie for saying that. It’s biomechanics. (Someone is going to go out and find a photo of a gypsy vanner cutting to prove me wrong. That’s nice. I’ll be more impressed when you can provide me with as many photos of gypsy vanners cutting as I can provide you with quarter horses cutting. Then we can start talking about breed suitability.)
I think a horse’s breed should tell you something about their conformation, movement, and temperament, and when it doesn’t, the breeder is not doing their job with respect to their breed organization. I am all for looking at the horse in front of you as an individual, and being open to the possibility that the horse in front of you may not exactly match the breed’s standards, but I still would not go buy a draft horse and challenge my Thoroughbred-owning friends to a race. Well, maybe I would; but I wouldn’t whine when I don’t win and then claim it’s because the racing officials are prejudiced against drafts.
(I realize I haven’t really gotten around to the post title, but I do think this insistence on never, ever suggesting X breed may not excel in every discipline it enters is going to hurt breeds, because people will lose track of the long-term goals with respect to the breed as a whole. You’ll end up with… Quarter Horses, as an example. Put a halter-bred QH and an English Pleasure-bred QH in the same ring and explain to me how a single breed is producing two such extreme types. Don’t you sometimes feel like the AQHA has become more of a bloodline-tracking registry than an actual breed with well-defined and adhered-to standards?)
What is it with customer service?
I realize customer service is not easy. You can’t make everyone happy. You can barely make anyone happy.
But what is it lately with the dead silence on the other end of the conversation?
I emailed a rescue a week or so ago. I had reason to believe they were actively looking for help on a task that I could assist with. They had an email address listed on their contact page. Silly me for thinking they check it, I guess, although I know they are active online in various ways, so I know they are technologically inclined.
I could call, I suppose, but I’m not so frantically eager to volunteer with this particular rescue that I feel the need to chase them down in six different contact mediums to be sure they know I’m interested. Ok, that was a little overdramatic, but it’s essentially true.
Somewhat related, I finally figured out the artist of a print I received several years ago as a gift. I love the print and have wondered for a long time if I could get one in a similar style to match, but the artist’s signature is not decipherable. Finally figured it out, and much to my delight found more prints, one or two of which I was seriously considering. I even had a print in my cart and was all set to check out, and then they displayed their shipping prices.
They wanted to charge me nearly $10 to ship a poster. $10! I recently received a poster from elsewhere that cost $3 or so to ship. Poster sites only charge $5, and you know they have profit built in. Good grief. $10 is such blatant price gouging that I lost all interest in buying the print.
And as an update to the advertising posts: I have not heard back from the last company with the post-our-post pitch. My last comments/concerns appear to have disappeared down a great, black hole. Way to reassure a concerned customer that you really do care!
Restless
I’m in the mood to sew again.
Those of you who have been reading for a while know that sometimes my projects turn out nicely and sometimes they turn out very nice indeed, but sometimes I make the Loch Ness Pony.
Anyone want to be a guinea pig? I’m in the mood to make another photo quilt, but I don’t really want one for myself. I just want to make it.
Of course, this means I have to go buy a sewing machine, but hey, I probably should own one of those anyway.
Olympic Eventing: Finals
My boss is awesome and let me take the morning off so I could watch finals. I love my job.
Absolutely amazing weekend for the German team, which took home team and individual gold. All around great riders on the team with lovely horses. Hinrich Romeike did a superb job all the way through and made it look easy.
Australia finished second in the team finals, and Great Britain took third.
The US had some nice rounds, but was too far back to move up at all as a team.
Gina Miles was a superstar—the only US rider with a clean round in the team show jumping, and then she came back for a double clean in the individual. At that point, she was sitting in fourth with the top three individual riders to go.
I wasn’t very optimistic on her medal chances, because the individual course looked pretty straightforward. Lots of room and a very generous time allowed meant that riders could set themselves and their horses up for success. There was no need to cut tight corners or try to catch up time in the longer runs between fences, which meant a pretty even pace all the way through. Early on, it looked like most of the riders were going to go clean.
The closer the order got to the medal contenders, however, the more rails started coming down. Pressure from trying to hold on to whatever spot the had? Mental and physical exhaustion from the weekend catching up with them?
Megan Jones rode after Gina and dropped a rail; Gina was guaranteed bronze. That left German riders Ingrid Klimke and Hinrich Romeike to go, and they each had a rail in the team show jumping round. Ingrid dropped an unfortunate rail in her rounds, putting her in fourth overall and giving Gina the silver and the US its only eventing medal. Hinrich, despite a few rubs, rode a clear round and brought home his double gold.
Great event all around, with courses set up to let the riders show off what they could do without overfacing the competitors.
Now, someone tell the riders that these bug-face looking helmets are absolutely hideous, please. It’s been driving me crazy.
Olympic Eventing: Cross Country
Once again: phenomenal job by NBC and Mircosoft’s Silverlight technology to deliver the live online coverage. I am not a Microsoft fan, but even I can’t quibble with this. The coverage has been absolutely amazing: great quality video, good quality sound, and only a few blips here and there in the video feed.
I know people have had problems with Silverlight, but it’s worked almost flawlessly on my machine. Also, people were complaining about commercials, but I don’t think I had a single commercial interrupt the events all weekend. I expected to see them, especially when others started griping about them, but for some reason I seem to be commercial-free. Sweet.
As far as the eventing itself: some absolutely amazing rides and a few scary rides. There were a couple falls, but everyone (horses and riders) walked away. The course was beautifully designed with some very technical questions in it that really made the difference in ride times. No one made the time allowed, so it sounds like the cross country ride is going to be a huge factor in the final standings. Certainly the rankings changed significantly from what they were after the dressage phase.
The US team is probably disappointed right now. Amy Tryon had a fall and was eliminated, and a couple riders had refusals. They were tenth of eleven teams when Phillip Dutton anchored the team. He did a fantastic job, moving the US up to 7th going into show jumping. However, unless total disaster strikes all the other teams, the US is well out of team medal contention. Gina Miles may be in contention for an individual medal; I don’t know how much standings usually change in the show jumping phase, but she is only six points off the first place rider (Hinrich Romeike for Germany); that’s just two rails and some change, and there will be a second round of show jumping to determine final individual placings. Doesn’t seem like it’s out of the question for her to medal.
Mary King turned in a great anchor ride for Great Britain; it was a lovely, accurately-ridden course. Shane Rose for Australia also performed well in the anchor position, bringing home the fastest time of the day, which must have felt fantastic after his rough dressage test. Germany should be celebrating their four clean rounds, with riders all under eighteen time faults (their fifth rider had 40+ points, but his score is dropped).
Current top three standings are Germany in first (158.10), Australia (162.00), and Great Britain (173.70). Italy is in fourth with 198.40. Like I said, I don’t know how many show jumping faults are typical for an eventer, but I would be very surprised indeed to see the top three change. They might change the order amongst themselves, but I would be surprised to one of them drop off the podium. Unless, of course, something happens tomorrow in the jog and horse(s) are pulled for soundness reasons.
From what I can tell with the time differences, the jog will be Monday evening our time. The actual showjumping phase will be Tuesday morning our time (Monday evening Hong Kong). I would love to be able to watch it (and the first phases of the regular show jumping and dressage) live, but I’m not sure how thrilled my boss will be when I ask him if I can come in at 1 for the rest of the week. I think I’ll be lucky if I can talk him into just one day.
There will still be the archived video on NBC, though, so I’m sure I’ll survive. By the way: I noticed with the eventing dressage video that it takes a day or two for the permanent archive video to show up, so if you check for the cross country video and it’s not there yet, give it some time.