Colonizing Mars is doomed to failure

    I understand the passion.

    There is a lot of talk and fanciful artwork of a future colony on Mars. I'm not certain who is doing it, but there's even recruitment going on. A venture group (no kidding) is semi-seriously saying that an expedition to Mars will be leaving around 2030. I think. They've already told the people signing up that it's a way one ticket, folks. No returning to the Earth.

    I understand the passion. Having read tons of science fiction as a kid, having grown up with Star Trek, Star Wars,  moon shots and the Space Shuttles and the so called "International Space Station" (an orbital platform built and paid for by the taxpayers of the United States, and now given over almost wholly to Russian squatters.), I do understand the desire. Steven Hawkings is correct, we must head into space. We are destroying our home planet so quickly that I wonder if in one hundred years, there will be any civilization left. 

  But hard nosed reality intervenes.

    The only space travel that we know is the stuff invented in our minds, i.e. "Star Trek", "Star Wars", thousands of science fiction stories/books/movies. As with anything that comes out of Hollywood, much is left to the imagination.

    What none of these forms of entertainment cover is the nuts and bolts of survival. Such items (not inclusive) being oxygen, protection from temperature extremes, food, water,  and the capacity for and management of biological processes such as eating, excretion, drinking, reproduction, etc. None cover such things as logistics, meaning: building materials, fuel, machinery, tools, power generation, transportation, communication. None of them address the idea that a colonist needs to take a hell of a lot of stuff with him.

    It's already been proven that humans do not tolerate zero gravity very well. Our bones dissolve. Exposure to cosmic radiation (inevitable once you've left the atmosphere) is a dandy  way to develop cancers.  Even our eyeballs change shape in space, and STAY changed, even upon return to Earth.

    Mars is a long way away. Let's say we figure out a way to really put some speed on the trip, and plan for arrival at the Red Planet when it's at it's closest to the Earth.

   So let's say that takes, oh, eight months. That's still a long time to be cooped up in a space ship.

   The space ship itself is going to have to be huge. It takes a lot of gear to make a colony.
Right off the bat, the ship is going to have to make a successful landing. Only 40% of the Mars missions have had successful landings. It's just asking a lot of a ship to go from over 10K mph to zero without braking and a lot of luck. 

   They're going to have to be able to grow food in space. They're going to have to be able to grow food on Mars.  Right now, the only way they can figure out how to grow food in space is hydroponics. This is a system whereby a plant is kept under artificial light and all its nutrients are provided via nutrient saturated water bathing the roots. 

    How in the hell are they going to carry that much water? There is no water on Mars that isn't frozen or buried. 

  Let's not forget that the average daily temperature on Mars is probably -50 F. Mars year is far longer than Earth's. The sun is much farther away, and doesn't provide the same amount of sunlight needed for photosynthesis. 

  Plants-the types we eat, not stuff like seaweed-don't like being grown in water.. Plants like dirty toes. They can't grow in pure sand. They need organic chemicals/substances such as calcium, phosphorus, potassium. These chemicals don't recycle. We have no way of separating chemicals into their individual states from recycled (reverse osmosis) water. 
They need microrhyzzae, they need humus, they need the stability that soil gives them. They also need gravity.
 Mars is smaller than Earth and has a lower gravity.  Plants don't like low gravity. They like to know which way is up.

    By the way, you'd better understand that you are going to be vegan by necessity. Beef cattle and chickens don't do space travel. They need an entirely different sort of food. Cattle and chickens cannot survive on the space food we can. Cattle need hay. Chickens need insects (yes, chickens need protein to gain weight and lay eggs. The 'vegetarian diets' the industrialized chickens are fed are NOT normal.)
  Both need room to move around. They don't do -50 degrees F at all well. Chickens (Iike the vast majority of birds) aren't grain eaters.  And let's say you do carry grain for chickens. What happens when you run out? You can't grow grain crops in hydroponics. 

   I forgot fish. Fish live in water, true, but it needs to be good quality water. If you've ever kept an aquarium, you know how quickly a small, enclosed environment like an aquarium can turn into a cesspool. There aren't many fish that can tolerate farming. Farming fish, by the way, takes huge tanks, absolutely needing oxygenating, water circulation and clean water. 

    Problems arise for vegans. I don't care what they say, humans are omnivores. They need to eat some form of meat. Meat provides certain nutrients that plants just don't. Protein is only one of them. Yes, I hear you, 'beans' provide protein. But plant based protein doesn't build muscle. It doesn't provide phosphorus or calcium.

   Water will need to be recycled. All of it, to include the stuff that you excrete. While you can run it past the plant's roots, still, you are going to have to purify it by running it through a reverse osmosis process. Ideally, it means you recover all the water you put in. 

  But not really. You lose water in more ways than just excretion. You respire it. You sweat. Your cells incorporate it and don't let it go. Slowly but surely, the amount of water available for recycling and reuse will drop. With every reverse osmosis cycle, you lose something-and gain something.
     For instance, let us say you have 10 grams of potassium in the downstream water cycle from the plants. You run the water through the RO, and end up with pure water. The potassium can't be replaced, not when you're millions of miles from Earth. It can't be reconstituted into its pure form. It is intermingled with the waste water from the RO process. It accumulates. You get more and more waste and less and less pure water. 

   Can you farm on Mars? I doubt it. I don't think there is soil on Mars.What you see in the pictures is not "soil'. It's sand. Sand is decomposed rock, mostly quartz. There might be basalt, sandstone, in it, but it's still ROCK, and rock isn't soil. Soil is that rich, humusy stuff you grow plants in. It's mostly organic chemicals such as the aforementioned stuff like calcium and phosphorus. Soil is mostly stuff, minerals, material such as bits of rotted leaves, decomposed cellulose, mushroom spores, bits of bark, needles, animal crap, frass, and critters-worms, pillbugs, sowbugs, symphlans, all sorts of bacteria, viruses, and higher creatures that create an ecosystem.

   That's not Mars. Mars may have had life, but it was a billion years ago, and there is nothing there to make the substrate suitable for growing anything. 

    There's very little oxygen on Mars. The atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, which plants use to photosynthesize.  However, when it's -50 below and the sun is much further away than we're used to, not much photosynthesis is going to take place. Those photos we see of Mar's surface has been enhanced for our vision. It's not really that bright.

   So let's say you still manage to make it to Mars. One thing the story and history books never mention is that, in every colonization effort on Earth, there were things immediately available (and the colonizers knew how to utilize them) in order to make a go of it. One could find trees, to cut down and build a shelter with, to provide light, to provide a fire to cook food over. There was soil in which to grow things in. There was water in some form, be it rainfall, or pools, or even ice, to provide drinking and washing water. One didn't have to worry about gravity. One didn't have to worry about sunlight and air to breathe. It was and is just THERE. 

  Not on Mars. There is NOTHING but sand and rock. Perhaps we can mine ores with which to create metal. But that needs a logistical base. That means needing machines to do the digging, machines to do the crushing and separation, machines to do the smelting and forming. What are you going to use for power? Oh, you need fuel for all that. Machines usually use gasoline, diesel, or electricity to work. Oh, and oxygen, for the first two. Solar power is going to be fairly weak on Mars, due to the year long winters.

   The only way you're going to provide that much power is nuclear. Nuclear power plants, even small ones, take a hell of a lot of shielding and they need water to cool the fuel rods. It becomes highly radioactive and the rods are eventually consumed. How are you going to transport a nuclear power plant? How are you going to set it up and running when you need power to get it set up and running? Generators won't work without oxygen. 

   Shall I mention that everything, EVERYTHING-every machine, every process, every shelter/suit/ship needs to work right, the first time, every time. A shelter on Mars needs to be absolutely sealed from the outside, because it's cold. It's airless. It's lower gravity.
Every process needs to work right every time. You can't have a glitch in the computer program that forgets to keep the water pump, the reverse osmosis units,  or the heat, or the electricity. 


   Let us also understand that re-supply is going to take a very long time. That's another thing they've not mentioned...that even though they say it's going to be a one way trip for the colonists, that doesn't mean they're not going to be independent of Earth. Far from it. Parts break. Pieces get lost. Moving parts wear out. Plants die no matter how tenderly you treat them.  There's no home depot to go to when the furnace breaks down. 

   The environment of Mars is tough on the machines on the surface. Howling wind storms cover the planet, kicking up huge clouds of dust that last for MONTHS. You are wasting your time going out and dusting the solar panels off, because the sun isn't making it through the clouds anyway. 

  Don't forget, we're still humans. You won't be going outside in jeans and a T-shirt. Every single time you will need to be in a pressure suit, one that no matter how well engineered, has a finite capacity of oxygen. If it develops a leak, or you fall down and puncture it...bad news for you. 
  We still need a certain gravity. We still need sunshine. We still break bones, get abscessed teeth, have babies, get cancer, go insane. You're going to need one hell of a big hospital. While there aren't diseases to catch on Mars, we still carry them inside us. Do we have any idea what cosmic radiation and the differences of a Mars environment does to the bacteria we all carry?

   The size of the  ship is going to have to be enormous, just to carry the barest of colony gear. Do we land it on the surface? If not, the colonists will need shuttles to an orbiting 'mother ship'. We currently don't even have that here on Earth. We still boost everything we've put in space by using rockets. The technology for a space craft that go up and down like a jet power does not exist yet.  Shuttles need a hell of a lot of power to escape gravity, even the lower gravity of Mars.  They need to be piloted, either computerize or human, and they can break up or break down. 

      The problem is this. Any restoration ecologist, such as myself, will tell you that you don't restore an environment, you don't restore a blasted piece of real estate, by planting redwood trees.
  You have to start with grass. You have to start with small plants that don't need a lot of help in surviving. You don't use something that takes fifteen years to begin reproducing. You need plants that can be planted in May and be producing by August, that don't need pollination by wind (too cold out there) or animals (bees or butterflies). Let's not forget that the plants need to be edible. Scotch broom might just be able to survive Mars...it certainly can survive anything WE do to it...but it's completely inedible.

   Even our own planet, this lovely cradle, was a hostile, poisonous one for billions of years. It took cyanobacteria billions of years to replace the original atmosphere with the one that we breathe now. 

   We aren't cyanobacteria.  Even that colonizer can't survive on Mars-it needs water. More precisely, plants-and humans, need rain. They need water circulating in an atmosphere. 
Mars has neither. 

     Mars, also, has no magnetic field. The magnetic field that surrounds our planet protects it from cosmic radiation. A compass won't work on Mars.

    We  are proposing to put humans up there and making a going concern of it, making it a permanent habitation for humans.
   But that's crazy. We take twenty years to reproduce. Beneficial mutations are few and far between. We need so many things that Mars just cannot provide. We're going into this eyes tightly shut and with our hands tied behind our back. I honestly think the reason the understanding that you're not going to be able to come back to Earth is not just because the changes to the human body will be irreversible. I think it's because the colonists are going to die, in many different gruesome and painful ways. The 'you're not coming back' is probably as much a liability disclaimer as it is a pragmatic, blunt statement. 

   After spending months in weightlessness, the colonists will be weak as kittens. Despite the fact that the gravity will be less on Mars, still, they're going to have to hit the ground running, and that's not going to be easy. 

    I am not even going to go into the capacity we have for killing each other. I've seen what war does to our thin veneer of civilization. It strips it away. People go mad in situations not unlike the colonization. People kill each other after months of putting up with the shithead actions of another. People kill each other when the last mouthful of food isn't enough for two or more.People even eat people when there is absolutely nothing else to eat.
  
   The problem, though, is: even though we are upright, bipedal, incredibly advance creatures, we are still, really, fish out of water. 70% of our body is water. Like our plants, we need water in many different forms.  We, along with every other living thing on earth, evolved with the need for water in some shape. Even desert creatures and plants need water.

   Mars doesn't have it, in any form that we can use. Mars is a cold, low gravity, no atmospheric, cosmic ray bathed rock. 

   Back in early 1990, an experiment called "Biosphere ll" was attempted. A giant glass greenhouse set in the Arizona desert, it was supposed to be a closed ecosystem, depending on plants to exchange CO2 for 02 and grown in soil brought in for the purpose. Several mini biomes: an 'ocean' with a coral reef, a rain forest, a savannah, etc. Birds and insect pollinators were included, as well as animals such as goats, chicken and I believe, pigs. It was staffed by (I think) 8 'colonists' who knew they would not be allowed to leave for the two years of the study.

  It was a disaster. The first year the 'colonists' were perpetually hungry. Condensation turned the rain forest into a swamp and the savannah into a marsh.  Water that was supposed to be circulating amongst the biomes become so heavily clogged with algae it stopped filtration systems. Most of the birds and beneficial insects brought in died, leaving: ants and cockroaches. 

   Most alarmingly, no matter how they managed it, the oxygen levels dropped steadily and relentlessly. Something odd happened: oxygen levels dropped, and so did CO2 (carbon dioxide). This isn't how its supposed to work. It was found much later, that the CO2 was interacting with the cement blocks making up the base of the building and sequestering both oxygen and carbon dioxide in the form of calcium carbonate.  

     When oxygen levels dropped to 14% (as opposed to normal levels of 21% in the air we breathe), one of the colonists took drastic and "illegal' (and yet life saving) action:  They opened the doors to the building to allow fresh air into the biosphere. This alleviated the oxygen depletion problem, but it was still cheating.

   The end came when the colonists were told to leave because the sponsors of the venture got tired or started fighting, I'm not sure which. However, the colonists themselves were fighting, too.

   On Mars, there won't be an atmosphere outside just there for the breathing. Or just about anything else that humans need to live. 


  I understand the drive, the passion. I understand that we are where we are today because of the seemingly unquenchable drive we have to see what's over the horizon, to "boldly go where no man has gone before". 


   I just don't think we can do it, though. I don't think we can do it.


   

   

Think horses can't?

My most recent post...'Do horses like us?" said that horses have a sense of humor.

Mine certainly did. Jordan thought it the funniest thing in the world to give me a shove when I was bent over, scrubbing out his water trough. An equine pool pest, he was...

But the other day while wasting a lot of time on the Cheezeburger website..yes, that one, with all the funny cat videos...I found this:

Both pictures clipped from I can has Cheezeburger website, "Animal capshunz" (sic)

 The mare was getting even for having her mane braided!!

Now you tell me that horses can't : think, plan in advance, and find novel ways of getting revenge!!

Think horses can't?

Do horses like us?

    In my wanderings around the internet, I found this website called the Country Squire Magazine. A British publication, it focuses on the British countryside.

   Deborah Jane Nicholas, apparently a frequent columnist, has had several articles published, some of which I read, but this one I found rather unusual, if not depressing. 

https://countrysquire.co.uk/2018/09/01/horses-dont-really-like-us/

Clipped from the 1 Sep 18 issue of Country Squire Magazine, author deborah jane nicholas

    Nicholas says, in essence, that horses do what we tell them to do. Period.  She sniffs at the idea that horses willingly do the strange things we ask of them. She says that horses don’t like us. 

    I’m really surprised at the tone in her post, and wonder what sort of relationship she has with horses.

    Mind you, she brings up good points. We ALL have met horses who don’t want to do what we ask of them. Much of that comes from prior handling, I agree, but I’m also convinced that in many cases, that’s just what the horse IS. You see it in ads on the internet: “more whoa than go.” Just like people, there are jocks, like Raven, and there are couch potatoes, like my first horse, McDuff. 

  Her point is that many times, the rider or owner fails to take into account the horse’s reactions to what we ask of them. For instance, she has a video of what can only be called a moron. The moron-probably inspired by some Hollywood movie, runs at the back end of a horse, attempting to mount it with a leap from the back. The horse, being a sensible beast, sees this human running at him from behind-just like a predator would-and simultaneously bucks the idiot off and gives a him a good kick in the chest.  The idiot had it coming, as far as I’m concerned.

   But then she shows a photo of a very nice dressage horse with its ears pinned. She implies that the horse is merely obeying, that he really does not want to be doing dressage.

   That may be true in this specific case, but how, then, can she explain Fuego de Cernada, aka Fuego XII, a PRE stallion I’ve written of in the past. Fuego’s 2010 WEG freestyle dressage performance could only have come from the stallion himself. I have never seen an animal produce such an emotionally charged performance in my life. You could see it: Fuego was doing it all on his own. He added so many flourishes, so much emotion into his performance that he was, counter intuitively, scored low. We in the audience boo’ed the judges scores. We saw a horse that adored dressage, adored the adulation, soaked up the cheers and pretty much, thoroughly enjoyed showing off. It was, after all, freestyle.

   How does she explain Beezie Madden’s fall from Authentic in the stadium jumping competition of the 2007 World Cup? The gelding continued jumping the course, all by himself. 

    While I’ve never watched the Grand National, (a steeplechase for my American readers) , I know that often, a horse will lose its rider and continue jumping the course. 

    I’ve certainly seen racehorses continue the race after losing their jockey. They win...and are elated! The horse doesn’t understand ‘disqualified’. He just knows he won!

    How does she explain Charlie, an OTTB in our barn who, if you put him in the round pen, will lunge himself. You needn’t be inside the ring. You don’t even have to pop a whip to get him going. He works himself. When he considers himself done, he calls to a human to come get him.

  How can any of these actions be called ‘forced”???

   The author also mentions that she has yet to find a photo of a pony with its child owner that looks happy.

   I can understand that. Children don’t usually have the experience of good hands and a good seat. Children don’t think of a pony as being an animal. The pony is another child. They treat it as a playmate. An adult who gives a child a pony must also teach the child that the pony isn’t a toy, it is another living, feeling being, to be treated with respect, kindness and patience. Note: the pony feels no such restrictions, by the way.

    The author goes on to say that horses don’t like us. They don’t hate us, but they’d much rather just be let alone.

    I’m not too sorry to say, that in my opinion, and experience, she’s wrong. Or perhaps she’s confusing cows with horses. I have no experience with cows, but I’m certain there are folks out there who will tell me their cow likes to be petted, sat upon, maybe even asked for a piaffe. I’ve seen pictures of people riding cattle, although it can’t be very comfortable.  Cows don’t seem to have much in the way of personalities. But that may be because we don’t normally think of a cow as being a pet, like a horse. To be brutally honest, cows are..well, creatures that we not only use their milk, but..we eat them. We don’t eat horses. They’re too much like family. 

    Horses have personalities. They have opinions, feelings, a sense of humor. They have favorite people, other animals, other horses. They can differentiate between intentionally inflicted pain from the accidental. I’ve apologized to my horses when I’ve done something hurtful and they certainly seem to understand. Or perhaps I’m so tuned to the equine persona that I can see personalities where Nicholas cannot.  

    Nicholas states that the only reason a horse comes to you in the pasture is because it hopes you have food.

    Isn’t that a thing all in and of itself? Isn’t 'hope'  something a thinking, emotional being does?  Cows don’t come up to you hoping for a carrot. They just look at you. The horse, at least, has learned that you come bearing gifts.

   But what if...as in the case of Raven...you don’t have a treat? What is it, then, that makes him nicker a hello and come up to me when I enter the paddock with a halter? The halter means ‘we are going to do something’. What it might be, he doesn’t know, but it’s probably ‘being ridden’. A horse that didn’t want to be ridden would run away from me. A horse that didn’t know me would just stare at me from the far end of the paddock.

   Even the oldest horse can outrun us any day of the week. Why does this horse...and virtually every other horse I’ve ever owned or leased, or even just made friends with..come to me when I clearly have something in mind for it?

   Is it “like”???

    How does the author explain the gauntlet I must run every time I go to retrieve Raven from his paddock...that being Laddie, the gigantic eventing OTTB. I must go through his paddock in order to get to Raven’s.

    I’ve never petted him, handled him, and certainly never given him treats.  Still, Laddie is right there at my elbow as I pass through his paddock. I have to shoo him away. He WANTS pets, he wants to interact. The look in his eye as Raven and I walk past him can only be described as envy.  He wants to work. His owner studiously avoids him, so is it loneliness? He has horses all around him. Has this horse, a racehorse/eventer who has spent his entire life working with people want to?

      How does she explain the Arabian stallion I massaged the day before a 100 mile endurance ride? His owner told me, I have to ride the hell out of this stallion or he’ll ride the hell out of me. The next day, I was working with my vet as a scribe when the stallion came in, lame, at the first 25 mile vet check. He’d been quicked three days earlier when he was re-shod. Despite being lame, the stallion did NOT want to quit. No, no, no, he insisted, get aboard Dad and let’s GO. He refused to get on the horse ambulance, he wanted to GO. He said so plainly, I can do this. I can. I want to. 

        We’ve all seen horses express refusal to do something: bore out at the track, refuse a jump, buck off a person they don’t want to carry. 

    These are actions of thinking, aware creatures, not slaves. I feel very sorry for Nicholas.  She sounds as if she read Descartes and believes what he said: that animals are merely animated machines, incapable of love, friendship, even, believe it or not, pain. 

    This isn’t to say that horses are incapable of disliking people. Rebel, a PRE cross in our old barn, definitely disliked people. He’d never been hurt or abused while in that barn but he was dangerous and ultimately put his owner in the hospital. 

   I owned (well, he was the ex husband’s horse) an Appy/TB cross gelding, Smoke, who also disliked..one could even say hated..humans. We'd never hurt him, but at some time in his past, he had been mistreated, and from then on, he then hated every human. He definitely tried his best to hurt US. He was truly an evil-minded horse who had vices the likes of which I’d never seen before and hope to never see again. 

   Both those horses could have been poster children for the author’s post.

    But those horses were few and far between the hundreds of horses I’ve known. Yes, I’m going to break the rules and be anthropomorphic. Horses are incredibly good judges of humans. Like humans, they are self-aware. They have opinions, can hold grudges, fall in love, be mischievous, curious, easily frightened or brave as lions, be lazy or workmanlike, have hobbies, keep pets, everything that enables a creature to be an emotional one. Now that we know that dogs can be autistic, I bet horses can even be mentally ill, just like humans. 

   I wish I could remember where I read it, but one man wrote that horses invited us into THEIR world, not the opposite. We become members of THEIR herd.

    I don’t know how many horses she’s met that demonstrate hatred or dislike of humans..but I wonder if it’s the HORSE that is the problem.  

     I have a feeling it’s the author, not the horse.

Do horses like us? 

Just a picture of my best boyfriend

We had a professional photographer come out to the barn. He spent all day there, taking photos of everyone's horses. He wasn't cheap..oh, my, no, but he got some incredible shots.
Here's one of Raven, who seemed to enjoy the entire process:

Look at that balanced trot!!

Dare we hope that the FEI has come to its senses?

Perhaps the FEI has gotten a fad out of it's system.

     That fad being the huge trot (but forelegs only), as seen in the performance in the 2010 WEG by Moorlands Totillas.

2010 World Equstrian Games, Moorland Totilas and Edward Gal

    I didn’t get to watch anything more of the 2018 World Equestrian Games than the team dressage and the Grand Prix. 

    The sponsor of the Games didn’t quite come out and say it, but many of the events were rained out, and I do mean RAIN. Hurricane Florence, while having been downgraded to a tropical storm, brought FEET of rain to all of North Carolina. Entire towns were flooded. 

    Having witnessed natural disasters before, I often feel it’s rather rude to carry on with something as specious as a horse show when there are people drowning or clinging to their rooftops. 

   But, as is so often the case, when there’s money to be made, the guy whose pockets are the ones filling up say, damn what happens to others, let’s continue. 

    Of course, the televised dressage mentioned none of this. In fact, the skies were , for two days, ominous but dry, save for one poor Dutchman, who was caught in a cowpissing downpour. 

   (an American saying is ‘it rained like a cow pissing on a flat rock”) and only when you see that actually happen do you get the idea. 

    The freestyle dressage was cancelled, the cross country postponed, the endurance race (I can’t call it real endurance) was canceled in the middle of the race, and an endurance horse was put down due to heat stroke (it gets HOT and humid in North Carolina). But I digress.

   There were amazing performances in the individual event. 

    Of course..well, of COURSE, Isabel Werth won it. She’s won it so many times, and in most cases, deservedly so. Sometimes I wonder if it’s given to her because she’s, well, y’know, Isabel.

    In both competitions it was a tight, tight race between the Germans, the Brits, the US and the Swedes. Scores were high and differences between points were razor thin, on the order of .1 or .2. There was tremendous talent out there and fantastic horses.

  

     Which brings me to this post.

     At the 2010 WEG, Moorland Totilas and Edward Gal swept the boards. Totilas apparently blew the judges away with that HUGE trot...his forelegs virtually vertical at the trot. 

     But his hind legs? Wellll, unless a trot has changed since I was a kid learning what a balanced trot was, it wasn’t balanced. With Totilas it was all foreleg, and a bit of hind leg.

     This apparently so wow-ed the judges that, in the last 8 years, it seems as if

one’s dressage horse simply could NOT win if he didn’t kick his forelegs out like a can-can dancer. Flashy? Yes. Dressage? No.

     If you read of what happened to Totilas (as he was later re-named) after the Games, he literally burned out. He is no longer competing.  His new owner/rider could not get out of Totilas what Gal had demanded and received. Totilas said in so many words, eff it, I hate this shit, I’m DONE. 

    His refusal to work tells me that all that flash and dazzle was forced.  His huge trot wasn't natural, it was commanded.  Once he had the ability to say 'no', he said No, I mean it. I'm done.

     Remember Fuego XII at the 2010 Games? (now named Fuego de Cardenas). Fuego was a grey, PRE stallion, ridden by Juan name name name Diaz, representing his Spanish homeland.

    Fuego started dancing the moment he entered the ring. It was noticeable right from go that he was a horse who loved what he was doing. He was a ham, soaking up the cheers and adoration of a crowd that loved him solely because they could see what he was: a gorgeous stallion performing with so much brio and bravado, let's say it: joy.  Did you see that look on his face? The controlled power, the swagger, the machismo oozing from every pore of his snowy skin,  the bounce to his trot? It was added by the HORSE, not asked for by the rider. 

   Horse and Hound Online magazine has a video of Fuego dancing at the 2010 games. If you can watch it without chills going up your spine, maybe...well, maybe that’s just how I felt about what was, to me, an incredible (if not quite technically correct) performance. 

https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/news/european-championships-news-spains-fuego-injured-and-withdrawn-403482

As a complete aside, someone noticed..and wrote about his unusual shoes:

https://hoofcare.blogspot.com/2011/10/dressage-fuego-style-its-whats.html

    When Fuego and his rider got low scores, the crowd BOO-ed. “Official” videos of the event edited the boo’s out, but it’s real. We boo-ed. Dressage people simply do NOT do this. I think we scared the judges. I was ready to put them to the stake. Couldn’t they see that this was a horse who was doing dressage out of love for it? Whereas Totilas was..let’s put it mildly...obeying his rider. 

    In retrospect, I admit that Fuego wasn’t quite as good as the other horses, but still, which would you prefer? A horse doing something out of love for the activity? Or a horse that is doing what he’s told?
If Totila's trot wasn't quite a true trot, then how could the judges not allow the same for Fuego? 

 

Fuego de Cardenas, snipped from Horse and Hound Online Magazine

Edward Gal and Moorland Totilas by DigiShots.

     The reason I bring this up is because at this years’ WEG, I watched Edward Gal ride out on Glock’s Zonic.

  
    A KWPN, Zonic could be Totila’s twin. Gal rode him the same way he rode Totilas in 2010. Zonic’s forelegs were in the next county. It was high school, circus horse stuff. He had the same huge,booming trot in front, with so little action in the hind legs that it was as if they were there solely because FEI regulations demand that a dressage horse must have four (4) legs.

   By all appearances, Gal's plan was to win the same way as he did in 2010. Not with the same horse, but with a look alike and the very same way of riding.

Edward Gal and Glock's Zonic snipped from Pinterest.

    This time, though, the judges saw past the high kicks and scored him low enough to keep him out of the winnings.    


  Perhaps the FEI judges have begun to sober up from their Big Lick of Dressage binge. Throughout the entire test(s), it wasn't the high forelegs that won...it was good riding, harmonious and balanced.  With a few copycat exceptions the top three horses were all ones with a balanced trot, even in back and front. 

     Those horses won because they deserved the win, through excellent horsemanship and proper dressage.

       Grey baroque horses  aren't what the FEI believes to be the "ideal" dressage horse.  Dark bay or black Northern European warmbloods are the 'ideal". We boo-ed the judges decision on placing Fuego's 2010 performance because we saw what was obviously a double standard.

    Fuego's performance might not have been technically correct or 'within regulation'-but neither was Totila's. 

    

Protective vest adds to self confidence

I purchased a Tipperary Eventer protective vest.

Despite my doctor's order to never ride again, I rode Raven today.

Sue had been told by HER doctor, no riding for 6 weeks as she heals from abdominal surgery, so I put myself on the same abstention.
But Friday was her release from durance vile, and today was mine.

Oh, gosh, that ride. 6 weeks was a penance but it's paid now.  He felt fabulous. I felt fabulous. He was his happy normal self and me...in my vest..felt, well...cool.

Real riders wear vests. Ones who board a 17 hand rocket and go belting, full speed, over a cross country course. Real riders race down tracks wearing vests. Heck, even the smart bull riders wear them. It just looks cool.

I felt it wrapped around my ribs and spine like a protective cocoon. An added benefit is that it encourages me to sit up straight.

An even better benefit...Sue took one look and said, I will wear one, too. Mine fits her as well as it fits me. We're the same shape...flat chested and tall and I am so happy that I can at last contribute something to this team of three..Sue, Raven and I..other than grunt work and insuring the horse has a steady supply of carrots and scritches.
So I share my vest with her.

And it's not so bad riding in a saddle.

At the latest Three Day event, I did some shopping at the inevitable vendor's tents. I looked at the inflateable vests and discussed their merits with one of my oldest, dearest friends who's done just about everything one can do on a horse in an english saddle (to include polo...) I was told by both vendor and friend that the inflatable would not protect my hips. Whereas the non -air one seems to at least cover me from neck to tail bone.

Thus I forego the inflateable. 

So I"m back in the saddle, wearing my  too cool vest...looking like I know what I'm doing.

And, with the return of cooler weather, Raven is happy bombing around when he's not carrying one of us.

Raven!!

Why the US shouldn't host the FEI World Equestrian Games ever again.

Why the US shouldn’t host the FEI World Equestrian Games

In 2010, the Kentucky Horse Park was chosen to host the first ever FEI World Equestrian Games in the US. It was a huge landmark event, and American horsemen flocked to it in droves.

It was, to be blunt, excrutiating. Not the horse events, mind you. No, it was the tsunami of relentless, ubiquitous and obnoxious advertising by Alltech.

The fact that this was the FEI’s World Equestrian Games was almost lost in the flood of Alltech advertising. It was, in reality, The Alltech Games.

You could not do a thing without seeing, hearing or having Alltech advertising in your face. A plane circled the Park every single day, all day long, towing a gigantic banner with the words Alltech on it. It was so low that, during the Dressage tests, the audience was silent...but the plane droned and droned and DRONED overhead.

Everything had the Alltech brand on it. Shirts, hats, horse blankets, you name it. They had an entire tent...a gigantic one..filled with nothing but Alltech stuff.

A year before the Games, Alltech put out a request for volunteers to ‘help’. I did, and was accepted as a scribe for MY veterinarian who was going to serve (and paid) to be one of the Endurance ride vet checks. I even got an official Acceptance from Alltech as a scribe. I was assured I’d have a place to stay during my work as a scribe, and that they’d contact me ‘soon’ with more details.  

But months went by, without another word from Alltech. I emailed, I called (and got a ‘this number has been disconnected” ) without any luck. One month beforehand, I, using a phone number my vet had, managed to contact someone at Alltech regarding my acceptance email. First, she snapped, "how did you get this number." When I told her I was going to be working with my veterinarian,  she was very pissed, and proceeded to tell me that there was ‘no record’ of my being accepted as a scribing volunteer. Somehow, my acceptance letter had disappeared into the internet black hole.

Wisely, I’d made other arrangements..to go as a spectator, not as a volunteer. I went with 7 other women. We got our tickets, rental cars and motel rooms arranged. Had I not done that, I would never have gotten the tix, nor the motel rooms. Those were booked or snapped up within days of the tickets going on sale.

 BUT!

Within days of that call, I received an email from Alltech, saying that I HAD, actually, been accepted as a volunteer, and they really, really wanted my free labor.

But not doing what I wanted to do.

 No, they bamboozled me and many, MANY other horsemen into doing the shitty jobs, the dirty jobs, the Nothing to do with Horses jobs that Alltech didn’t want to pay a company to do.

Tasks like recharging portapotties with toilet paper. Handing out maps. Picking up garbage and trash, bussing tables, standing guard -they had a lot of people doing guard duty-at the entrance to the stadium or the cross country course. Jobs like managing the parking, the bus station, jobs that needed to be done but Alltech didn’t want to pay a company to do it. No, the hoodwinked volunteer did that. I talked to a few of them. They were, by the way, told not to answer questions about Alltech’s bait and switch tactics. Nevertheless, they did. One woman told me “If I’d known I’d be stuck refilling the portapotties with toilet paper I would NEVER have volunteered.”

The volunteer was given an Official Alltech fanny pack with a box lunch (Alltech logo prominently displayed) consisting of a white bread sandwich, an oatmeal cookie, and a bottle of water. For an entire day of work.

If you happened to be actually working in the competition arena, (for instance, showing people where their bleacher seats were), you were allowed in to that venue ONLY. You weren’t allowed to WATCH. Should you want to see anything else in the Games, you had to buy the tickets for it, just like everyone else.

No free parking was given to the volunteer, and despite the original assurances that you’d have a place to stay, no accommodations (i.e. motel room) were provided.

The most onerous of Alltech’s disgusting advertising onslaught was at the main entry gate.

Well, let me back up.

Alltech provided A food court. The tables were few, especially considering that the average daily attendance was in the thousands. The culinary choices were typical horse show food: pop, mystery meat hamburgers and bubble gum pink hot dogs, all horribly over-priced. I purchased a plastic box (with a plastic fork) of wilted lettuce with one half frozen cherry tomato and a slice of soft cucumber, accompanied by a tiny packet of industrial grade raunchy I mean ranch dressing. I think it was supposed to be ranch, anyway. Price: $9.50, tax not included. A bag of M&M’s was $4.50.

Oh, I could have paid $35 to enter the VIP tent where real meals were served...but that was just to enter the tent and sit down, I’m told. But the hours were unrealistic and the food smelled no better outside the tent than in the ‘food court’.

Alltech wasn’t done gouging. If you were wearing a shirt or cap that had the logo of a company NOT Alltech but horse related, you were told to remove it. Even the vendors for things like riding boots and saddles were discouraged from displaying any form of advertising if it didn’t say Alltech.

That still wasn’t good enough for Alltech. They had Gate Nazis. I don’t believe they were volunteers. The Gate Nazis INSPECTED your bags...for food. They didn’t want you bringing in so much as a peanut butter sandwich.  One woman said, “I can’t believe Alltech has this World Class Event and is feeding horse show food.”  

But they were. One of the friends I went with made the mistake of having a bag of potato chips in her bag.

The Gate Nazis took it. They literally confiscated it and did not re-imburse her for it.  I’m surprised they let her in, but she DID have a ticket.

They even gave me a hard time over a Nalgene water bottle I carried in. The gate Nazi asked me what was in the bottle. I said “Water” and looked her dead in the eye, daring her to take it from me. She backed down, but still... it rankled. Yet I sure in hell wouldn’t have wanted to do that job. I am truly astonished that they didn’t frisk us. I think the only reason they didn’t is that it would have held up the lines of people wanting in.

So from then on, we hid our lunches on our person. Before we went through the gate, I carried four Subway sandwiches (only one was mine) underneath my sweatshirt. All of the rest of my friends did the same. Between us, we all managed to carry in chips, sandwiches and snacks, food that was much better and that  we’d bought outside of the park, at much more reasonable prices.

Now fast forward to today, 11 Sep 18. (let me pause here for just a moment. :-( 

The 2018 Games are being held in a little town in North Carolina called Tryon.

The grounds are owned by someone named Bellisimo. He promised great things but in reality, never gave a thought to the support staff of the various countries sending teams.

For instance: this World Class Event, only the second to ever be held in the US, made sure that the riders had motel accommodations. But the grooms?

Well, Bellisimo-if he thought about them at all, decided at the last minute to put the grooms up in TENTS. Big tents, similar to those used by the Army. In the tents are bunk beds.

Snipped from Horse and Hound online magazine, 10 Sep 18

I spent too many years in the Army to say that tents are suitable accommodation. In a war, they’re better than sleeping in the rain, but in a world class athletic event? Nope. Imagine, if you can, the stink that would be raised if someone here in the US said, hey, we’ll host the Olympics and the athletes can sleep in tents!!

Bunk beds are not suitable for grown-ups. These tents, from what I understand, have no air conditioning (a necessity in the Southeast). Bathrooms? Nope. Showers? Nope.No place to store your clothing, your wallet, your passport, nothing. Not a bit of privacy. This  looks like something out of the 1940's open bay Basic Training.

Maybe the grooms can bathe underneath a garden hose?

Nor are tents suitable for the people who traveled half way around the world, to care for the very animals that are the whole reason for the Games: the horses.  Most of the horses are worth thousands of dollars and who, overall, make an awful lot of money for the FEI.

No, the tents were an afterthought. Someone said to Bellisimo, um, where are the grooms going to sleep? And he said, “Grooms? You mean like at a wedding?” That’s about as far as he went, I suppose.

If you’ve have never been to North Carolina, I (having been stationed there for three long, miserable years) can tell you, it’s not a very nice place to live. It is humid...100%, usually, hot, and mosquito filled. The grass is full of chiggers and the trees are full of ticks. The water is horrible tasting. But somehow, the FEI thought this was a suitable place for the Games.

Although I think it may be due to a last minute thing. I believe I heard that Montreal, Canada backed out of hosting the Games at the last second, leaving the FEI scrambling for another venue in which to hold them.

Let’s also consider that at this moment, a Category 5 hurricane, Hurricane Florence, is headed for the North Carolina/South Carolina coast. She is packing winds of 140 mph.

Once she makes landfall, after tearing the coastal cities to shreds, will trek inland and dump FEET of water in torrential downpours.

If the winds don’t tear down the tents, the barns and the grounds, the flooding will. Both states are putting out evacuation orders...and where will those people go? Inland.

Once the hurricane hits, even if the winds don’t hurt the tents, the water will do what it always does: destroy the power lines. Flood roads, bring down hillsides, tear out bridges, strand living things on tiny islands, bring in torrents of filthy water carrying dead animals, floating sewage, wreckage of houses, terrified cats and drowning dogs,   tossing cars atop houses, into people, uprooted trees carried like battering rams...

What happens when the rain drowns the grounds? All the hay, the bedding, the horse trailers, all flooded? The arenas, hock deep in water? No power, no water, no way out? It’s going to be a dreadful mess.

What to do? Honestly, the thing to do is to cancel the games, take the horses farther inland...like to Colorado, evacuate the area and refund the money for the tickets.

That’s the smart thing to do but I admit it’s infeasible and once rich men have money in their wallets, they sure in hell don’t ever give it back.

But also, honestly, the thing to do is, I’m sorry to say, cancel the concept of the Games altogether...or keep it in Europe.

Americans have proven they cannot do it right. First, with Alltechs all consuming advertising, so bad that is was  really the Alltech Games, not the FEI and a coalition of riders from all over the planet, and now, with lousy planning and a refusal to accept that grooms are people, too as a background to the very real possibility of lives being lost in Tryon’s upcoming flooding...no, we just aren’t up to it. There’s just too much fixation on how much money can a few rich men make rather than it hosting a showcase of international horsemanship.