Musical Hooves

Jill had looked up the calorie burning stats, because when she went from riding 6 hours 6 days a week with the Eventing Team to feeding and mucking out 3 hours each weekday morning at the Standardbred Breeding Farm, she started dropping weight like crazy.  She had enjoyed being thinner and stronger than ever before in her life!  


Now, she wasn't riding regularly or working on a farm, not even teaching, and she missed it terribly.  She had never known before how much manual labour and physical work agreed with her!  She loved the outdoors and she sure missed having a herd of animal friends.


Before he disappeared, he had said, "Maybe circumstances will change so I can come around more often." And, that he'd always been fascinated by horses.  She had a hard time answering him about  what it is she does with them...  "Mostly, nowadays, I am an enthusiast I guess.  Because I'm not riding or teaching or even doing any equine journalism, but, I think I am most gifted as a trainer." 


Most gifted?  Her own arrogant honesty surprised her, but it was true she had had countless horse owners over the years acknowledge their horse's development and increased happiness as a tribute to her consistent kindness and attention. She was trying to be accurate and succinct, and didn't want to downplay her own competence. "I have amazing aspirations though.  Have you seen Cavalia?"  He shook his head.  "It's a theatrical, magical, musical display of horsemanship.  I think some horses might LIKE music as much as we do."


From the way he sang, she didn't know he would speak a bit like a scientist, "Select birds and primates appear to have an appreciation for music.  Most animals have no perception of rhythm, harmony or melody. Gibbon apes engage in musical behaviour. Male and female couples sing long coordinated duets that can be heard over a kilometer away.  It stregnthens their bond, claims territory and scares off predators."  Did she swoon before she fled? She hadn't known she wouldn't see him again.
*
Until the fortune teller had said it to her, Jill had never noticed it about herself.  "Animals stick to you like glue!"

Dogs walking by other pedestrians on the street would sniff her hand and ask for a pat.  Dogs tied across the street would bark at her. "Sometimes when I'm walking to work cats leap out of the trees at me" Jill would joke about it now, but it WAS that obvious. Horses, dogs, cats.  Whenever her roommate's hamster escaped it made its way to Jill's bed.  AAAAAAAAAACK EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEk  etc.
Why do I have to be dr. doolittle? Jill made her rommie's laugh.
*

Jill's mom sounded so entranced, "Those horses were DANCING" as her dad was telling her about the World Equestrian Games they'd been watching on tv for three consecutive weekends... Jill didn't have cable let alone specialty channels, and was glad for the play by plays.   And to see her Dad enthused about something.  Jill didn't often feel like she had much in common with her family, and sometimes it was a strain to be around them, because of the way she couldn't talk about what was happening in her life and who she really was.

This day though, Jill told them about her dream to invent a musical ride for the Nutcracker Suite, and that they should hope to come every year at Christmas to watch the Jill Wentworth show... What a thrill to notice that it didn't seem like they'd mind!
*

"Who needs a drummer when you have a horse!?" Jill exclaimed to her lunch buddy, after telling her how fun it was to mute the voice over on the dressage video she'd started watching again, and play her guitar to the beat of the horses legs. "The trot work was great with the chords I'm practicing lately. The video horse and rider team would leg yeild in to one chord and then straighten to another one and then I'd come up with one more to change to as they leg yeilded back to the wall... On the video the movement had a specific name, about a square. But we know it just as one of the warm up exercises Jo makes you do in the freezing cold winter arena cold."
*
"Have you heard of a kur? It is a series of advanced dressage moves set to music. The horses seem to prefer classical music (or, is it just instrumental music?) and they learn to associate certain movements with certain orchestrael sounds or whatever. THE HORSES SEEM TO LIKE MUSIC. And it is beautiful... The first time I watched one, I was recording it, and attempting a commentary as tears streamed down my cheeks. Did you know that ponies recognize patterns FASTER than humans?"

Jill bubbled enthusiasm accidentally and was amazed that the rockstar and his wife would join her at the top level equestrian competition. She'd simply described her love of the musical freestyle and they'd decided (to her surprise) to come and check one out?  What an amazing night out!

After the first round, Jill commented, "The music didn't match the horse's rhythm enough."

After the second rider's freestyle, she said "Okay, that one the horse's movements matched the music. But, the music didn't match itself enough. Do you know what I mean?" She'd found the musical segments spliced together too arbitrarily, a forced instead of beautiful musical compilation...

During the third rider's dressage test, into the perfect audience rapture silence, her rockstar buddy asked "but, you want LIVE musicians for your freestyle." (?)

Was he reading her mind, or had she mentioned that?  What could she do but shrug and nod.  You should be able to charge admission for a show like that right?