Dempsey at Camden
I jumped a warm-up fence at last weekend’s Camden Hunter Trials on a young horse (whose brakes still need some work), and proceeded to nearly run over some innocent spectators walking back from the cross country course. Those spectators turned out to be Alison and Emma of An Eventful Life and I suddenly felt a bit sheepish – partly because they had witnessed my amateurish jumping display and partly because I was reminded of my unfulfilled promises to write my next blog. In any event, it motivated me to write about some of the going-ons of the past few weeks...
I had a good break over Christmas, both from the horses and from the office! I ran, surfed, made my Dad kick the football with me, went out for far too many breakfasts/lunches/dinners, drank wine and practiced the guitar (I recently decided that it would be cool to be able to play the guitar, so I bought a guitar, found a random, quirky teacher in my area and started having lessons).
Pretending to a jockey for the day had it's benefits
More recently, a group of us went to the races at Wyong – not quite Flemington or Randwick, but still a good day out. I was midway through a glass of champagne when an old bloke with hardly any teeth (fairly normal for Wyong) walked up to me and asked me about my ride on the filly in Race 3. After he repeated the question and was met with my same confused look, he said ‘Oh, you’re not Alison, the jockey?’ Clearly, even in my high heels, I still looked short. Later, at the bar, I ordered a couple of drinks and even the bartender asked me if I was a jockey. I told her I wasn’t, to which she answered, with a wink, ‘oh, that’s a shame – the jockeys get free drinks’. So I took my paid-for drinks over to my friends, went back to the bar and said “Hi, I’m a jockey and I’d like a champagne please”. The rest of my drinks that day were on the house, which I was pretty smug about until I woke up the next morning with a sore head.
E.V Mary Jane - one of the new exciting young horses I am riding this year gets in some show jumping practise at Camden
As much as I enjoy the odd bit of relaxing and doing normal people things, it wasn’t long before I was bored and itching to get busy again particularly as, in addition to Poker Face, I have a couple of exciting young horses coming along. The first is a lovely Copabella Visage mare owned by David and Sylvia Gordon, who is clever, brave and athletic with a great temperament to match. The second is “Dempsey”, a Don Duchovny gelding owned by none other than my mother. Dempsey is also clever and athletic, with the most charming face you’ve ever seen, but he’s a little monster. As far as Mum is concerned though, Dempsey can do no wrong. When he bucked me off a week ago, I rang Mum to tell her what had happened. Mum’s response was “Oh no, poor Dempsey”. Poor Dempsey? I still have bruises...
Poker Face (aka Harley) is going great. It seems like a very short time ago that he was the baby on the truck, and now he’s the bigwig. Harley is looking forward to having his first 3-star start sometime in 2013, all going to plan.
Can’t wait til the eventing season gets back in full swing! See you out there,
Maso xx
