We Call Him Clinton

We had an unexpected little bit of fun yesterday. We went down to the Clinton Anderson demonstration at our local equine center.

Do you know who Clinton Anderson is? To read all about him, click here.

As far as horse trainers go, he's a stellar dude. Or I guess I should say 'mate'. (He grew up in Australia.) He's done a lot for the horse industry in terms of teaching people how to train their horses in a safe manner that promotes natural horsemanship, something that has been near and dear to my heart for a long time now.

So when our neighbor said that she was bringing her horse down for him to possibly use in his trailer loading demonstration (he didn't), we decided to pack up our entourage and enjoy a day of horses and training education.

There are few things I like better than learning about training horses, how they tick, and what makes them respond the way they do. While some people are more interested in competing in events or riding down a trail -- both things I've done in the past -- I'm mostly interested in getting to the root of their training, starting them from the fundamentals and working from there. I think it prevents a lot of problems later down the line. I'll take you along for the ride, literally, as I work with this guy, Drifter, my training project...

He's wild-eyed and wooly... Literally! Just look at those pictures! He's super intelligent but also super green (that means 'not broke' or 'barely broke' or 'will pitch you forty feet in the air if you try to sit on him'), and since I'm planning on not being pregnant or nursing a newborn infant during the warmer weather this year (unlike the last couple years), I'm hopeful that I will be able to make time for him.

Anyhow, I digress... Back to Clinton.

Because that's what we call him now... Clinton.

First name only.

We feel we can do this.

Why?

Because he talked to Little Blue Eyes.

Directly.

That's right.

Clinton talked to our son, one on one.

It was a beautiful thing.

And now we feel that we know him well enough to call him Clinton.

O.k., o.k., o.k., o.k. Maybe it wasn't quite as monumental as I'm making it sound. But maybe we don't exactly get out that much since we have two very small children. So maybe this was a bigger deal to us than the common person. Maybe.

Here's what happened... They had a fundraising program that involved people buying tennis balls, with all the money going toward an organization called Hearts and Horses. Then, later in the day, there was a competition where they put a stake in the middle of the arena and everyone stood on the sidelines and threw their ball in, and whoever got closest to the stake won $2000 worth of Clinton's training DVD's. This was great. All went as planned. But then there was the issue of about 300 tennis balls lying all over the arena and Clinton was not done with his training demonstrations yet, and balls all over the place just would not do. So he called down to the arena all of the children under ten years of age. Obviously our children more than qualified for this endeavor, so I took Little Blue Eyes down.

As we were funneling into the arena, Clinton was standing there by the gate and he started to close it a little. My heart sank... Would Little Blue Eyes not get to participate? Was he too little? But then Clinton looked down at him and said, "Come on in here, little buddy."

That's right.

Clinton said, "Come on in here, little buddy," to our child.

He talked to him. And little blue eyes listened. And now we're pretty sure we're on a first name basis.

Sigh. Faint.

So, Little Blue Eyes and I went on in and Little Blue Eyes was surely the smallest child in the arena. At first he was a little intimidated by the mad scramble of children picking up balls and putting them in tubs, so I picked him up and did most of the bending and squatting and picking up of balls and putting of balls into the tubs.

At one point during all this bending and squatting I thought that perhaps my shirt came up a bit higher than one might want it to in the back, showing off my... Haunches. Or, love handles, if you will.

Not anything lower than that... Not anything you might expect to see from a plummer or anything... But still... I'm not in the habit of showing off that area.

So, I straightened things out and went on my merry way. I mean, there were swarms of children and Clinton Anderson in the arena. Surely no one was looking at me.

But someone was. And someone took a picture. And that someone was my husband, Mr. Blue Eyes.

And no, I'm not posting it here in this post.

Luckily it was pretty blurry anyway. But I still know what it is. And for a moment, to my horror, as I looked at this picture I realized I was the biggest person in the arena and my heart sunk into deep despair. Then I remembered I was in an arena full of children under ten years of age and I redeemed my composure.

Now I'm off to walk in circles in my round pen with Drifter for awhile. Because even though, yes, I'm not as huge as I thought I was and I'm not huge in general, I still got a look at my own haunches from the backside and... I've got some calorie burning to do.