Sunday, January 4, 2015

Ode to Wellington



Twas early in January, and all through the barn, not a creature was stirring, because they’re all gone!

Vacuumed and cleaned, curried and brushed, loaded onto large trailers, some had to be pushed.
With health certificates in tow, and owners flush with cash, the horses are making the annual Wellington dash.

The horses, well, they don’t have a voice, whether they prefer warm, cold, or even Aiken or Ocala, they simply don’t have a choice.

The trainers are ready, it’s their big cash cow and the owners want the warm weather right about now.  

Tory Burch bathing suits have just come out, and the new perforated thong sandal will be a big hit in the owners’ tents no doubt. On Lilly, Gucci, Prada and even J Crew, the fashionistas of WEF will be more than a few.

The condos have all been refurbished or redone, ready and waiting for four months of fun. 

With 5000 horses descending on WEF right about now, I’m a little glad I’m not a cash cow.  My steeds will remain nestled and tucked in their beds, for a few more months of winter, Alfie won’t be turning any heads.  

We’ll watch and listen for the Welly World gossip from afar, so if you’re a part of it all, leave the door ajar.  When the colds of February descend on us common folks who remained up north in our own barns, we’ll look to the Wellies for some really good yarns.©




Saturday, January 3, 2015

New Needlepoint

The new year brings, you guessed it, new needlepoint.  I pulled some of my favorites, as the winter months are the best time to get these projects started and finished before the busy spring and summer months.

I love this fox.  He'd look great as a pillow to use all winter long.


This fox is also very cute. This would be very easy to stitch and would also make a nice pillow.


This is a brick cover and it also comes in a round pillow.


I love this pillow from Susan Roberts!  Cabin?


More from Susan Roberts.  Her work can be hard to stitch but the outcome is always fabulous!




Happy Stitching!

Friday, January 2, 2015

2015 - The Year of the Mule?

For those of you who have been HCC followers, you already know about the West Point connection.  When you blog you get introduced to a lot of people, and my love of West Point and the Mules (which came through my hubby, as he's a WP grad) brought me to a new connection late in 2014.

Rumor has it, that 2015 will be dubbed The Year of the Mule for West Point.....a karmic way to break the 13-year old curse of losing the Army-Navy Game (that annual tradition in early December).  13 is an unlucky number, for Navy, that is.  And the Mules will play an integral part in breaking this curse in 2015.  So we're planning to help "celebrate the Mule" for West Point.


There's a growing movement of old WP grads who want to reinforce the West Point - Mule connection.  If you are not familiar with it, read about it here.  A second Mule post is here.  The Mule connection at West Point is just one of the numerous "grand old traditions" that make West Point a special place.  And as a true animal lover, I believe the animals deserve their own recognition and place in history.


There's a book in the works, I understand, which will cover the 116-year old history of the West Point mule mascots, with lots of never published materials and photos.  Amanda Van Essen is the author. When it's published, you can rest assured, we'll be blogging about it.


There's a great video on the Mules on YouTube.  See it here:
 
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWfUyBk-Jqo
 
I hope you'll share in my passion of the history and tradition of the Army mules, after all they have their own place in history.  Hoping your 2015 is starting out well.  We all need to keep traditions alive, as so much seems to get lost today in our techno-world where history seems to be so forgotten.





Thursday, January 1, 2015

Ksar d'Esprit

Living in the Virginia Hunt Country is wonderful, but one of the best parts is living among the history of the horses.  The state has been the center of the universe in many ways for the horse show world.  I do research from time-to-time for a project the Virginia Horse Show Association is working on and I sometimes get to interview some famous horse people for our archives.  I have a few to do this month!

I've been doing some digging this week on this incredible thoroughbred, Ksar d'Esprit, a horse bred by Hugh Wiley in Maryland.  Some of you may know of him.  He was famous in his day and you can find some old video clips of him on the Internet thanks to the work of horseman Bernie Traurig.

If you are lucky enough to own a copy of Bill Steinkraus' Riding and Jumping you can read about him. Here's what Steinkraus says in the book:

"'Ksarro' had his share of personal idiosyncrasies, too, and getting bored with small fences was one of them. How grateful have I been to him for knowing just what to do with the big ones, however! In the picture he is taking me quite unconcernedly over the biggest fence I'd ever ridden up to that time, Rotterdam's Puissance wall set at just over seven feet. He was to take me over many more very big walls before his retirement, and I can still say that if my life depended on jumping one of them, I'd prefer to see it looming larger between those wise gray ears of his."

If you are into pedigrees you can see his here.



Bill Steinkraus rode the horse who was owned by Eleonora Sears.  He helped the USET win medals at the 1960 Olympics and other shows but was known as a Pruissance specialist, having jumped just over 7' at Rotterdam. Ksar d'Esprit was by Coq d'Esprit, out of Kristin by Kzar. His grandsire, Coq Gaulois, won the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris in 1920; his damsire, Ksar, is seen in the pedigrees of winners of all the top steeplechase races through sons Tourbillon and Formor, and through many daughters. Ksar d'Esprit is descended from the Darley Arabian line. 

The horse was retired to Miss Sears' farm in Middleburg, Virginia.  She owned what is now known as Hickory Tree Farm. Incidentally, I learned that she burned down the main house in 1961, intentionally to avoid paying taxes – evidently, in those days your real estate taxes were based on how many windows your house had – key word being “had.”

Hope you had a wonderful New Year's Eve.  And a safe one too!



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