Follow The Bouncing Hunt Cap 

  

Horse Show Weather  

 
   I don't need a psychic or even a professional trainer to figure out how the horse shows are gonna to go for me this year.  There's a 40% chance that the local weatherman can predict my show results: "You'll have extreme highs and lows," Stormy McSlicker might say, "with a significant depression coming on Sunday."  And whaddaya know!  As the sun blazed merrily overhead, my impact with the all-weather footing created quite a depression -- an impact crater, really -- as well as a black, swirling, acute emotional low.  You have to admire a really accurate weather forecast.
   "There may be unpredictable patches of fog," adds the meteorologist.  And sure enough, my hazy, misty memory caused several sizeable lapses in riding judgement . . . duly noted by the judge, for whom visibility was, unfortunately, just dandy.  Beware predictions of turbulence, sudden barometric drops, and inversions.  These are all very unhealthy climate conditions for equestrians.
   We should all admire weather forecasters' license to use phrases such as "partly cloudy."  Why aren't the rest of us allowed to hedge our bets like that?  After a moderately unsuccessful ride, I'd like to say, "DweebBoy was partly obedient today with only intermittent and scattered cooperation.  Sadly, no change in local conditions is expected for the rest of the week."  And what about the phrases "possibility of snow" or "slight chance of rain"?  How delightfully vague! Perhaps the next time DweebBoy fails to collect at all, an optimistic judge could comment, "slight possibility of collection next year." 
   Storm chasers (and hundreds of dreadful tornado movies) will tell you that flying debris and fast wind rotation herald a really bad storm.  If, halfway through your Grand Prix test, you notice a force-5 tornado descending upon D, run for your life!  Unless you're mid-canter pirouette.  In that case, you'll execute the most spectacular pirouette of your entire life; a force-5 rotation which drills your horse ten feet into the sand and scores an 11 on a scale of 10.
   The morning news noted that our city enjoys an average high for today's date of 82.  The average low is 68.  Perhaps the USEF could compile similar statistics for horses.  I could look up DweebBoy's performance stats from previous years and see that, for today's date, his average high score is 70.  His average low is 32.  His record high for this date were 71 (that was seven years ago, before he discovered how to throw me using a technique called the Sudden Downdraft).  His record low for this date was 17 (don't ask).  Based on these figures, I can make an educated decision that local conditions are not favorable today for DweebBoy to enter the horse show.
   You should also factor in the humidity when deciding if today's atmospheric conditions are favorable for showing.  To do this, step outside your hotel or house.  Do you hear an ugly sucking sound as the atmosphere suctions the moisture from your skin and, in sixty seconds, bakes you into a mummy wearing deerskin breeches?  Okay, the humidity's a tad low today.  On the other hand, if you can drop a curry comb into the air and it just hangs in the air, then the humidity is approximately 427%.  This is roughly equal to the humidity at the bottom of the ocean . . . .     
     [Excerpt from Nov/Dec 2006]