@Lookout Man, I enjoyed that! My keyboard is going south, will respond to the idea of returning to horse and mule transport when I switch computers. Good luck on the limb-whack.

Years ago they used to race horses down the valley we look over. I've recently wondered if the horse will make a transportation come back. There's a fellow down the road that rides his horse to town. Donkeys and mules are worthy animals too, as you well know.

We had a light shower early this morning which evidently discouraged my yard help today. I had planned to limb out a section of the driveway/road. It would have been wet and messy, so I can't blame him. They'll be there next week.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! Thanks for the OT.
Stewball - c..late 1700s - Performed by Tom Roush

The original name for this folksong was 'Skewball.' It became popular in America as 'Stewball.' I've played this song for 35 years and now decided to record it. There have been many verses added and changed since it found it's way across the Atlantic from England. I recorded this in July of 2019.

@usefewersyllables I have to wait a bit to see the video so as not to interrupt other noises in the house. I know it will be all you say. We look for concert dates for all kinds of bands, all kinds of music. This goes on our concert search.
I once had a good "eye" for horses. I would buy race horses, both thoroughbreds and quarter horses, re-train them, sell them. I actually made good money, was mostly able to do the re-train myself. Round pen, arena, all that was here at my home. I had a good reputation, all horses were vetted out, sound, and sold to that dressage and 3-day eventer types who had money and I was always confident the horses would have good homes. Most of the agents making the deals were trainers.
I didn't event. My dad, Army Horse Cavalry, taught me the rudiments of jumping, but I mostly enjoyed the "dance" aspect of dressage. It is mostly a safer riding discipline. Mostly.
Glad you dropped in your comment. Much appreciated, pal.

and train her horse at a barn that specialized in taking fresh-from-the-track thoroughbreds and teaching them to jump. That was kind of amazing to watch: I didn't realize that the human body could bounce that high after getting unseated... Those horses definitely had the wrong ratio of muscle to skeletal strength. My wife retired herself and her horse from eventing after a couple too many bounces, and he just passed in the pasture 7 or 8 years ago.

The They Might Be Giants show was nothing short of fantastic. They've already sold out all 80 shows on this US tour (smaller venues, except for the Hollywood Bowl), but if you can pick up some scalped tickets, *do it*. The horn section is ungodly hot, and they haven't lost a step. The little birdhouse is still well and truly installed in my soul.

They are as quirky as ever (if not more so), and their chops have improved over the years. The most fun was when they did Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love *backwards*. They videotaped it as they played it backwards, and then played the tape back in reverse (thus forwards) on the big screen to start the second set. Yes, in true TMBG fashion, they opened for themselves... Here's a Youtube version of them doing "stilluB" in an earlier show. The backwards choreo... Fantastic. Great show!

@dystopian So, the nice girls didn't bother to mention the Appy quirk? Lol!
Appaloosas are regarded as dumb horses. Very hard to train, very difficult to break their bad habits.
Glad you survived. We wouldn't have this vision of you in the creek if you had gotten your neck broken, would we?
I had some horse that freaked at the very site of water. She jumped puddles. She went wild at crossing a little stream. Another horse was afraid of damn near anything that moved. Cars. Dogs. Flags. People walking. I found a buyer who thought they could fix it. No word on the fixing.
My Appy experience, literally the only Ap I ever got on, was in South Africa. A barely broke horse, fairly good natured, but I constantly hoped he wouldn't freak when he ran through the jungle with a baboon war happening overhead.
Have a lovely weekend, pal!

Hi all, Hey OtC! Hope it's all good out there!

I've gotta quit horsin' around and get to work, but a quick couple horse stories...

First, to Lookout, Hey LO! The one verse I remember, I first learned maybe about '65 when I was 10, I still remember it and occasionally belt it out for my wife... whom remains unimpressed.
==
Stewball was a racehorse
I wish he were mine
He never drank water
He always drank wine.

Yeah man, go Stewball!

I never got on a horse until I was 17 when family moved to Big Pine CA, where we had been camping for many years. Eastern Sierra Nevada, Owens Valley. Was a new guy, of the worst sort, a flatlander from 'L.A.', in a Peyton Place tiny town with 22 in my senior class, most half to a whole decade behind L.A. thinking... For example my required American Government 12th grade textbook, was my 8th grade American gov. textbook in Huntington Bch. So it wasn't the best for my education, but I learned about horses and country girls.

I was an outcast, though did sniff out the stoners in reasonably short order. The only girls that would give me the time of day were the horse girls. They were not the beauty queens, but the nicest most real girls in town. I told them I had never rode. So they taught me how. Rode tons for several months. It was awesome, I loved it, and of course, came to like horses.

One of the first times, maybe the first, to give you an idea of how sweet these girls were... They put me on this Appaloosa named Appy, which later I learned should have been bad enough. But this Appy was freaked out at white wooden bridges. Which of course was not revealed to moi. Can ya see where this is going yet? So after riding around town for a bit you would not believe where we rode, I think there was about five of us, we went up the street with the cute white bridge over Big Pine Creek.

Did I mention how this horse freaked out at white bridges? I don't recall all the details of what exactly happened. It was a blur, there was a flurry of white hide with spots, a mane going all over the place, as was leather and limbs, as I seemed to defy gravity. After I got out of the creek and up the bank, the girls were all laughing so hard, the damn horses were laughing too. Except that f'n Appy, it had a smirk on its face. One of those 'do you want to get back on' smirks. It cleary had more than it gave me already. I rode Rainy back, and one of the girls rode that damned horse. I never got on Appy again.

Now we lease a place on a huge horse ranch, the part we are on is a 900 acre wildlife conservation easement we have access to, as well as a mile of river. Next door is a few hundred acres with a herd of 20 brood mares, quarter horses, nice ones. There was an article about them just maybe 3-4 years ago in the AQHA magazine, Lou Waters' ranch/horses.

Long live all the Secretariats and Stewballs!.

Have a great day all, I gotta fly!

@snoopydawg TDS.
Oh, and fbi, cia, blah blah blah...
Have a great weekend, give my client, Sam, a big hug.
Take good care of you!

covering everything he says and does?

This might be the single funniest thing I've ever seen.pic.twitter.com/vqLZFsvSFZ

— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) May 12, 2023

And like the tweet I posted in my essay says, why isn’t the dem base more upset with democrats failing on every front to pass the things they said they would then the fact that Trump is beating Biden in the polls. It was Obama’s ridiculous presidency that gave us Trump in the first place and instead of democrats looking at their own failures they made up a false story that Putin put Trump in office because he didn’t like Hillary….no the country didn’t like Hillary and thank dawg that she lost. Now democrats are once again screwing the base and oh my gawd Trump lies. Well I’d vote for him if he is serious about ending the Ukraine war. Easiest way to do that is to stop sending weapons to Ukraine and that will force them to the table with Russia. Easy peasy cuz you can’t have a war without weapons.

@kelly weighed 26 lbs.
Your Mother sounds extraordinary! Secretariat was not a very remarkable sire. Seems his produced fillies were better racers than his colts. Lots of thinking about the value of the dams and their bloodlines actually popped up in discussions of breeders right about the time he was retired. Your Mother might have been the catalyst in breeding methods than she could have known.
I bought a photograph of Secretariat, just his beautiful head and neck. It is a limited edition known as "Secretariat's Last Portrait".

That remark about "on something" is a bit ridiculous, although I understand the context of bewilderment. If any race horses were "on something", they all were. What it was, was "in something", in that horse, a heart the size of a house. Achieving an amazing series of accomplishments nowhere near being equaled or diminished by subsequent wannabes. The day Secretariat died my mother was there, I do believe. The vet or whoever did the autopsy pulled a gigantic heart out of this titan, maybe weighed it (but I dont think so), but threw it out (my rough recollection of remarks my mother made. I could always try to read one of the books she wrote about heart size in racing horses for clarification)
I only met Penny Chenery once, when she flew in with my mother. I must have picked them up at the airport, but all I really recall is taking her to the Kinkos. Very nice lady, as important a figure as the horse itself. Put it all in the context of the times, and the battle of the sexes. A serious testament (as if it should be needed) versus the publicity sham ( ) of Riggs and King. Underappreciated in that respect. There is a statue of Secretariat in Lexington KY horse racing museum or whatever it is. underneath the raised front hoof, the sculptor engraved my mother's initials. I guess for the role she played in getting the statue done, fundraising or something.
I had/have quite the range of memorabilia, signed shirts, even a watercolor painting by the lady herself. Penny Cheney became my mother's surrogate mother, took care of her and I am grateful.
The ramifications of Secretariat's secret turned into an amazing sequence of events, more than serendipitous, as my mother forwarded the notion that breeding for speed was being done incorrectly, as the Sire was given too much credit. The real speed secrets came from the dam. She became a sought after breeding and pedigree consultant for potential buyers and breeders. She irked a lot of people who felt her lack of scientific background (a journalist. A "photojournalist" as her pictures were very good. Her writing more than adequate (but Im better, despite the song she would sing to me 50+ years ago) rankled the petty who would prefer some elite rule of order and misbegotten ivory tower traditions being upended by some bigmouthed uneducated genetics expert. I relish that accomplishment. She will probably be forgotten, but not by those who knew her.

@soryang and that is a very good thing!
I went to a WEF, World Equestrian Federation, competition in Lexington, Ky, in 2009, and on one afternoon, a pal and I went to sulkey races on a local track. We thought it was so strange! Fun, but strange!
Have a great weekend, and get your re-location organized like you want it, pal.

...on the horses. He did it frequently when he was a young man. I remember once when I went home to NY, he took me to Belmont to gamble a little bit. He did it regularly. He really knew the horses, and understood the odds, handicapping or whatever. I know nothing about it. I just bet on what he recommended and won about 125 dollars.

I'm afraid I was the one responsible for his hobby. When I was in high school, with some friends, I used to sell pretzels outside the grandstand exit at Roosevelt Raceway to earn extra money. It was a big deal if I made 14 or 16 dollars in a night. After I had done it for couple of seasons, I think my brother was about 14 or so, he started to come with me. I never went inside to watch any of the harness races but he would insist we go watch. I remember we watched once, and saw the really incredible horse Super Wave. After I stopped doing this part time seasonal job, my brother kept doing it for another season or two. Years later, I remember once he called me to tell me he was on vacation and went to watch the Kentucky Derby. Another time he called and wanted to know if I could invest 50 grand in a horse with him, I told him I was too poor for that. He couldn't get anyone else in the family interested and never went ahead with it.

I think this is the horse we saw.

https://www.canadianhorseracinghalloffame.com/2002/11/02/super-wave/

I have to say I never go "full tilt" myself, I'm more of a long distance type.

@enhydra lutris We are having a good weekend here, so far. Relaxing, full of friends, music, jokes, and Poochie, the dog that got dumped at my gate.
Whup that stump, you can do it!
Luv ya, man!

those things. More of a Bicycle and motorcycle type. Had a friend who played the ponies every chance he got and even owned a part of a couple of them. My wife and I went to the track with him and his lady once, wasted a few bux and had a couple of beers, not as entertaining as a baseball game, but beats tennis or golf, imho. One could, in theory, always win over the course of a full day, or at least break even, but you'd need a high speed laptop capable of voice entry and a position right near the ticket window so you could get your money down at the last moment. But, the certitude comes at the cost of a minimal payout, not enough to be work a full days frantic work.

Still wrasslin' a stump, so I'd better get to it.

be well and have a good one