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Mirror, MirrorApril 11, 2006 I lollygagged into the barnyard this afternoon, having done the wash, hung it out, put in several hours on the Interminable Edit, and even got in some guitar practice. Good heavens: great things were afoot. The letters were installed, and the mirrors were back in place at one end of the ring. Some background: The ring at Malabar Farm got a makeover late last summer. The dimensions were The letters: These have to do with dressage tests. One executes certain movements at A, X, C, E, B, and so on. The order of the letters makes about as much sense as most English orthography. Starting from the middle of one short side, the midpoints go A, B, C -- E. The crossquarters (sorry, can't help it; I'm a pagan at heart) are K, H, M, and F. Alexia, who taught Allie and me nearly everything we knew before we moved to Malabar Farm, suggested this mnemonic: All King Edward's Horses Carry Many Bloody Fools. I've heard other versions but I like that one best. There are four more letters that go between the midpoints and the crossquarters on the two long sides. The letters are R, S, V, P. The letters are easy to remember; I just don't know where they go. There are also five points on the centerline that have letters, but these letters aren't written down; you have to carry them in your mind. The only one I'm sure of is X, which is the dead-center spot where you halt and salute after you enter, working trot (or collected canter, if you're up in the stratosphere where my barnmate is). Anyway, when I arrived the letters were set up, A, K, E, H, C, M, B, F and R, S, V, P, and so were the mirrors. Each of the two mirrors consists of two panels. I hadn't considered how difficult it might be to synchronize the two panels, not until I watched Ginny, on Dolci, calling feedback to Jim, who was adjusting the mirrors: "I don't have a head." "Dolci's feet just disappeared." And so on. Allie and I joined in. Amazing: Dolci in one panel and Allie in the other looked about the same size, even though Allie is 14:3 and Dolci is 16:2. I told Jim that Allie seemed to be standing on the diagonal, with her feet toward the middle of the ring. Finally I could leg-yield across the ring and our image moved fluidly from one panel to the other. This mirror thing is harder than it looks. I hadn't watched Allie and me in the mirrors since they were taken down toward the end of last summer. Wow, what improvement! We were straighter, our haunches-in were aligned just right, in leg yield Allie's legs were crossing just the way they're supposed to. She's got her hind legs under her much better at canter, and a couple of our trot -> canter transitions were wonderful to watch. It never occurred to me that mirrors could tell you true. Everyone knows that department store mirrors, not to mention lighting, are designed to make you look ugly. I look for my reflection in store-front windows and puddles on the road, but I avoid most mirrors. These mirrors, on the other hand . . . Hey, we looked pretty damn good. Who's the fairest of them all? Damned if I know, but we sure have made progress since last summer.
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