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Aug. 19th, 2004 11:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonAmy Tryon totally rocks, as does her horse, Poggio II. He sounds like a ferret, from his little bio, and resembled one a bit too as he put an extra twist into each jump:
Tryon found Poggio II in the classified section of the Seattle Times six years ago. The listing advertised a former mountain packhorse with a Thoroughbred pedigree. A friend of Tryon's bought the horse for $2,500 with the intention of reselling him, but Tryon offered to take Poggio and gave her friend a horse at her stable in exchange. Tryon now competes on both Poggio II and My Beau. "Poggio is a better jumper, but his dressage is not as good," Tryon told the Seattle Times in 2004. "He's one of those horses who could go 100mph all the time. Where Beau would be on a Lazyboy watching TV, Poggio would be outside taking the car engine out of his car and putting it back together again."
It 's amazing that you can just find an Olympic-class horse for $2,500 in the classifieds. The two of them were phenomenal in the jumping yesterday--if you were to try to script the performance of a young American woman who works as a firefighter/EMT riding a hyperactive horse with a mind of his own, questionable breeding and a distinctly unorthdox approach to jumping, this would have been it because, well, that's exactly what it was, pushing everything to the limit while somehow keeping everything under control. Most of the time I don't really feel much cultural pride in the US, perhaps because of an anthropological approach to culture or perhaps because it is often hard to pin down a distinctive US culture that applies pretty universally to everyone who considers themself an American, but I genuinely felt proud of Amy Tryon as an American and thought that her ride exemplified what Americans can be at their best. Which I guess is what the Olympics is supposed to be about, to some extent.
Her American-ness was highlighted all the more by the next rider, a 40-year-old dentist from Germany, who rode with all the technical precision one would expect of a German dentist. I don't think a single swivel of his horse's ear was unplanned. Pretty much the same time, same clear round, such a different ride. (which is not to say that there aren't Germans who could have put in a ride like Tryon's, or Americans with the precision of the German rider, but the two next to each other created a droll study in national stereotypes)
Tryon found Poggio II in the classified section of the Seattle Times six years ago. The listing advertised a former mountain packhorse with a Thoroughbred pedigree. A friend of Tryon's bought the horse for $2,500 with the intention of reselling him, but Tryon offered to take Poggio and gave her friend a horse at her stable in exchange. Tryon now competes on both Poggio II and My Beau. "Poggio is a better jumper, but his dressage is not as good," Tryon told the Seattle Times in 2004. "He's one of those horses who could go 100mph all the time. Where Beau would be on a Lazyboy watching TV, Poggio would be outside taking the car engine out of his car and putting it back together again."
It 's amazing that you can just find an Olympic-class horse for $2,500 in the classifieds. The two of them were phenomenal in the jumping yesterday--if you were to try to script the performance of a young American woman who works as a firefighter/EMT riding a hyperactive horse with a mind of his own, questionable breeding and a distinctly unorthdox approach to jumping, this would have been it because, well, that's exactly what it was, pushing everything to the limit while somehow keeping everything under control. Most of the time I don't really feel much cultural pride in the US, perhaps because of an anthropological approach to culture or perhaps because it is often hard to pin down a distinctive US culture that applies pretty universally to everyone who considers themself an American, but I genuinely felt proud of Amy Tryon as an American and thought that her ride exemplified what Americans can be at their best. Which I guess is what the Olympics is supposed to be about, to some extent.
Her American-ness was highlighted all the more by the next rider, a 40-year-old dentist from Germany, who rode with all the technical precision one would expect of a German dentist. I don't think a single swivel of his horse's ear was unplanned. Pretty much the same time, same clear round, such a different ride. (which is not to say that there aren't Germans who could have put in a ride like Tryon's, or Americans with the precision of the German rider, but the two next to each other created a droll study in national stereotypes)
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Date: 2004-08-19 02:29 pm (UTC)this is the first time that i've wished we had cable tv.
well, actually i go through this every 4 years because equestrian sports are never broadcast on the major networks.
*sigh*
part of me is considering taking next Friday off so i can camp out at a friend's place and watch the show jumping.
wait, i can't do that....
:(
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Date: 2004-08-19 02:37 pm (UTC)Canadian tv had show jumping on all the time when I lived up there, I supposed to help fill the Canadian content requirements. There's a wonderful arena in Alberta, Spruce Meadows, where most of the shows were filmed.
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Date: 2004-08-20 09:54 am (UTC)-a.
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Date: 2004-08-20 09:59 am (UTC)