International Days of the Arabian Horse 2018 at Ismer Arabians in Stroehen, Lower Saxony

Finally I have some time to type this out - the weather took a pleasant turn down by 10 degrees so I've been outside doing all the things I'd been putting off in the heat wave (which the weather people are calling a drought!). A whole day with no horseflies, if you can believe it!



As I arrived, the first thing I saw was a field full of horse trailers and some horses crossing the road in front of me, led by a pony pulling a cart. I thought to myself, "That's odd, it looks like a German endurance ride!" (There's usually driven as well as ridden horses.)

Sure enough, there was a little sign "Distanz" so I knew I'd arrived at both the horse show and zoo and endurance ride! I parked right by a pulsing station and ate my lunch (grocery store salad) right there, watching from a polite distance.

Dirty exhausted horses dripping sweat, with numbers scrawled on them - that's more my thing than the fashion show I drove out here for. But I noticed again the sport is not dominated by Arabians. Not even by half.



This Arabian (the only one I saw) was sooooo tired. Love the typical German endurance tack. This one has saddle bags? Get out!



This big horse is getting pulsed under his jaw, that's new for me!




Finally at the Ismer Arabian farm plus zoo. This is their pony ring. I never saw any ponies but I never saw the entire place, I was too glued to the Arabians.


Right then, the mares and foals were being brought in. It was something to see. Later in the day this pasture contained Asian elephants. No kidding, in the horse pasture. We could watch the elephants over the backs of the show horses!


The mares and foals were let into this barn. I counted 15 stalls on each side, so 30 mares and 30 foals. Hm, that seems excessive to me. It looks like they have employee housing upstairs, or random apartments for anyone to rent - as is typical in Germany.

I'm showing Ani Lord of the Rings for her first time and the buildings of Rohan, the  horse lords, have this horse head cross on them. I looked into it and was surprised to learn that in early times, they'd put the skull of a horse on a new building to bless it. Eventually they switched to wooden carvings of horse heads on the roof, as here. You see it in the north of Germany, not here.



They were so anxious to get inside! It was 1PM, but very hot out, so I understand. I wonder if they get out every day. I wish you could have experienced the scene in motion, so many sweet faced horses pressing together.

Somehow they all found their low-walled stalls, each mare and each foal.


Later I entered the mare barn and visited a mare while her foal slept, and scratched her withers. She nuzzled my hand in return.


All 30 Ismer mares and foals had their faces and ears clipped, as if they should be entered in the show, but they were not. As you can see she's filthy. But clipped. I don't mind, I'm American, but in Germany it's supposedly illegal to clip the hair from a horse's ears or nose. Wish I knew the name of this sweet one.


***

When I turned the next corner I saw the show ring and all the flags surrounding it, and the fancy-pants people everywhere. I did my best to not look like a farmer - I had my best shorts on and a shirt that was not a tshirt. I also had a wicker hat on (my Hawaii hat) cuz this is an outdoor show.

I loved how the ring was surrounded by nations' flags. And that the US flag stood out to me, of course. But then I found one horse was actually born in America. So, yay America! You are severely outnumbered in Germany!



My photographer friend and another photographer named Kirsten (I think), she was a sweetheart, she's one of the official photographers of the Hannoverian society in Lower Saxony. She admitted she knows nothing of Arabians. I told her everything I knew about Hannoverians - which was like one sentence "They have their own association in America." Yes, she knew that: )



This show was so informal in comparison to Aachen, the handlers would just sit there on the fence waiting for their scores to be announced. Often one handler had 2 horses in one class! How is that possible! They'd just hand the one horse off to a helper, put a new number on his back, and go back in! I have no idea, really, help me if you know.



Oh, this is yelling guy! Like I said, I give the handlers nicknames. This guy yells, "HEY!" at the horse constantly for frolicking about as they are forcing him to, but he feels the need to yell.



And THIS....this is Tony. I started to notice him only when his yearling colt entered the ring terrified. And Tony had the most calming presence. The horse (not pictured) was already "up" and he just wanted the colt to calm down. The horse he has here is a relative of Mag (not sure which), that's why I took the photo. All I can say about that horse is, he doesn't have to do much to reach down to graze.

Then the colt reared up, put a leg over the line, and poor Tony had no chance. The colt took off and the audience caught him. I was shocked but when they gave the roan back to him, he started over and I caught a glimpse of him SMILING at the colt, as if they were partners in a dance, and he was having FUN.

Hey. No one has fun here! No one else. This was new for me. I made a note of it, who is this guy.

I'll post a video below where you can see Tony using his body language to calm a horse as they enter the ring. He's in Belgium and I wish I could send him Mag, because I trust his calm manner. He never shanked the horses (jerked on their heads) and he never threatened them with the whip. In fact, he seemed to just want them to be calm. What a contrast to all the others, especially against that woman who would lash her horse with the whip just to "wake him up." WTH! There are baddies in every sport (if you can call this a sport).









These are the three ladies who hold up the scores for every horse, for every score. Horses are judged on head/neck, body/topline/type, movement, and legs. These ladies wore matching black dresses on Saturday, and matching prettier pink ones on Sunday. They would hold the score cards up, and then, in synchrony, do a half turn to show the people behind them the scores.



Here they are at the end of their choreographed 90 degree turn. *giggle* Really the Sunday pink dresses were better, but my camera lost battery power: (

In addition to the score holding job, they were expected to greet with a European 3-part-cheek kiss to every single winner of every single class of both days. These ladies kissed .......I don't know, 100 people per day. Three times, in their way.

(I still do not participate in the Euro cheek kiss, I have no idea. You can shake my hand, or I will hug you, those are your choices.)





And here we have Tony.  So thoughtful of the horse - he kept his eyes mostly on the eye of the horse. I took this photo cuz it was one of Mag's relatives (there were sadly so few!) but I love that I caught Tony doing his "dance move"  - he slows down and the result is a very happy horse.

I wish I could show you the clip where Tony's colt escaped. The clip below of the roan colt doesn't show the escape, but it does show how confidence-inspiring Tony is. This colt entered the ring right in front of me, and he looked terrified! He was the first to go and was all alone.  Good that he had Tony.  




He reminds me of what Black Beauty said:

Jerry's hands. The quiet of them. They gave me confidence.
 
The film corp that did all this individual films (you can watch every single horse at this show on YouTube!) adds their own music, to try to make it ...well, different from the reality of the ring. So I hope you turned your volume off, this is not the music we experienced. Anyway, this is the colt who was so frightened on entering the ring, and Tony made him feel better. He wanted to inspire confidence in the colt, and I think he did. Looking at Tony's facebook page, I think they won on the following day.



OK here is a shot of the "warm-up" ring at a small Arabian show. A paddock churned to dust as they chase the horses around with plastic sacks to get them awake enough to perhaps win. I don't consider it cruel, because you can see the horses are used to it, and know it's their cue to wake up.  (They are almost all sleeping in a row before entering this ring!) This mare was not concerned, and never was she struck (though I saw one awful lady actually strike the horse!). I had the best spot in the house - right next to the collecting ring where they do whatever they can to prepare the horse at the last moment, and then run in full blast with an inspiring song playing full volume.



She is lovely! If I knew how they get her so white, I'd be doing it myself, Aarene. Unfortunately, I think it means being washed obsessively, and being tucked into blankets so no contact with dreck is possible. I'm simultaneously inspired and discouraged.



SO! This is the Ismer Arabian mare barn.  I finally made my way over and there are 15 stalls on each side, with a foal in each and every stall. I dunno, that just seems like a lotta babies for one year, don't you? This is NOT a state stud! This is not Marbach. This is only a "typical" Arabian farm, which happens to be a zoo, which makes this a really interesting situation for the Arabians.

Because they are all part of the zoo exhibit.

Arabian horses as zoo animals. 

All day long, every day, these horses have tourists reaching out and pestering them, or, in our case, the dozens of show visitors with a horsey education, scratching on them in the right spots, which they loved.

I say, if you buy a foal from Ismer, you will get a horse with an very exotic head (Mag's is plain in comparison) and you'll get a horse who has had people reaching out and touching its ears/back/face its entire foalhood, and exposed to the show ring/zoo! environment. Umbrellas. Screaming kids. Strollers.

30 foals per year, and you're not a state stud, but a private entity, that seems too many foals to me. But Ismer has been around for so long perhaps they actually have 30 buyers per year?

Some of the kids were screaming, scared of horses.

Most just went right up and patted the foals behind the ears and the mares' muzzles.

Wheelchairs, rain coats, over-excited little girls, these baby foals (3 months old) were exposed to every single day of their lives, with the only break being night when the zoo was closed.

I think, really, I think this is OK. I think these foals will grow up more socialized to humans than any breeding farm I've ever visited. These foals have unorthodox brats running at them all day, thrusting their fists into their manes. There was no supervision. No one.

And then, there was the stallion barn. Same thing, nearly. 6 stallions stood in a row of stalls with bars, so we could touch them, and they could touch each other! I found that wonderful, cuz many stables in America prohibit horses from touching each other from their stalls even when they are not stallions.

This next stallion took my breath away - a mix breed of Egyptian, etc. (Ismer has mostly Egyptians, but they follow the money.)


This is only a 3 year old stallion, Dashaan is his name (see his teeth bumps?) - and he blew me away, he was the second in the stallion barn, and his head was like a bronze statue. His eyes were so huge compared to his face, and his tiny nose fit through the slim slots in the stall bars. My photographer friend had asked me to find her a horse (for fun) and I said, "Dashaan is it!" She melted right there in front of him, as I did. This is just an Ismer stud, he's not in the show, as the other 5 or 6 Ismer studs were not. They just stood there with the public going by every day all day, touching them.

Their troughs were full of an oat/barley mix, as were all the mares and foals. The huge typical German grain carts were found in every barn we entered, full of the oat/barley mix waiting for the next feeding.

I hated the automatic waterers. One tiny foal was trying to drink from it (although he could take milk from his mother as they all were doing). He wanted water. He pressed and pressed on the lever and could not. I tried to help him and I needed both hands to press hard enough to get water to start spurting out slowly. Poor baby. I hate that they have to "work" for a drink, they cannot drink as fast/much as they wish, and that babies don't have the "face strength" to get a drink themselves. Automatic waterers are the norm in every German stable. I'm American. I don't like them.



As we walked back from the Ismer Arabians to the show, we passed several big stables like this. This one  was a "Laufstall" which means the entire floor plan is open, just a bunch of horses running around in there on deep straw. Lovely! These two greys peered at us as we passed.



There they are.

I was done, I was ready to go back to my hotel, so I said goodbye to my photographer friends.



Near my car I saw the awards ceremony for the endurance ride! They were handing out ribbons (so odd) and trophies (so odd) but even odder, each participant was standing there with his horse on a lead line, literally surrounding the awards  table with horses and riders. And as each was called, the rider would walk up, leading her horse, and get her ribbon/plaque/whatever. So strange!



Oh, this is the last photo I took, cuz I finally found a horse trailer in Germany that I'd like to own.

In the foreground are some of the VIPS - the fancy pants who own the horses but don't do much with them except pose for photos.

Below shows the collecting ring again....and that's all I have: )

I hope you enjoyed a tour of a small Arabian show in Northern Germany.

I don't care to ever breed a horse, but it is so tempting to see what Mag was born to do - prance around showing the world his trot, and his enthusiasm for life, without prodding.

Michi said to her friends, "She has a horse, Mag, who would do all this without a halter or rope, he'd run around with her for the joy of it!"

Aww....maybe.