Flossy is well known to many on the British Dressage Forum as a teller of interesting stories and perhaps the odd joke or two. We have selected a few tales for your pleasure.

Not standing behind thst horse

Senior trainer invested in a new arena surface ,footing as it is called in the USA, with the new surface a new revised management protocol was laid down which when summarised simply says “THERE WILL NOT BE ONE SPEC OF HORSE DUNG ON THIS ARENA”
Every user of the arena was responsible to insure that every bit of bio degradable horse produced material how ever small will be picked up promptly immediately instantly.
The moment a horse would deposit one ball of dung the rider responsible should halt and in a load voice alert the designated poo picker by shouting “DROPPINGS” what ever the designated poo picker was doing at the time he was expected to drop it instantly and appear at the arena AND pick the EQUINE DROPPINGS .With this system of management the arena surface maintained the clean white look as on the first day of installation.
Sound simple and easy , not when the normal users of the arena human and equine have different idea of what arenas footing is for.
As human goes there is always those that will do their utmost to make the life of the poo picker difficult as possible, the moment they notice (assuming they do) their horse is about to answer a call of nature , instead of halting allowing the horse to drop the stuff into a neat tidy pile , they spur the horse on into the fastest pace possible insuring that the whole long side is littered with hundreds of broken up balls of dung, then we have those that unfortunately for their amusement are riding a horse with great self restraint who never, like some men , defecate in public or during work, these riders feel so deprived for not being able to leave their mark in the arena that in retaliation the moment they see a pile of dung they ride into it ,on top of it until it is so well churned into the surface that there is no chance for it being ever separated from the sand even with a fine sieve.
For years horses in Seniors Trainers yard were valued according their ability to perform the GP movements and accordingly received affection and status, now a days a horse receive his position of appreciation according to his toilets habits',those that use the arena only for exercising and refrain from doing their bits during working time are categorised as super lovely horses and receive the relevant amount of love and care, on the other hand horses with loose active bowls , who would soil the arena carelessly with their droppings, are treated with contempt how ever good they are in dressage movements.
In spite of these difficulties Senior Trainer managed to deploy a system that kept the arena poo free (99%).
Every thing was working satisfactorily until a new livery arrived in the yard , a large Irish bog plodder, a horse with no self respect and little or non to the premises in which he is based at, the moment this horse would enter the arena he will start off loading any excess cargo he was carrying internally, he would empty his intestines in one long processes that will last the whole hour of work , spreading green slimy trail of horse poo all over the school ,when the bowl empting activity was accompanied with air expulsion the offending stuff will end up smeared as high as the building apex , add insult to injury his owner rider new to dressage and its traditional values could not see what all the excitement about such a natural equine activity of horse shitting .
One afternoon Senior trainer was in the middle of the arena, instructing his favourite student lady Lavonia, he was dressed in his usual immaculate self , his boots so shiny they could be used as a shaving mirror,
when the Irish bog plodder past so close to him that a big dollop of greenish yellowish horse excrement landed on top of his new Cvallino boots slowly sliding down the whole length of the shaft.
Senior Trainer completely and utterly horrified and disgusted by the offending material shouted at the top of his voice to his assistant Junior Trainer “GET SOME TOILET TISSUE!!!” to which Junior Trainer with out loosing a breath replied “ not on your life I am not standing behind that horse”