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.

Arena management

The most treasured item for any dressage rider is his/hers arena, Even Confucius already noticed it and said 'there is no wining with out footing'. If you own an arena your life is completely consumed in the care and maintenance of this precious facility, harrowing levelling and most important of all POO picking, no self respecting owner will allow one spec of dung to contaminate his golden sand pit, If one is a sole rider the job is manageable as one can control ones horses eating habits and manage his defecating routine, on the other hand if the arena is used by others, students, family, staff etc. it is a thankless task, climbing mount Everest in flip-flops is easier job then preventing a group of riders from churning vast amount of horse dung into a freshly harrowed clean arena. In the Spanish riding school of Vienna there is a designated member of staff just for the job of POO picking, he is there at every training session and performance, the moment there is a woof of dung he is under the horse tail like swift lightening removing the disagreeable material. As all members of staff at the SRS are in effect civil servants (before privatisation of the school) he is the the official governmental shit picker with the Austrian title of 'Ubershiecefurer', how convenient will it be if our government employed some shit pickers but we will not benefit from this venture as they will be fully occupied picking up the crap in Westminster. In order to insure a good arena management we have some strict rules which all users and their relevant entourage are suppose to comply with the effect is minimal, just the same as the moment one is behind a wheel of a car we are liable for road rage the moment one is astride a horse he become Poo oblivious. First of all is the pony that fills his gut all day long, his stable is kept immaculately clean hardly needs mucking out, the moment he sets one foot in the arena he starts off loading and he does it the whole hour until he is completely empty so he can spend another 23 hours in the stable keeping it clean and sterile restocking for the next ride. Or the rider that for the last 20 years never managed to ride on the centre line or reach a prescribed spot in the arena how ever put a pile of HORSE SHIT AT X and there he is a perfect centre line performing Utopian piaffe over X (on a preliminary horse) until last morsel of dung is driven into inner depth of the arena. my pet hate is the rider, which the moment he feels his horse start to drop, extend the pace in order to achieve maximum spread at minimum time like a biological muck spreader. And the pony club kid arriving for a lesson with mum dad 5 grand parents, brothers, sisters and 7 school friends would any one of them pick some dropping no way, that the job for the instructor what are they paying for??? And added to all this my Polish worker trained his cat to use the arena as a giant litter tray. As a fanatic arena owner that just spent 15k on a new surface I use tactics, that will not a shame the Libyan government and their allies in covert activities the CIA and MI5 , to instil the fear of god in anybody that will not full heartedly comply, rendition, waterboarding and electrotesteclizing are some of these techniques, At the end of one day I inspected the arena and to my horror there there was in the co-ordinates of 2,33ft from H by 4.12 ft toward A in 35 degrees Northwood solitary yellowish single ball of dung. I immediately summoned all staff, students, clients wife and child and asked for an explanation, who left it?, who rode without cleaning after themself? , the reply was the usual vague empty look and the shrug of the shoulder 'it wasn't me, don't know, your problem'. I summoned Patrick the only other male in our out fit with the clear instruction find out whose dung it is. Patrick followed the exact co-ordinates arrived at the spot and started to examine the specimen, he looked at it, felt it, smelled it, he might even tasted it and then reported 'it is Blueys the cob'. 'Are you sure?' I asked, '100 per cent he assured me'. 'How can you be so sure' I asked again. To which he replied 'it is his I know that for sure because it was me that rode him when he did it'!!!!!