(“Some “swoo” is better than no “swoo.”)

A question: Which is better? Not which do you personally like more, but which has more intrinsic value? Ready? Eggs Benedict and a Mimosa or a cashmere scarf? A diving catch on the warning track or middle schoolers doing The Nutcracker? Huh? How are you supposed to decide? That’s the point.

Is The Best all that’s worth watching (unless you’re the parent)? Is there a lesser but still admirable grace to someone who can’t dribble like Stef Curry but still hits the jumper? How about someone who clanks it off the rim occasionally? What of a large pony’s Beginner Novice clean cross country round?

These thoughts arise from reading the tiresome message board comments of dressage elitists, “purists,” and snobs. I’m all for personal preferences in aesthetics, don’t get me wrong , but let’s separate them from value. Proportionately, dressage may enhance a lesser athlete more than an objectively superior one. This may be true even if the task is incompletely accomplished. Some “swoo” is better than no “swoo.” Aren’t we jaded if we don’t respect the efforts to remake or rebuild (or even rescue) a horse whose true potential is somewhat limited?

And what about the bumpy path to learning? An ode is in order to those school horses / school masters who deserve to be nominated for sainthood for the physical and mental gibberish they endure to get some few of their charges to a meaningful place of understanding. And grant some forgiveness to the riders who never get very far but who at least gave it a shot.

Beauty can be an absolute and simply appreciated in the abstract for its own sake. On a more mundane level, I believe it was one of the Marx brothers who said De chacun selon ses facultés, à chacun selon un lancer de dés.*

The first half is utopian, the second in the original spirit of Horatio Alger sometimes can only be chalked up to cosmic mystery.

*”From each according to his abilities, to each according to a roll of the dice.”