Personal vs. Professional Intent

I have a long association with professional trainer and showman Bob Avila. Besides collaborating with me on many articles, along with a monthly newsletter and a book, Bob's also trained horses for me and been my show coach. He's given me many pieces of great advice over the past 20+ years, and the one that's come in handy most recently goes something like this:

"Ask yourself: Is my approach to my horse pursuits going to be personal, or professional? Where people get into trouble with their horses and goals is when they want their horses to serve their personal needs, but want them to satisfy financial needs as well. The sets of objectives don't mesh most of the time."

Those words came back to mind a couple weeks ago, when I had an opportunity to sell the 3-year-old gelding who's been my favorite horse ever since I bought him as a weanling. Although I often buy young horses as resale projects, adding fitting and training time with intent to make a profit, this one's been different from the get-go. He's been MY HORSE since Day One--the replacement for the great all-arounder who ranked as my "horse of a lifetime"--and he's never had a price on his head.

Not, that is, until temptation came along in the form of five juicy figures. The next thing I knew, a set of you'd-better-sell rationalizations took over my thinking. "You'd save all that money you pour into monthly training bills." "You wouldn't have to worry about where you're going to find the money to replace the roof on the house." "Someone else could take that horse out of the Idaho boondocks and turn him into a star." And then there was the ironclad axiom, learned at the knee of my horse-trader grandfather: "Never get married to any horse. You get one chance to sell with most of 'em, and you're a fool if you don't take it. There's always another one out there."

Those were some sound reasons for going ahead with a sale. Still, I agonized. Second-guessed myself. Woke up at night from bad dreams. Endured intrusive images of my horse being miserable with someone new. Wondered how I'd explain things to my husband if I turned down the money. Imagined dear ol' Grandpa turning over in his grave if I kept the horse.

In the end, I acted upon something else Bob Avila's told me:

"There's nothing wrong with making a horse decision that's personal, as long as you acknowledge that that's what you're doing and are willing to accept the consequences."

I backed out of the sale and kept the gelding--because he suits me perfectly, because I love him despite (or perhaps because of) his horsey quirks, because I have other horses that ARE for sale, because there are other ways to finance a new roof, and because...he's my PERSONAL horse. No apologies necessary for hanging onto my source of daily horse-joy.

Thanks, Bob. You bailed me out once again.

A Week in Starchville and Sparkle City

Today, I'm in my everyday attire of frumpled jeans and cozy sweatshirt--the sort of clothes that make it easy to go from home office to barn and back again. But last week was a different story. Then, I took my editor's job on the road to the World Championship Quarter Horse Show in Oklahoma City--where the unofficial dress code calls for men to be in jeans and shirts so stiffly starched they could stand up on their own, and for women to be as blinged out as possible, whether in the show pen or not.

In that environment, no one gives you a second look if you turn up at 7 a.m., glittering from head to toe with crystals applied to everything but your underwear. (Well, you could glitter there, too, if you were to spring for one of the crystalled bras available at the trade show.) And while I have to badger my hometown cleaners to process my show jeans in extra-heavy starch ("Are you SURE you want them that stiff?"), one of the World Show perks includes showgrounds pick-up and delivery from vendors with names like Cowboy Cleaners. In that instance, you have to specify when you want anything BUT extra-heavy starch.

"Civilians" don't really understand why horse-show types wear these sorts of get-ups. But I think I understand it perfectly.

The starch turns plain cotton garments into a form of body armor. It makes you stand up tall, suck in your gut, square your shoulders and lift your chin to face the competition. In today's super-casual society, where it's socially acceptable to wear elasticized sportswear even to church, we don't see much in the way of crisply-pressed clothing anymore. When you put it on to attend a horse show, you know right away that you're about to enter a non-everyday realm.

Same thing with the sparkle sported by the gals. We don't have that many dress-up opportunities anymore--those chances to get all decked out and feel like queens of the prom. With workplaces that've gone from Casual Fridays to Casual Everydays, and a society in which track suits are as ubiquitous at the mall as at the gym, we need another outlet for putting on our princesswear.

I didn't give this subject much thought until I left the show to fly back home. As I settled into the center seat for my homeward flight, I was somewhat jolted by the appearance of my two seatmates. With both in clothes that'd come straight out of the dryer, wrinkles and all, and with two sets of eyeballs peering over at the big-crystal belt adorning my waist, I realized that Starchville and Sparkle City are the equivalent of foreign countries to people who don't frequent Western horse shows.

When Horror Outruns Entertainment

I used to love watching Thoroughbred racing on TV. I made a point to clear my schedule so I could see the Triple Crown races, and viewed the hours-long coverage of the Breeders Cup as a horse lover's payback for enduring the seemingly endless drone of televised football.

Not anymore. After watching Barbaro break down in the 2006 Preakness and Pine Island crash to the track in last Saturday's Breeders Cup Distaff, I think I'll stay busy elsewhere the next time racing's on the TV schedule. I can't take the dread of wondering which poor horse will be next.

Yes, I know breakdowns happen--that they're considered "part of the game" that is racing. But I don't know which makes me more sick to my stomach: The fact that they ARE considered part of the game, or that the powers that be see fit to whitewash them in in order to keep us watching.

I'm still disturbed over the way Pine Island's breakdown was covered. We were told she suffered a "dislocated ankle" with a "compromised blood flow" requiring euthanasia. Come on. I saw the one and only instant replay of her somersault fall, the replay that got aired before someone obviously prevented any repeats from being shown on ESPN's broadcast. What was left of her left foreleg twirled beneath her knee like a propeller. I'd call that a broken leg--wouldn't you?

Yesterday, I read that ratings were down for this year's Breeders Cup broadcast. I'm not surprised. After seeing what happened to Pine Island and hearing the candy-coated version of her fate, I can't have been the only viewer who turned off her TV and found something else to do.

The Day of the $50 Colt

Some 60 years ago, when the recreational horse world was freshly re-energized after the end of World War II, a horse magazine editor penned an editorial in which he declared, "The day of the $50 colt is over." Lauding the explosive interest in all things horse, he claimed (with good justification, considering how the war put most horse activities on hold) that there just weren't enough good horses to go around and that breeders were in for some golden times.

I've re-read that editorial many times, always marveling over the notion that there could have been a day when $50 would buy a colt. But now I'm marveling for another reason: The day of the $50 colt is back. I learned this after downloading the price results of a recent regional registered-horse auction--one that's an established market venue with a loyal clientele of sellers and buyers. Fifty-dollar colts? Yessirree. These in particular were unspotted weanlings culled from a color-breed farm, hauled far enough to make the fuel bill for getting them to the auction ring greater than what they brought.

I like to think they went home with thrilled 4-H kids. Kids who'd saved chore and allowance money so they could buy a horse of their very own. Kids who couldn't believe their great good luck in having their dream of horse ownership come true for such a tiny price. I like to think this even though I know these $50 colts could just as easily be standing in a horse feedlot in northern Montana, eating and growing until they're worth sending to the slaughter plant over the border in Alberta.

The day of the $50 colt. Is its return a good thing, or a bad thing? Seems like a two-edged sword to me, and one of a sort that I never thought I'd live to see.