Horse Crazy (6 page)

This understanding of herd dynamics is even
utilized by some course builders for show jumping events. Often,
the course designers will take advantage of the horse's natural
interest in staying with the group by beginning the jumping course
with a couple of easy jumps and putting the more monstrous ones in
a position where the horse is jumping toward the collecting ring
with his friends in it.

All in all, horses are fascinating creatures.
Personable, good-natured (for the most part), curious and, if not
loving, certainly lovable. With less brains than a good-sized
begonia.

On the other hand, if you own a horse (and
this doesn't normally apply to rent-a-horse-type horses since it's
anybody's guess where their loyalties lie) and spend any sort of
time with it (keeping in mind that horses become annoyingly
recidivistic if left to their own devices long enough), you'll
probably begin to find it showing evidence of actually looking
forward to your visits. Your horse is your companion--complete with
mood swings, bad days, frisky moments and a sense of humor--and he
will repay your hard work and care.

Such a magnificent animal is the horse that
he is also, if not to be preferred over dogs (also a magnificent
animal, I believe) possibly to be preferred over some people and
many cats. I've discovered that, in many cases--although probably
not all--the people who spend a lot of time with horses, working
with them, riding them, training them, even loving them, are
sometimes not terribly nice people.

These people can usually keep those heels
down, boy, and sit a horse in a way that would make Princess Anne
swoon. Often, they are good mothers and daughters. (Although wives
is another matter.) But a horse person's people skills are often
not the strongest part of her usually sparkling personality.

As you'll no doubt discover.

Chapter Five

Horse People

I've always believed that simply owning a
horse shouldn't automatically make you a bitch. Like any group of
people, there are some nice horse people. And with any luck, as a
newcomer, you'll meet them. But, because there is a certain level
of skill involved in riding or training horses, you will find
people who think themselves quite wonderful.

They will think they are more wonderful than
other horse people and their measure of wonderfulness quite
disappears off the graph when viewed in relation to non-horse
people.

This feeling of superiority to non-horse
people is not as fulfilling to those who have it, however, as the
sensation of making at least one other horse person feel stupid or
cheap or unskilled. This is the easiest, most satisfying way of
making the superior horse person feel smart and talented.

Since so many horse people indulge in this
disdain, there is actually very little damage done. They pick on
each other as happily as two mutually committed buzzards. And horse
people are a durable, hardy breed. Even, some might say,
insensitive.

Dish it out, they do, and take it, they
can.

Some of the best breeding grounds for horse
person-contempt are tack shops. These are great because they're an
obvious meeting place for all kinds of horse people (although
western riders have their own tack shops, usually, so at least that
particular friction is not manifested. English-style horse people
tend to rank western riders somewhere below non-horse people who've
been convicted of a misdemeanor.)

Perhaps it's the combination of spending
money and being surrounded with horsy accouterments that make horse
people in tack shops so churlish. Here is where arguments over tack
capability can be heard at its shrillest. And while tack shop
personnel might not be the most solicitous sales help you've ever
encountered, they've a right to be a little peevish now and then
considering the character of their typical customer.

For example, in three days of loitering about
two different tack shops, I overheard the following
conversations--usually when the salesperson was about to make a
sale.

A portly, middle-aged woman with wide hips
wearing full seated breeches (immediately informing one that the
woman obviously did not own a full-length mirror) surveyed a wall
of sparkling bits and chains and then spoke quite comfortably to
the entire store.

"Why, there must be one hundred different
bits here and only two are ever necessary. No matter what you're
doing or what kind of horse you have, you only ever really need the
loose-ring snaffle or the full-cheek twisted snaffle. The rest is
rubbish." (Horse people often prefer English terms to coarse Yank
ones, like "garbage" or "no good.")

The same and incredibly pervasive school of
thought that says all you need is a loose-ring snaffle usually goes
on to point out that if you use anything stronger, you're ruining
the horse out of laziness, meanness, ignorance and all-around
insufficiency as a human being.

A heavyset young woman, her chubby arms
crossed in front of her chest, advising a young woman and her
daughter intent on buying the girl's first saddle while the
saleswoman looks on.

"Never buy a deep seat saddle. Never. There
never is a need for one. Ever. See all these deep seat saddles in
this showroom? Useless. Just waiting for someone to throw their
money away."

To the brand-new rider, who doesn't own a
horse but wanted to start taking lessons, a large, red-faced man,
in full hunting pinks, wagged his crop at an incomprehensible
tangle of leather straps and buckles on a table and huffed, "Before
you buy anything else, you need to pick up a set of side reins.
Before your hard hat, before your boots. Side reins. Absolutely
imperative if you're to start riding correctly. And then, of
course, the lunge line must be your next purchase."

A woman in her early forties, with pinched
face and blood-red lips, explained to her companion--who, by her
attire and athletic body, looked as if she'd done a considerable
amount of riding herself,

"If you go out to the pasture, my dear, and
you want to catch your horse, you should bring him a carrot."

The woman looked at her companion with
emphasis and then continued. "And if you do this on a regular
basis, he will soon get used to the idea of your coming out there
to give him this carrot," she paused to see if this was all sinking
in, "and will, in time, allow himself to be caught by you."

The evident self-satisfaction with which this
statement was uttered is a classic example of the extreme pleasure
that horse people receive for their jewels of equestrian
wisdom.

A horse person will always have an answer
with no hems, haws, hedgings, or maybes.

"If his shoulder slopes, forget it. You'll
never get a decent canter and you can't jump him."

"I saw your horse, Bitsy, and he was covered
in snow."

"I hope you didn't brush it off, it'll help
insulate him and keep him warm."

"Gosh, no, I'd never do anything so dumb. But
I did put Furozone on a little cut he had so he wouldn't attract
sharks."

"There's not a horse living I can't train,
ride, break, or teach to use a knife and fork."

"It's common knowledge that horses hate
baths. Forget that they're hot and sweaty after a twelve-mile trail
ride in 90° heat. Turning that tepid or cool hose on them will be
most unwelcome. Will literally, in some cases, make their skin
crawl." (The horse, keen to throw us off the scent, will
occasionally romp in a pond and splash it up with his
horse-friends. And while it's true that to the untrained eye they
may look like they're enjoying it, as any true horse person will
tell you, they'd really rather be in Pittsburgh licking labels at
an Alpo plant.)

A respected Georgia horse trainer once idly
related to me a not uncommon scene that had occurred out in her
pasture. Her favorite hacking horse had been rudely chased off by
one of the more dominant herd horses. The chastised horse then
trotted, one may assume unhappily, over to the trainer who was
standing by the fence.

"I said to him, I said: 'Walking Star! Don't
let him do that to you! You have every right to be in this pasture.
Do you hear me? Why are you such a big baby?' Well, naturally, he
didn't answer me."

"He didn't?" I asked innocently.

"Why, no." Pause. "Don't be ridiculous."

I heard another trainer in a crowded tack
shop explain to her friends that she had been working with a
bloody-minded pony named, lovingly one may assume: "Clubber."

The pony's owners, she said, were distraught
and had virtually given up on the wayward animal ever being a
decent mount. They'd had the pony for nearly ten years and it had
spent much of that time in the pasture, terrorizing goats and
aiming its delicate little heels at any human who came innocently
proffering carrots.

"So, I was working her in the ring," the
trainer said. "It was about the second week I'd had her and I knew
the owners were coming by to see another horse they were thinking
of buying. So they show up, and watch me for a few minutes taking
Clubber through her paces--as sweet as pie--and you know what they
said?"

Her friends politely shook their heads.

"They asked me if this pony were for
sale!"

Her friends smiled uncertainly and looked at
her hopefully.

"They didn't recognize their own pony!"

Ahhhhh! Such was the power and genius of the
trainer that the owners didn't even recognize their own animal, so
transformed by the trainer's magic touch was she.

And the trainer, although probably a little
disappointed that she wouldn't have to set up an easel in the tack
shop and draw her friends a picture of her victory, smiled broadly
while looking from face to face. Saying a horse person sometimes
seeks approval is like asking if Hitler was pushy.

This sort of horse person is also fond of the
idea that the horse is a willful, rampant, barely controllable
beast that is held in check only by their skill and ability as a
horse person. They're constantly talking about "being in control",
"showing 'im who's boss", in order for the uninitiated, (or, hell,
even the initiated,) to believe that if you don't take and keep
control of your horse, he will--although indefatigably stupid in
all other areas of his life--manage to take over completely,
running up huge sums on your credit cards and borrowing the car
without asking.

Perverse horsepersonship is not restricted,
by any means, to tack stores. For example, as a group, professional
horse sellers are probably not so much insufferably didactic as
they are painfully dishonest. I have seen a horse, limping as badly
as a two-legged dog, described by a renown Atlanta horse seller to
a first-time buyer as "just stretching his leg."

A popular and knowledgeable riding school
owner once referred another neophyte horse-buyer to a professional
horse dealer by saying, "Bring a vet with you and try not to let
the dealer know how much money you have."

Of course, all of this isn't to say that
there aren't times when horse-snobbery isn't appropriate. A friend
of mine was at a party once with some NHTs (non-horse types). When
they found out she rode, they were all excited about going out with
her sometime to whoop it up on horseback.

"We could bring some beer and some sandwiches
and make a day of it!" They said.

To my friend's credit, she simply feigned a
look of confusion as if everyone in the room had suddenly broken
into perfect Swahili. She neither encouraged the direction of the
conversation or swept her skirts from the room in horror.

"One guy was really settled on it and kept
asking me about taking him," she said. "When I asked him if he'd
done much riding, he said not to worry, he just hangs onto the
saddle-horn or the mane and 'lets 'er rip'...or something to that
effect. I'm afraid I told him all my horses had swamp fever and
were being put down. He was very sympathetic."

Vanity is another good reason why nice people
go bad when they get around horses. Being a part of the horsy set
is potentially very appealing to the eye. The horses themselves are
beautiful, so right from the start, the horse person is ahead
simply by association. Also, the clothes are romantic and
interesting--whether English-style or Western.

Images of brisk days on the Scottish moor
come to mind when one sees a well-dressed rider before an early
morning hack, suede patches on her tweed hacking jacket, brown
boots on trim, long legs.

You can almost smell the morning, feel the
air, see the heather. Knee-high boots are romantic in
themselves--even if you were just going out to muck out the back
garden--bringing with them images of swashbuckling adventure and
polished confidence.

The Western garb reminds one that the old
West did and does exist. Here's your ultimate fantasy brought to
life: your cowboy hat settled jauntily on your head and your
bandanna tied prettily at your throat. There's nothing sexier than
a tight-jeaned cowgirl. Just ask any cowboy. (Or male hunter
jumper, for that matter.)

When the clothing is put together with the
action of actually riding, you get the quintessence of basic
horsepersonship. Wearing all this clever clothing while riding fast
as the wind on a ground-pounding stallion or prancing mare is what
real riding is all about. It's the ultimate fulfillment of looking
good while doing something very exciting.

It's when all this equine vanity goes too
far, as it so often does, that the horse person begins to become a
royal pain in the butt. Like the horsewoman who dresses in
oh-see-how-casual hacking clothes just to trot around the jumping
ring: leather boots, breeches, velvet riding cap, hair net (oh yes)
and gloves.

This is the type who will take her jumps like
a vivid display of horse robotics: eyes piercing blindly into the
unknown (but never looking down, mind), crest release frozen on the
horse's neck. She is, in essence, always posing for unseen cameras.
And perhaps this wouldn't be so bad, surely something one might
forgive, if it weren't for the fact that she's often posing for
unseen cameras as a sort of continual practice for the amateur
photographer she'll periodically hire to come to the riding
ring--dragging his tripod behind him--and proving to be as
disruptive as an animal photographer unaccustomed to photographing
animals could possibly be.