Horse Laughs

Horsekeeping Hints

I like to give public service announcements, or handy hints, especially to new horse owners or riders. I'm not that knowledgeable, but that never stops me. Based on personal experience, here are three tips for you on general horse handling.

How To Catch a Horse

1) As a conscientious horse owner, read all you can on the art of catching horses in the field. The highest practice of this art is when you merely stroll casually up to the gate, and your horse comes running in a frenzy of pleasure at the idea of spending a moment in your presence.

Those who teach this art have different approaches, but all agree: don't bribe the horse.

2) Bolstered by your new research, step-by-step pictures, and your innate bond with your horse, go out to catch and halter your horse.

3) Following the sage advice you've gleaned, don't chase your horse. Either wait patiently, pretending not to care how many eons it takes for him to face you calmly with ears forward, or "herd" him until he decides it will be easier to stop and let you come to him than go on trotting this way and that. Pack a lunch. Pack a dinner. Pack a tent.

4) After 72 hours straight in the pasture, blistered, sunburned, covered with dust and/or mud, go get a bucket with some grain and shake it by the gate.

5) Congratulations! You've caught your horse. It's not bribery, exactly. Think of it as an incentive plan.

How to Bridle a Horse

1). Slip off the halter and fasten it loosely around your horse's neck. Your horse's head should drop to exactly the right height for you to slip his bit in. It won't.

2). Holding the top of the bridle in your right hand and the bit with your left, lift your right hand over the horse's head preparing to slip the bit in.

3) Yell at him when he lifts his head up to three inches higher than your arm goes. Push his head back down. Notice the baleful look in his eye as he's noticing the baleful look in your eye. Whoever has the most baleful look will win this game.

4) Start over with Step 3.

5) Now your horse will probably lower his head. You will lower your hands. He will lower his head. You will lower your hands. You'll think this is better than The Head Toss until suddenly you find yourself folded like a jackknife, back muscles spasming.

6) Haul his head up and repeat step 3.

7) Prepare to gently slip the bit in. Your horse may now proceed to a variation of The Bridling Game, called The Mouth Clamp.

8) Try to wedge your fingers firmly into the toothless area of his mouth. Notice that he has clamped his jaws as tight as the stones of the Pyramids.

9) Keep trying. His mouth finally pops open, but his head pops up too.

10) Forget trying to get his head in the right position or avoid clacking his teeth with the bit and simply push the darn thing in with the appropriate curse words.

11) Congratulations! You've bridled your horse, and your trail partners are only a mile or two ahead of you, or your class is only half over.

How to Wash a Reluctant Horse

1) Untack and brush your horse.

2) Lead your horse to the wash rack and start confidently into the wash rack.

3) Stay relaxed and in control as your horse plants all four feet and pulls back with all his might. Give a quick tug on his lead.

4) Pull really hard.

5) Get your friends behind the horse to wave their hands, shoo and/or smack him into the wash rack as you pull with all your might.

6) Fall on your butt as your horse bolts into the wash rack. Recover your dignity and brush off wet sand, mud or worse.

7) Adjust the water nozzle and/or temperature. Spray your horse starting at the feet. Scream at him when he dances sideways and steps on you or knocks you down again.

8) Keep a rag handy for scrubbing dirty spots, like your face when he whips his wet tail across your cheek. This will be in contrast to your attempts to wash under said tail, when it will suddenly clamp down tightly and be impossible to raise.

9) Raise the sprayer to wash his face. He will raise his head. Raise your arm higher. Notice that the majority of the water is pouring into your armpit, and very little is getting on your horse's face.

10) Sweat scrape him, as more little rivulets of water pour down your arm.

11) Congratulations! Your horse is now clean, and you are a sodden mess.

Enjoy these simple everyday tasks with your horse, knowing that if he's not actively resisting, it's because he's thinking of new ways to make you work harder for him.

How to Enter A Show

People visit my website looking for all sorts of things. The other day I noticed someone had found my site by Googling “How do you enter a horse show?”

This seemed like a perfectly reasonable question, and a chance to provide a service to those who are new to the world of showing. So pay attention and take notes, because I’m going to outline a simple, 12-step process for how to enter a show.

Step 1. Receive a premium book from an upcoming show. Mentally make a note that you’d like to go to that show. Keep the book in a special place so you won’t forget. Pile mail, vet bills, horse magazines, tack shop flyers and other items on top of the book to keep it safely in place.

Step 2. Resolve to start riding more to get ready to go to that show next months. Plenty of time. Go out to the barn, only to discover that your horse has thrown a shoe and you need to call the farrier. Settle for grooming.

Step 3. Go out to the barn once the shoe is back on, but spend so much time watching your friend working with her yearling that you only have time to lunge and trot a bit. Resolve to do better next time.

Step 4. Go out to ride, and work the heck out of your horse in order to be ready to ride in that show in, what, a few weeks? Mentally resolve to check the book to find the hotel with the show special rate.

Step 5. Wake up the next day so sore you can’t move. Drag your sorry aching bones out to the barn only to find it’s a toss up as to who’s less able to work today, you or your horse. Settle for grooming.

Step 6. Get too busy at work to ride for a while, but reassure yourself it will do you and the horse good to take some time off after that big workout. Remind yourself to find the book to check for the entry deadline, it must be pretty close now.

Step 7. While cleaning tack a week later, overhear your friends talking about the show and smack your forehead with the dirty tack rag. You have GOT to find that premium book and enter, book a hotel, and get yourself and your horse ready.

Step 8. Dig through that pile of stuff to find the book. It has disappeared. Locate a second pile and dig through that. Nope. Work your way through all visible piles of papers. Disgustedly, go out to the car to get fast food for dinner, and find the book in the backseat where you threw it to take to the barn. Check the entry date, and note that you will now have to late enter and pay for the privilege of disorganization. Call the show-special hotel and learn that there are no rooms left anywhere around because there’s also a drag race that weekend. Kick something, jam your toe and realize you’ll never get your boots on so you can’t ride tomorrow either.

Step 9. Now that you’ve entered the show, which is next week, realize that you haven’t tried on your breeches in a while. Try them on only to find that, guess what, the fast food you’ve been living on lately (so you’ll have time to ride) has set up housekeeping in places it was never intended to inhabit. You could leave the breeches unbuttoned under your jacket, but there are also mysterious stains that won’t come out. Head to the tack store for new ones. Can’t ride tonight.

Step 10. Get all your tack and gear ready and console yourself with the thought that, oh, well, you can practice at the show and you really don’t mind bunking in with four other friends at the hotel, even though you’ll have to sleep on the lumpy hide-a-bed.

Step 11. Get up early, brew coffee, load your horse, leave for the show. Remember that you left the new breeches. Go back and get them. Get to the show late but what the heck, you still have a little time to practice before you ride today.

Step 12. Do your warm up, worry about how out of condition you and your horse are, get dressed. Decide since you didn’t have breakfast and you’re feeling a bit faint, you’d better grab a concession stand hot dog before the class. Drip mustard on your new breeches. Cuss. Compare old stained breeches to the new stain and decide you’re better off with the old ones and a large safety pin to hold them closed. Change clothes. Mount up. Ask yourself, are we having fun yet? Swear on a stack of old premium books that it will be different next time.

P.S. It won’t.

Equine-Assisted Economic Recovery

MEMO

TO: President Barack Obama

FROM: Ange Finn

RE: Economic Recovery Stimulus Ideas

Mr. President, it has come to my attention that you're having some challenges with the economy. If I understand things correctly, we're in a recession, consumer confidence and spending is down, credit is tight, investors are spooked, we need renewable energy, and health care costs are through the roof. Trillions of dollars, not to mention our future, are at stake. Mr. President, I'm just a regular citizen, but I think I have a solution.

Give every American a horse.

My proposal may not make sense to you at first, but let me give you a little background. First of all, horses in the US are a multi-billion dollar industry, and that's just at my house. I suggest you have your economic advisors do a little research on the spending around horse ownership. You'd be surprised, Mr. President.

Start by visiting the tack and clothing retailers like State Line or Dover. Look at the variety of goods available there. Now take into account that every horse owner, especially if it's a woman, is buying not just one or two, but tons of these items. Believe me.

So my thinking is that if you give every American a horse, starting when they reach the horse-receptive age of 10, you're going to do two things: boost consumer confidence, and boost spending. Immediately. Horses make us feel good, and once Americans all own horses (at the government's expense, of course), they will all logically fall into the pattern that every horse owner succumbs to: accessorizing. For starters, we need horse-care implements like buckets and muck rakes, hoof picks and curry combs. And we need at least basic tack, halter, leadline, saddle, saddle pad, bridle and bit. But then the fun begins.

Zebra print leg wraps. Neon bright fly masks. An assortment of sheets and blankets for all seasons; you've got your cooler, your lightweight blanket, your medium blanket, your heavy blanket. Then there's your stable sheet and your pasture sheet. Also your hoodie, and tail wrap items.

And that's just the clothing for the horse. Don't get me started on the clothing for the rider, even if she doesn't show. Since most Americans don't have a basic riding wardrobe, the stores would be swamped for jeans, boots, breeches, t-shirts, dozens of pairs of cute boot socks, and the ubiquitous ball cap. Tell the retailers to get ready. It'll be Christmas all year long.

Now let's talk about support industries. In addition to the usual vet and farrier expenditures, people also give their horses chiropractic, massage and acupuncture, not to mention buying more beauty products for their horses than they do for themselves. All those professions and industries will benefit. And of course there will be a big spike in hay and grain demand, so the farmers will be happy too.

You see, that's the secret to jump-starting consumer spending through my stimulus package. People will spend money on their horses when they won't spend money on anything else.

But, your advisors might say, there's a catch. Aren't we paying the price, in global warming, of the large number of livestock animals we currently have? They produce all that methane!

Ah, Mr. President, here's the real beauty of this idea. When you introduce the Methane-Assisted Natural Unrefined Renewable Energy plan (M.A.N.U.R.E.), you'll be a hero for coming up with an alternative, renewable, home-grown source of clean energy. Just challenge the energy gurus to come up with a methane gas collection system that can harness all the "natural resource" produced by all those horses to power our cities. Talk about shovel ready-projects: M.A.N.U.R.E. fits the bill!

And you keep stressing how we need new industries for investment; well, under the M.A.N.U.R.E. plan you can sell Petroleum Offset Opportunity units to investors. By buying these units, investors can help us gradually convert from a petroleum-based economy to one based on horse P.O.O.

Health care costs will go down, too, as everyone cares for their horses. You can give tax credits based on the amount of time people spend working, riding and hanging out with their horses, which will automatically make them healthier. (Don't tell the docs, but most horse owners already get their own basic healthcare from their vet.)

One more thing: everyone is annoyed by these corporate CEOs and their big bonuses in a down economy. So give the executives, say, one horse for every $100,000 of bonus money they've received. Those bonuses will be plowed back into the economy in no time.

Finally, because you, Mrs. O, and the girls are such role models, you can encourage us all by getting a pony for Sasha and Malia. It will teach them responsibility, help the First Lady plow the garden, and as a bonus: free fertilizer for the Rose Garden.

If you don't believe me that horse ownership stimulates spending, go ahead, Mr. President. Buy that pony for your girls. You'll see.

My First Horse Show

It's been about three years since I showed in my first horse show. The scars are almost healed, and I can talk about it now.

Here's how the madness started. After years of watching Daughter ride, I decided (once she'd gone to college) that this riding and showing thing was something I'd like to try. Our wonderful trainer found me an equally wonderful palomino half-Arabian gelding. He claims this is a horse both Daughter and I can show.

The Yellow Horse is a wonder, indeed. I decided to have my debut on him at our local breed Christmas show. This show’s long been a favorite of ours where we visit with lots of friends, but Daughter can’t come home to see me debut this weekend. Just as well, I think; I’d probably get nervous if she watched. She called me before my class, wished me good luck, and gave me some last minute pointers.

Home is just a bit inland from the Texas Gulf Coast, so we use the term winter loosely here. Still, everything is relative, and when our Texas blue northers blow in, the temperature drop can be a little startling. From past experience I know that our local Christmas show is an almost infallible predictor of the arrival of Texas winter on the Gulf.

And this weekend was no different. As Trainer pointed out, it wasn’t so much the temperature as the 50 degree drop that got to us all.

Anyway, there we were, me new to showing, the horse new to all of us, and the weather gone goofy on us. The Yellow Horse is kind of a mellow guy, which is fortunate. But he was, after all, a horse, at a horse show, in cold weather.

So I should not have been surprised when I mounted up in the practice pen, and he was a little look-y, and I got rattled and took the wrong turn out of the gate and started down the row of vendors and Trainer yelled at me and I jerked my cold, curious, confused horse into the correct passageway and got more rattled and The Yellow Horse began to do a perfect, if somewhat nervous, shoulder-in down the path toward the in-gate area. Did I mention he’s not a dressage horse? Did I mention I’ve never ridden a fresh, nervous horse at a horse show in chilly weather?

Not an auspicious beginning for my first Western Pleasure class. But once I got through the gate we relaxed because we both kinda knew what to do at that point. Ok, he knew. So we jogged, and they called for the lope, and I went through my mental checklist and struck a lope and loped around the far end of the arena and back down to the in-gate end thinking, hey, this ain’t so bad.

Now, here are words you never want to hear from your trainer as you pass him at the rail on the opposite end of the arena from where you first began your lope: “Now you’re on the right lead!” It was said in an encouraging tone of voice, but still. I don’t know much, but I know that’s not good. We finished the class and places were called and sure ‘nuff, I was fourth. Out of four. Some judges are just so picky about leads! I wish they’d give you a chance to plead your case in these situations. I would have told him, “Sir, I was not on the wrong lead. I was just going the wrong direction.”

Back at the stalls, I bemoaned the fact that I was going to have to tell Daughter about my boo-boo. And everyone said, Your secret’s safe with us! Just don’t mention it.

So I called Daughter, and heaved a big sigh, and said, Well, the first one’s over with. And she said… “Need a little help with your leads?” Darn text messaging! Darn horse show friends! She had a spy on the rail. That’s when I realized…we’ve reversed roles. She’s now the show mom, and I’m the junior rider. And like any good mom, she has eyes in the back of her head. I’ll never be able to make a move at a show without her finding out.

But hey, look on the bright side: she’ll make some kid a very good horse show mom one day!