The Rest of the Zoo

So, I should totally have included Teddy in the riding horses post. He's ridden, after all, but my mom rides him most of the time. I did hop on him the other day when my mom was trying a couple saddles (threw one on Red, one on Teddy, and swapped horses/saddles--that was a very fun ride, and productive, as Mom has a nice saddle now). Anyway, I'll lead with him.

Teddy
Teddy's been on the "let's be a veterinary pain in the ass" tip lately. He actually fell down one day, right to his knees, when my mom was on him. She was just walking him on a long rein in the ring, too. Nothing to fall ON. He didn't trip, he just kinda collapsed. Thus began a very VERY long and even more expensive journey to figure out why he did that and what's making him off. The short version is, we never did really figure it out, but through some "diagnosis through treatment" efforts, he does seem to be sounder. He isn't sound enough that I'd show him, but for some light hacking out, he's just fine. And he's still incredibly adorable.

Ink
My darling love Ink is 34 now, and celebrated his advanced age by scaring us TO DEATH the other day. This was the day Mom and I took Teddy and Red to our friend's ring. When we came home, he was lying down, with his butt uphill from his head, in a rocky ditch (our ring is at the top of the short hill--it's all designed this way to drain, and the ring doesn't have a fence around it, just a small panel to keep the footing in). He must have been stepping down the hill from the ring and tripped. He can't really see out of his left eye because he has glaucoma, which we're having trouble managing. So anyway, he's lying in the ditch groaning and kicking at his belly. His gums were purple and sticky. I called my vet and was like GET HERE NOW WITH THE PINK JUICE HURRY, because he was groaning like you would not believe and we just wanted to put him out of his misery ASAP. So Mom and I were sitting in the mud with him and crying when the vet arrived, hopped over the fence, stuck a syringe of banamine in his neck and hurried through an exam. She was like, "Let's get this sheet off, it's kinda tight on him." He was wearing a turnout sheet, and when he slid down the hill, his shoulders really jammed up in the front of it.  We struggled a bit to do so, but when we got the blanket off, he... stood up. Like it was nothing.

So we walked him slowly back to the barn, and he was nudging us and nickering and generally acting fine. After about ten minutes, when he didn't try to lie down again, we let him go in his stall. Where he stood, all pricked ears and nickering, until we gave him a handful of his dinner. He gobbled that up and was super insistent about eating, so we gave him his whole meal. He was fine. Totally fine.

He was just blanket bound. We almost put down a horse for having tightened his blanket on himself.

Not all is perfect with the old man, though. That glaucoma is bothering him (despite rigorous treatment on our part) to the point that he rubbed his eye and gave himself a corneal ulcer you can see with the naked eye. It's a really horrifying injury. Now he gets five drops in that eye twice a day (and three of those drops every 2 hours) in an effort to save his eye. I don't know if it will work. A couple more days and we'll make the call. The encouraging sign is that his eye is vascularizing, so his body is trying to heal it. I do think it looks a bit better today, but maybe I'm being optimistic for no reason.



Rocket
Rocket... is a coming-two draft cross filly, you know? She's beautiful, and sweet, and totally smart. She's also got an ATTITUDE, and is a handful to handle. Nothing out of the ordinary for her age and type, but Mom and I are realizing that we're not really set up to work with her and handle her safely (especially if I do manage to land a faculty job and move away). So... at this point, the plan is to send her to the cowboy we love. He'll pasture board her over the winter, and then in the spring/summer he'll start her VERY lightly (the mare is probably 16hh now and solid as a rock--please do not post anything slamming me or him or whoever for choosing to lightly start an enormous 2yo). Then she'll likely find a new home. Mom and I want to make sure she ends up in good hands. I think she'll be a very nice horse for someone, because she's a gorgeous mover and quite clever. But for us, right now, it isn't realistic. If you're interested in her, shoot me an e-mail and we can chat.

Grayson
Good ol' Grayson is just Grayson-ing around. We thought we'd have to take him in to get a tumor removed, but then it just kinda... went away? So he got to skip surgery. In the meantime, he's still acting like an idiot racehorse when we bring him in about half the time. He's 23. He's totally sound, I could be riding him, but he's a lunatic. So he can just hang out in the pasture and harass Red and that'll be that.

 

Overall, all is well around here. I just wish it would STOP SNOWING and GET WARM. I have important canter transitions to work on.

Gone Fishin'?

Sigh.

Here's the list of reasons I haven't been blogging. You can skip this part if you just want to get to equine updates:
1. All of a sudden I got VERY BUSY, mostly because the academic job search season began. It's still ongoing, so my blog posting might remain sporadic for awhile. We'll just have to see.
2. Related, I really need(ed) to get back into the groove of academic writing and publishing. Between having two jobs, my own horses to take care of, and 2+ horses to ride, it's been a struggle to find time. See #1.
3. I got and remain furious over the events over the summer relating to Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and the other rash of police murders of black people in the US. So writing about horses just wasn't on my priority list, even though my actual horses remain central to my life. I won't write about it here, except to say that #blacklivesmatter.
4. Winter means a lot more effort into barn work (not that it isn't already a lot of work) and the holidays are what they are.

Okay, so! How are all the critters? That's what you really want to know. I'll catch you up on the riding horses, Mo and Red, today. The rest of the zoo can wait, in the interest of actually getting something on the site.

Moses
You guys. You guys. Mo is the greatest. 

Looks sleepy, was actually a bit of a wild man.

His first grid--not the one described. He rocked it.

Okay, so we have a couple of days every couple of weeks wherein he's like "I AM A GREEN THOROUGHBRED!!!" and he bucks and acts like kiiiiiind of a jerk. But M and I just laugh at him and put him to work. If M is in the ring, she'll set up a grid or something. Even if he wants to buck all the way down the long side, he gets into the grid and is a BOSS. Earlier this month, for instance, it was a bounce to a bounce to a two stride to a two stride to a bounce to a bounce. The jumps were low (the middle jump was probably a 2'3" vertical and that was the biggest), but that is a HARD grid. He read it perfectly, every single time. This horse has to be the most natural jumper I've ever sat on. He gets there, he reads the question, and he answers the question. The shape he takes in the air is phenomenal.

After his three-week break.

His flat work is coming along pretty well, too. He's got a butter-soft mouth. Sometimes, of course, he has little temper fits or his body gets sore or his brain is overworked and he doesn't want to give to the bit. But most of the time (even Saturday, when he'd had probably 3 weeks off) he is a treasure. We're still struggling mightily with the canter, and getting that sorted out is my #1 training priority. We need to work on canter departs on both leads (no more starting-gate racehorse stuff, pls), getting the right lead (seriously, horse, you are the soundest animal alive, and one of the most athletic--YOU CAN DO THIS), and then finding a rhythm (fair enough for where he is).

Of course, now it's winter, and we're not riding much, but at least he's still cute to look at. Of course, the weather took a real nosedive shortly after I trace clipped him (terribly--this is a skill I must practice). M and I might haul over to a friend's indoor a few times a week, but that can only happen on days when the roads are perfect. Also, because I work in the afternoons, I have to ride in the morning. Often the footing in M's ring will be frozen in the mornings but thawed by the afternoon, so she can ride but I can't. It's true that I could drive my mom's rig 30 minutes to M's, then another 30ish minutes to the indoor, then back to M's, and then home. But I can't afford the gas to do all that driving, and that's two hours of driving alone. So this might just be a low-riding winter. That's okay--he can have extra time for naps.

When the naps are this cute, you can take all you like.

Redmond
I've actually gotten to ride Red a little more often than Mo. For one thing, the footing doesn't have to be totally perfect to hack him out.

It was about 30 degrees this day. We had a wonderful ride.

Not from the day of our field trip, but how cute is he???

 I know he isn't going to pull any silly baby antics, because he is not a silly baby. I don't have to lunge him at all, and although some walks would be better if I could boot him out in front of my leg to trot a bit, if we can't, it's fine. Mom and I did haul him and Teddy over to our friend's gorgeous ring a little over a week ago, and that was a lot of fun. Red was convinced he was there for a jump school and was on his tippy toes for a solid 30 minutes. He never did one single bad thing, but he was WOUND UP. It was hilarious.







Because Red runs hot, he also got a trace clip. I think I did a better job on his than on Mo's, but whatever. Hair grows back.

This was how I spent my Christmas Eve night because I'm totally normal.

This is the face I'd get when I had to give him meds. Nice, huh?

Red gave me two scares. The first, and more serious, was a bout of colitis. It's impossible to know what caused it. It was a challenging time, because I was worried about how sick he was and because I had to give him so much medicine. Red, I learned, is impossible to dose. I seriously cried a couple times. And he would barely touch feed at all, certainly not when it had evil poison medicine in it.







We got through that, though, and after maybe a week, he cut his inner right forearm and his leg BLEW. UP. Fortunately, by then, his appetite had returned enough that I could sneak the doxycycline in his food. Some doxy, some banamine, and some cold hosing, and he turned around. I've seen a couple tendon sheath infections and I don't need to see any more, but I think his swelling was mostly edema. So now we're back to having fun riding whenever I can.

I redeemed myself with lots and lots of peppermints.

So that's it! I'll be catching up on all of your blogs, too. Sorry you haven't been hearing from me. It's not because I don't care, I promise!

Amato Rosso

As I've said since he got here, I really like Red. He's a big old doofus, even though he is pure evil when he is in a stall. He's fun to hack around, he's fun to do a proper flat school on, and he's really fun to jump (if you like them hot, which I do).

Because I like him and he's working for me right now (and for my mom, who enjoys flatting him--this guy has three very nice gaits), I haven't been too concerned about what his past history was. I know what I know from riding him. My friend who hooked me up with him told me he did "the big jumpers." But she's a dressage rider, and she doesn't show at all, and hasn't been to many jumper shows if any. So when I asked for further clarification about divisions and whatnot, she didn't know.

The thing about jumping is that, as I said in my rules change post, a jump that looks tiny to you might look huge to me. So if you don't jump at all (and are perhaps afraid of it), or you're just starting out, or you're riding a horse without a lot of ability, or hell--if you've been schooling 2' in the indoor all winter, a 3' square oxer could look enormous to you. That's fine. So my friend doesn't have her eye up as far as jumping goes. But when you say "the big jumpers" to me, I think Open Jumpers and up. Big jumps. Money classes.

I got bored the other day so I decided to dig around and see what, exactly, the "big jumpers" were that Red did. It took a bit of digging because I didn't have his USEF number and I wasn't sure of his registered name (Amaterasu, my friend thought). Then I got smarter, and looked up his owner's USEF page. Sure enough, there was an Amato Rosso. There's our guy!

From what I can tell, his owner started him in the 80cm classes in 2009. This is perfectly reasonable, about 2'6". He moved up to the 90cm (2'9") and then the 1.0m (3'3"). This is the standard progression. I kept scrolling, kind of expecting to see a meteoric rise in height, but I didn't, because he's a normal horse and she's an amateur. They had some good results, but the highest they did was the 1.15m (3'7", or prelim height).

Does that mean I like him less than I did before? Hell no. I also don't think this means AT ALL that his scope tops out at 3'6". I know the difference between a good jumper and a bad jumper, and I have personally trotted a 4' jump on him. Who knows why he didn't make it further. Perhaps he would have if he hadn't blown his suspensory. Or maybe he wouldn't have. It doesn't matter one bit.

So there you have it. An "I don't know anything about this horse in my barn" story that doesn't end in the fairytale "holy shit he did mini prix" stuff that people love to write about. Red had an average career in the low-level jumpers and that's where he stopped. While I am very unlikely to take him to rated jumper shows because I am poor and I have to focus on Mo's career first, I have a good feeling about him jumping around 1.15m again with me if it sounds fun and a show comes up. I wasn't likely to show him any higher than that anyway, in consideration for his leg. He's SO much fun to ride and that, at the end of the day, is what matters.

Oh, but one cool thing: his dad was a famous GP stallion, Amaretto D ii. Cute, huh? Looks just like my guy, but a hand shorter and a slightly more refined face.

Not that I would trade these big loppy old ears for any face.

They don't even fit in the frame!

USEA Rule Changes: Perspectives of a Once and Maybe Future Eventer

Wow, Facebook is hot today. And I have a opinions. Always a good combination. So even though I published the Red post this morning, here's another one coming atcha. I figure most of you won't read it until tomorrow anyway.

My opinions are at least somewhat informed. My coach is on the USEA Board of Governors, and she's integral to the decision-making process here. So I've gotten a lot of information straight from the horse's mouth, if you will.

The US Eventing Association has two proposed rule changes that people are talking about at the moment: Increasing the cross country speed a little bit at beginner novice through training level, and also adding one jump in the stadium phase that is up a hole and a little wider (so, essentially, a jump from the next level up). You can read more about it on Eventing Nation. Let's take these one at a time and go from there.

Increased XC Speed
Here's the thing: If you're on a horse of quality with a good canter, barring a stop on course, you're going to get a speeding ticket at BN through training level. A rider with a close eye on her watch could theoretically avoid this by circling on course or trotting. This creates problems, though, because it interrupts the flow of the course and the horse's rhythm. Horses that will be expected to move up need to canter from jump to jump and not waste time. It's stupid to circle on XC, but everyone does it. Or they take the penalties, but in this case, the horse is being punished for doing things correctly.

But what about horses who can't handle the higher speeds?
There are a couple reasons a horse might not be able to handle the higher speeds: it is slow or short-strided, or it is hot and needs those trot transitions or circles to get its head on straight. The thing is, those circles are still going to be allowed. And we can't gear XC speeds towards the short-strided, we just can't. Most eventers are not ponies, and a pony or horse going BN that can't go 350mpm isn't a novice-level prospect. And it isn't true that all ponies can't make that step. Teddy O'Connor clearly could. I coach a BN kid on a 13.2hh pony who has to circle to avoid the speed faults. I live in Virginia, too, and all our XC courses are plenty hilly, which should slow things down but doesn't on most horses.

So what? I want to stay at BN anyway (or my kid does, or I am just raising this as a theoretical argument). Your "that horse isn't a novice prospect" point doesn't work on me.
That's fine. You can stay at whatever level you like. Not everyone is or should be looking to move up a level. But we still arrive back at the point that too many horses get punished for having a good, appropriate canter--far more than will get punished for not having the step. It's just as easy to say "who cares about time faults for going too slow, just go at your horse's pace" as "just take the speeding ticket, assholes."

Consider this: when do we want horses and riders to get comfortable jumping at a forward pace? At BN through training, when the jumps are small, or at prelim and up, when they get more challenging? I think it will actually make eventing safer if everyone learns to gallop or at least canter forward when the jumps--and the stakes--are lower.

Shouldn't eventing be trying to make itself more amateur-friendly to get people into the sport? It's had a lot of bad press lately. You'd think the USEA would want whatever advantage it could get, and making XC faster and one SJ jump higher isn't going to help.
I hear this. I'll return to this point in a minute, because M had some pretty good insight here that encapsulates both the XC speed and the SJ height. But as far as the XC speed itself is concerned, remember: one can always make the choice to go slower. It isn't as though the guillotine awaits anyone who wants to take their time on XC on a green horse or at their first time at a new level. In jumper land, we don't even think about the jump-off for like a year at least. If you get there, huzzah, but it isn't the goal.

Making one SJ jump higher and wider
The deal with this is, you've got the possibility of one SJ fence on course that's like a move-up to the next level. It isn't a requirement, I don't believe (or won't be if these rules come into effect).

This one seems to be ruffling more feathers than the XC speed, and I find that very curious. I get that we all have to get our eye up and that a jump that might look like a tiny warm-up fence to one person looks insurmountable to another, and I'm not here to tell anyone that their comfort level is wrong or not good enough. Not at all. But let's keep a few things in mind:

1. These are rated events we're talking about, not schooling events (this goes for XC time as well--plenty of schooling horse trials around here don't even have an optimum time for XC). In theory, if you're ready to compete at a rated horse trials, you're probably schooling a level up at home. Every trainer I know would be working on that with their students before sending them off to spend the money at a rated show. So one jump at a height that you're schooling at home shouldn't make or break you.

2. A little bit of trust for course designers here, huh? That one bigger and wider fence could be in the toughest spot on the course, I suppose, but that isn't likely. I bet good, conscientious course designers--the ones that tend to get paid to design for rated horse trials--will put it in a thoughtful spot. I mean, if you're riding in a championship and everything is tough, then I wouldn't expect that. But I bet most course designers will keep in mind that the one bigger jump could come somewhere towards the late middle of the course where canter rhythm is established but before the horse is out of quarters.

3. It is, in fact, the case that in every other country, the SJ jumps are higher. US eventing has had a tough go of it in international competition lately (including a cringe-worthy performance at WEG). If we want to deepen our bench, we have to get it together and get our riders up to the level that other riders are doing. This should better prepare our riders and horses for moving up. The jump up can be kind of a shock, especially from training to prelim, and this should ease the blow.

Which leads me back to...

"What about the ADULT AMATEURS who DON'T WANNA MOVE UP THE LEVELS??!"
Okay okay! I hear you.  And I don't disagree. This is the dilemma, though. Do we let the lower levels stay super easy compared to international standards and keep people in the sport? Or do we focus on the horses and riders with upper level potential at the cost of adult ammies?

I don't think we really have to make this choice. There are a lot of things that USEA wants to do that would help even things out a bit. For instance, a little birdie told me that they're talking seriously about allowing coaching on course in the lower levels. I think this would help tremendously in coping with that one bigger SJ jump for BN riders. I wouldn't be surprised (though the birdie did not say this) if we heard that the eventing scene is going to look more like the h/j world in other ways, like having BN through intermediate or advanced at more shows so that the lower levels can get the important education of watching upper level riders do their thing; or that having a trainer hop on a jerk horse for a few minutes in the warm-up wouldn't be grounds for elimination in the BN and novice levels.

So as is probably clear by now, I'm in favor of these rules changes. I feel more strongly about the XC course time than the SJ fence, but I'm in favor of both. And I will eventually have to put my money where my mouth is, as M and I have eventing plans for both Mo and Red in the spring.

I eagerly await your comments. I'm sure this will get interesting.

ETA 10am: I forgot something. One thing I'm hearing from the people opposed to the rule change is "people need to learn to ride to pace." But that is exactly why I am in favor of the rule change. Learning to ride to pace means finding your horse's appropriate pace for the level. Circling at the end of the course is not riding to pace. It's wasting your horse's legs and energy to avoid getting penalized for having an appropriate canter through the course. Of course, some people do ride hell bent for leather, rule change or no rule change. But that shouldn't happen, and the technical delegate ought to be (and usually is in my experience) on the lookout for dangerous riding. 350mpm is not a crazy fast gallop.  I really do think that most people who are at a lower level on a short-strided horse are going to be able to make the time still, without riding like crazy idiots. The idea behind the rule change, in other words, isn't to make anyone ride faster. It's to prevent the circling at the end of the course. I hope that makes sense.

Catch-up Post: Red

Dudes, I love this big goofy red guy so much.

Red is two horses. At home, he's the quiet chill boy we all know and love. He's the one I can practice on without stirrups or cruise around in two point in all day (no official 2pt challenge for me this year, as I have two bad ankles and I'll get mad at myself if I can't be in the top tier, but I'm working on it anyway). At M's, though, he is AMATO ROSSO, the SHOW JUMPER, and you'd best not forget it. He won't even walk. He'll jig, he'll trot, he'll canter, and he'll rush fences, but he will not. freaking. walk.

I can only walk when I'm in my stall.

It's kind of funny, though. He's not scary, he's just like "LEMME AT 'EM!" He doesn't want to warm up. He wants to jump, and he wants to jump right fucking now. This is not an attitude I dislike, really.

I've taken several jumping lessons at M's. In the first few, we were in a plain snaffle. I needed more brakes, but a Smartpak snafu meant I didn't get the Waterford I ordered (fortunately, E found my old one and mailed it to me so I wouldn't break my neck). It was fine, but there were some moments that it would have helped to have a little more brakes.

First vertical in our first jumping lesson.

We did some pretty fun exercises over several lessons because M is a genius. Among my favorites was a bascule exercise (a trot vertical, starting about 2', with rails 7' out on either side so the horse has to bend his back over the jumps; over the course of the exercise, the jump goes up and the rails roll out a bit--we ended at 4' with rails 8'-8.5' out), a simple canter jump on a 20m circle (stay in the goddamn rhythm), a double bounce (haha Red, can't jump through THAT launching); and using the circle to slow him down (get his eye on the jump, and if he feels launchy, be all "oh damn actually I was just circling" until he stops anticipating and canters to the base).

Here's what I've learned about his jumping:
*He will take over. Ride the horse or find yourself in the next county.
*He doesn't like to touch rails. Yay.
*The way he uses his body means that he feels like he lands going much faster than he felt at the take-off, but he isn't. We've had a couple stops because I've half-halted when I shouldn't and taken his eye off the jump (but remember that thing about how he will take over? Be ready to ride? Yeah, except when you just need to count strides).
*He feels GREAT in the air, especially when he looks for the quiet step, canters to the base, and jumps. Heck yeah, former Open Jumper.
*He needs me to keep a feel of the corners in his mouth until he's in the air. He also needs me to keep my leg on at the base. Figuring out that dial is hard, because if I take my leg off he'll sometimes stop, and if I use too much leg he'll launch. We're getting that sorted out, though.
*He loves, loves, loves his job.

Sunrise hack a few weeks ago. Funnest thing ever.

And here's what I've learned about me:
*Since this has been a year of flatwork almost exclusively, I've reverted back to some bad old habits that come from having mostly ridden horses who launch. I need to stay in my half seat, not lean back (which sends him forward), and look for that quiet canter to the base step myself.
* My jumping position, however, is still fine. Would Denny Emerson love it over a 4' jump? I dunno. Haven't cantered any of those recently. But over the 3'ish stuff we're doing, my leg is stable and I'm out of his way.
* Jumping is still the most fun thing I can think of to do. Come on, Mo, let's get this canter sorted out so you can get back to it!

I need to jump at least another 100 canter jumps on Red before we begin to figure each other out, I think. But we get along, and it would be hard to find a nicer buddy to get my feet wet again with. He only jumps at M's, so we jump once a week if I'm lucky. It's fine, though. I don't want to wear him out. He's super cool.

Here's some stuff I want to talk about soon, since I really do want to do this blogging thing, despite my fits and starts with access to posting ability:
Tack reviews (KY Horse halter, Smartpak halter, Nantucket bridle, Wellfleet bridle)
Specific discussion of Mo's canter work
A discussion of the USEA proposed rule changes (as my trainer is on the Board of Governors and I have a lot of thoughts)
My mom's horse Teddy and our struggle to get him sound (Is it a bone chip? Neck arthritis? EPM?!)

Anything in particular y'all want me to start with?

Catch-Up Post: Moses

Good grief. I'm the worst at this. Again.

I'll do one catch-up post per horse, I suppose. I wish I'd done a better job of writing up each lesson, because Mr. Mo has been up to all kinds of things.

Let's see: we've trotted cross-rails, verticals, and cross-rail oxers. Oh, and one bounce. He's pretty good at all of this, but he wiggles sometimes. Steering isn't perfect. One thing that makes me feel good is that even when Mr. Stripey is trying to run out, I can still get it done. He'll get over that. His shape in the air is sometimes green, but is usually quite nice. M thinks this is an upper-level horse (well, she'd say "an advanced horse," but I still haven't committed to eventing).


Even though I'm not sold on eventing yet, we did have a lot of fun babysitting M on an XC school. I just hand-walked him, but he went right over the ditch, into the water, on and off the bank--all like a pro. After about an hour of leading around, he was plenty quiet, so I lunged him for a minute and hopped on. I just trotted him around the parking area for a few minutes because we had to head out, but he was great. I was thrilled 

As far as his flat work goes, he's making good progress. His trot work is really good now, even though he's still fresh and green sometimes. He still has moments of needing to remember that it's my bridle and I get to put it where I want, but when he yields to the pressure, I can now close my leg and get him on the bit. He's not 100% consistent in the contact all the time, but I've only had him for six weeks. Overall, I'm thrilled with his trot work.

His canter work is coming along. He's getting his leads without TOTAL meltdowns now. We had a bucking/rearing fit in front of my mom one day, and he does buck hard when he gets frustrated, but he bucks in a straight line and moving forward. And, knock on wood, he hasn't done any bucking in a week. If this is his flaw, I can totally live with it. His canter can still be a bit wild. I don't have much control. It's getting quieter as we go, especially to the right (his better direction in general--homeboy hates bending left. I may have created this problem because I can hang on the right rein a bit, but I'm working hard to kick this habit and help him be more even).

Also, today I had the wonderful fortune of learning that Breyer already has a Mo model. So we'll be all set when he's big and famous.

It says "Thoroughbred Horse/Excellent Jumper" RIGHT ON THERE.

So overall, very happy in babyland. If he didn't have some green horse moments, I'd be bored. I can't wait to see where he is in another six weeks!

Five Things to Know About Being Around Gay People in the Horse World

I owe you guys updates on Mo and Red (sneak preview: they are both amazing and I love them). But in the meantime, a conversation with a new friend has me thinking about how much I don't say on this blog about being gay in the horse world.

Mostly this is because when I do find time/internet access to post, I want to talk about my horses. But there's also a small part of me that doesn't want to bore you guys or annoy you with it, and that part of me is bullshit and needs to go away. I'm obviously not afraid for people to know I'm gay (look at my blog header, or my professional life). But it's time to start talking more about stuff.

For the most part, I haven't had huge problems with being out in the horse world. Most horse people are pretty much fine with it, but not all of them, and the ones that aren't fine with it can be a huge pain in the neck. And here's the thing: you can't always know who is fine and who isn't right away. We all like to think positive thoughts about people and assume they'll be cool. But when you're queer, you can't make that assumption. It isn't always safe, or accurate. I lead by being outgoing and nice to people because that is my personality, but more often than not, my heart races and I get distracted by wondering what they're thinking. That's not always useful, but it's a fact, and you only need a few really horrendous experiences to shatter your confidence in humanity. It's like taking a bad fall and then getting on a nice quiet horse that you don't know. People tell you the horse is wonderful, but do you believe them, when you're recovering from a broken bone? Or do you wait and let the nice horse prove herself to you?

Most people are straight, including most of the readers of this blog. So here are some things I think might be useful for y'all to keep in mind. And you might have things to add.

1. If a new boarder shows up at your barn and he or she is queer, don't assume that everyone at your barn is cool with queerdos unless you KNOW FOR A FACT they are cool with queerdos. Each person is going to have to prove him or herself to the new queer person. This is a fact of life. No one is happy with it, but that's how it is. It is dangerous to be queer in many parts of the country, and it's not just religious nutjobs who cause problems. Some of the worst people in my life have been university professors. Sometimes people who are nice to you, straight person, are not going to be nice to a queer person with tattoos and "weird" clothes. So if you make friends with the queer person at your barn but they don't feel comfy around someone you like a lot, don't dismiss them or accuse them of causing drama. Listen.

2. Similarly, often the professionals we use are difficult people. I've fired more farriers than I can remember. And recently a horse dentist when on a homophobic rant at me, so he won't be welcome back. If the queer person at your barn is going to be filled with anxiety every time the farrier shows up, get their back. You can decide for yourself if you want to continue to use the bigoted person for your own horse, but if that person decides not to, be open about supporting that decision. Bonus points for bringing up the shitty behavior to the barn owner or to the person him or herself.

3. Basic stuff for any life situation: respect pronoun choices (not everyone goes by he or she, and sometimes people DO use he or she but not the choice you thought. When in doubt, ask: "Do you have a pronoun preference?" This will make you seem like a super enlightened genius. If they think the question is odd, whatever. You did the right thing). And if someone else asks you about that person's pronoun preferences, a simple, "Alex prefers 'they'" or whatever is all you've got to say. You can send them my way if they have questions you can't answer. Remember: Not ALL queer people see themselves as here to educate you. I'm putting myself out there explicitly AS an educator, which means I have to answer a lot of hard or shitty questions, but it's a role I've taken on for myself. The queer person at your barn might not want to do this work, and that's okay.

4. Another basic one: People are going to react differently to people going out of their way to let someone know they're cool with the queers. The easiest way to signal to someone that you know they're queer and you're fine with it is to mention a gay friend or relative in as off-hand a way as you can. But to be honest, it doesn't really matter to me how ham-fisted it is. If you want to just come out and say, "I know not everyone in the world is cool with gay people but I am," I will feel better around you than I would if you said nothing. Or you can tell them that you just love this blog about being gay in the horse world. :D

5. Checkity-check yourself: ARE you cool with queers? Ask yourself a couple tough questions. For instance, do you get weirded out when people are "too" gay? Feminine men, butch women, trans people, gay pride shirts, whatever? If these are a problem for you and you feel uncomfortable, figure out if there's a part of you that maybe DOES have a little bit of homophobic stuff and work on it. Gender differences are beautiful, but we're socialized to feel uncomfortable with people who stray too far from the norm. And even queer people can carry this baggage around. I know tons of gay people who aren't cool with trans people. That's still a problem. Lots of damage is done by "allies" who are fine with queer people within a certain bracket but not the more marginalized or open, etc., folks. "I like gay people but that just over the top." Problematic, not your place to tell people how to express themselves. I went to a protest once and carried a sign that said, "I don't mind straight people as long as they act gay in public," and that one made a lot of people laugh and, I hope, think. If this is you, and you want to work on it, send me an e-mail. I'm a teacher. Working people through this is gliterally what I do for a living.

Okay, now I want to hear what you have to add, or your questions. I'm sort of dashing this one off but I'm certain I'll write a follow-up soon, and I'd love to take your thoughts and insights into consideration when I do.