Horse Crazy by Susan Kiernan-Lewis Read Free Book Online Page A

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