INSIGHT FROM BUCK

Is it a sign of age to love documentaries? I'm a serious fan of them and often prefer the "extras" found on DVDs over the movie itself. I have an endless curiosity when it comes to peoples lives: What makes them tick? How did they come to be where they are in life, for good or for bad? A fave author is Jon Krakauer; he's a man after my own heart when it comes to this sort of curiosity. A tragic expedition on Mt. Everest? I'm into sussing out how and why it went wrong. A young man compelled to wander into the wilds of Alaska and subsist on wild game and berries? I'm diggin' that story.

I was in heaven when the documentary Buck was released. A film about a great cowboy and horse trainer (with a tragic personal story)? What could be better? Bring on the popcorn. Only something that good could keep me out of my saddle on a sunny July day and inside a dark theatre. I was not disappointed.

There was much to love about this film. It chronicles the life of an extraordinary child performer and gifted horseman who inspired a best selling novel and film of the same name. Buck has spent his life "helping horses with people problems." While it was all good, there was an especially beautiful nugget of wisdom that I mentally polished long after the show was over; a truth about horses, people, and why some are successful while others are not.

Buck could have very easily become a statistic. Born to a violent alcoholic who beat him and his brother mercilessly, Buck was finally put into foster care when his mother died and a teacher discovered the abuse. He was shy to the point of an inability to connect or speak at all and trembled in fear the first time he met his foster father, a large, masculine man who possessed a physical strength Buck had learned to fear. Instead of feeling sorry for the young boy, ignoring him, or allowing him a life of ease and pity, the foster father immediately threw him a pair of brand new calf-skin gloves and invited him to come build fence. They spent that first day together working; Buck so proud of his new gloves he couldn't bear to wear them and get them dirty. Being respected with the responsibility of a job and treated fairly without spoiling, helped a boy in danger of falling through the cracks become a success.

About halfway through the film a similarly tragic story is introduced: a young stallion whose mother died while giving birth. The foal is bottle fed and allowed to live with his owner in her home. Coddled, loved, and felt sorry for (he was oxygen deprived at birth and there was the probability of brain damage), the foal is never taught respect or given a job. When he arrives at Buck's clinic, in all his masculine glory, the stallion is so dangerous even Buck will not handle him and instead ropes a hind foot from horseback. Though the stallion is able to be worked, to a degree, he eventually attacks his handler during the clinic and seriously injures him. Buck wisely says to the owner, "This horse tells me an awful lot about you." He continues on to say that the failure in the life of the stallion was not his mother dying, or his oxygen deprivation. The horse didn't have to be a victim and could have grown up to be of use. Instead, he was failed by the humans in his life. Sobering.

I know alot of people, and horses, that could use a pair of calf-skin gloves.

INSIDE OUT

I once watched a documentary on Thoroughbred breeding. As in other breeds, very few stallions actually make a difference. Just because an individual horse is superior is no guarantee he will be able to pass on his type. Secretariat is a notable example of this. Though an outstanding athlete the horse was weak in the breeding shed and failed to duplicate his best attributes, unlike other sires such as Bold Ruler and Northern Dancer. A veterinarian on the show said only two out of every hundred stallions is truly prepotent, consistently able to pass on their type. This is rather sobering. It means many stallions should be gelded and the genetic typing left to the animals that can actually make a difference in any particular breed.

When I decided to breed Eli last year I had this documentary in mind. He has some wonderful qualities, but I knew he wouldn't necessarily pass them on. I hoped to see his long sloping shoulder and outstanding feet and legs. Besides the physical traits, I also wanted to see something more subtle reproduced in the foals. His eye. I know that sounds weird but the eye truly is the window to the soul and mystical as it sounds I trust the look in a horse's eye. It conveys something very important about the mind--will the horse be teachable, kind, and honest? Not all horses are and, like people, potential lies within. The most beautiful horse on the outside is useless without a sound and trainable mind. What's inside will reveal itself in performance.

Any breeder knows the mare is more important than the stallion--yay for Girl Power! Breeding a mediocre, crazy mare to the nicest stud you can find will produce, roughly, 60% crazy in your foal. Eli's mares were all quite different so it was impossible to say what traits he might pass on. After a year of waiting and hoping for the best I went to see his first colts with modest expectations. It took only a few minutes of time with each one to discover what I'd hoped to find--a good dose of daddy inside(and out!).

Father's Day passed a couple of weeks ago but the power and influence of a good daddy is still on my mind. Aren't the boys cute? Stay tuned for more photos.

TWO EARS

"Your mind operates like computer screen pop-ups."So said my husband one evening before bed.

Nice.

I grimaced and said something sassy. Later I decided he was pretty spot-on. The last two months I've had a hard time concentrating on anything, for any length of time. Attention span of a gnat and all that. A boatload of responsibilities, commitments, plans and events had my mind flashing from thought to thought like those annoying computer ads that pop-up unbidden on the screen. Or, almost as bad, those flashes of top news stories and "trending now" attention-getters on the internet. The only thing trending last month was my nervous breakdown. To illustrate how random my mind became I only have to think of a night two weeks ago. I woke up at 3 a.m. with this thought: How will I cut and serve the carne asada??? I swear I spent a half hour staring into the dark and worrying about my son's upcoming graduation party and the stupid carne asada on the menu. But that has been my life: one graduating son, visiting East coast relatives, a writing workshop, wrapping up a client's book project, a new editing job, church, family, and home responsibilities. I was exhausted, but my brain was on pop-up hyper-drive.

That's why I had to go riding. Yep, right in the middle of all of it I pulled my horse out of the pasture, prayed he wouldn't be too jacked up after sitting in the field all ornamental-like, and threw the saddle on his back. I hit the trail and left a house in disorder and a party menu that needed planning. It didn't take too long for me to take a deep breath, gaze at the wonder of the Twin Sisters granite spires, and get a desperately needed reality-check. Boy, do I need to ride.

Horseback riding, for me, is the ultimate mind/body exercise. The mind slows down and begins listening--to the body, to the environment, to the quiet whispers of the spirit. I love a line in the movie The Last Samurai. When Tom Cruise is unable to wield his sword, unable to concentrate and be effective, one of the Japanese samurais remarks, Too many mind. I know all about that.

Information overload, combined with an overloaded schedule, creates a condition of "too many mind." Horse time, for me, is a time to remember to listen and stop reacting to the craziness around me--"This too shall pass" and "It ain't nothing but a thing." The perfect carne asada does not a meaningful life make.

Sometimes you get ahead faster by going slower. I seem to always find perspective by focusing my attention between two furry ears and a dirt trail beneath me, where the loudest noise is the clicking of hooves over stones, the flick of a tail, and a whiskery snort.

Happy trails, may you lose your (too many) mind on the back of a horse.

PS. The carne asada turned out great.

COWBOY UP

I think the sound of horses eating is relaxing. It could be sold as soothing background music like those nature CDs of rain dripping on roof tops and waves crashing on the shore. Instead of Sea Scapes I'd call it Hay Scapes. Or maybe Grass in the Morning (see above).

So, check out Mister Spunky! Nothing could have been better than watching him wander around and graze on a sunny morning. First time of freedom from his stall prison of the last six weeks. He is doing AMAZING. Wound nearly scabbed over and bearing full weight on the injured limb (this after two weeks of three-legged hopping and worries of laminitis due to pressure on a single hind leg). Gimpy at the trot, but that didn't stop him running around the pasture when instigated. Yes, that's right. Running. After a morning to himself I had a weak moment and let him out with Eli the next day so the best buds could enjoy each others company. Big mistake. Eli thought it was a good time to play Let's Bite the Hinny and Pretend We're At the Racetrack. At which point Your's Truly sprinted outside in her stocking feet to "rescue" a gimpy Cowboy who had an identify crisis and thought he was an Arabian stallion. Sheesh!

THOUGHTS ON PASSION

Not long ago I watched the movie Soul Surfer. If you were born under a rock (or live in a tiny town named after a cartoon, like me) you may not be familiar with the true story of Hawaiian teenager Bethany Hamilton. Born to surf, the passionate athlete lost her arm in a vicious shark attack off the coast of Kauai in 2002. Forget about surfing, she's lucky to be alive.

But Bethany could not simply forget about surfing. Her story is an inspiration and modern commentary on the power of passion. It is especially appropriate for what I have been going through lately in both my equestrian and spiritual life. Passion, as it turns out, makes all the difference when one is hit by the unthinkable.

Passion is a word I've been tempted to throw around at times in a sort of casual emotional sense. A person's "passions" are highly individual, but they are also defining whether it be a romance, the practice of faith, or expressed in a hobby. One may feel passionate about gardening, or mountain biking, or horses. They just *love* to do it so a certain effortlessness must be involved, right? As it turns out, the word passion--from the Latin passio--literally means "to suffer for." It's purest form isn't found in the pages of a Harlequin Romance; it was originally affiliated with the sufferings of Christ on a Roman cross 2,000 years ago.

Passion can be found in unlikely places; like in the tearful lament of an armless teen--"I just don't see how this can be God's will"--who initially gave her beloved surfboards away. Later, Hamilton returned to the ocean to re-learn the art of surfing. After suffering dramatically, the teenager went on to compete professionally and inspire thousands with courage beyond her years. It seems one cannot be truly passionate without first suffering in some way. When the going gets tough the depth of our passion is revealed and we find out who we really are.

In the last nine days the depth of my equine passion has been sorely tested by disappointment. It's tempting to give it in and take up something less demanding. Bird watching, for instance. I spent my birthday this year at an equine surgical center emptying my wallet and crying my eyes out while vets determined how my daughter's horse, Cowboy, will ever recover from a critical hock injury. I'll spare you all of the details but suffice it to say a mysterious "blunt force trauma" tore a tendon, punctured his joint cavity, and cracked a vital structure called the hock. This is anatomically equivalent to the human knee. It can take a horse's life if infection sets in, a very real fear from the beginning.

If this happened to Eli I would grieve, but ultimately be okay. I've suffered for my passion before (Can I hear an 'Amen'?) But this is the beloved friend of a child and, if the worst happens, will be her third horse in four years that has been lost to strange catastrophes. She is done competing in western games on this horse--maybe forever--after working hard for two years. It seems impossible and deeply unfair.Though I love this horse, my personal breakdown comes in seeing the disappointment of a child and knowing there isn't one thing I can do to make it make sense or go away--"I just can't see how this is God's will." My daughter is young and vulnerable and I feel her pain more keenly than my own--I just want things to work out for her; for life to magically become "fair."

Yesterday we were ready to euthanize Cowboy as he hopped on three legs and hung his head in the corner of the stall in misery. But xrays suggest a tiny bit of hope and my faith rests, regardless of outcome, in a promise that "All things work together for good for them that love the Lord." Eventually.

The disappointment in all of this--and overwhelming thought I'd have to put another horse down--has been such that one day I told a friend, "I think I'm done with horses." Murphy, you win. Inviting a horse and equestrian goals into my life and that of my daughter has also invited pain and disappointment. Like Bethany Hamilton, I thought about hanging up the surfboard.

The Easter season approaches as I think about all this, medicate a stall-bound horse with an uncertain future, and let my daughter decide where to go from here. It's a good time for us both to consider what it means to follow the heart in the various passions that define it. And on Sunday, passion will be celebrated in the picture of a cross. It epitomizes committment, courage, suffering, and reward. I'm inspired to "count the costs" and choose my passions carefully.

Happy (passionate) Easter.

A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

My favorite spring things? Little girls in Easter dresses, miniature daffodils, Reese's Peanut Butter eggs, the mossy smell of moist dirt...and a newly born foal. Here's one of Eli's first sons...isn't he handsome?

A SLEAZY STORY

Yes I know this looks like a wholesome horsey scene, but it's going to get sleazy. Trust me.

Today I wanted to take a break from heavier blog fare like the previous one and have a little fun (My deepest thanks to all of you who shared your heart with me). Meet clever entrepreneur Jennifer Teigrob. When faced with a new season of life--becoming a mom--this former horse trainer found an innovative way to enjoy a passion without sacrificing her family. I found her story of creating a small, home-based business inspiring.

Describe your horse life BC and AC ("Before/After Children"), Jennifer:

Before I had children I spent ten years training and giving riding lessons. I managed my barn and worked with all disciplines of horses. I did alot of colt starting and enjoyed working with horses with fear and aggression issues. I taught horsemanship for beginning through advanced students, offered a horse camp every year, and did everything from show prep to working cows. It was a blast!

After my first daughter was born I cut back to mainly lessons and a training horse from time to time, she just went everywhere with me. However, my second daughter required Mom's full attention! I knew right away my days of working outside the home were finished. My husband and I felt strongly that I needed to be home with the kids and, thankfully, God has blessed my husband with a great job that allows me to be home.

How have you managed to stay involved with horses?

When I was younger I went through a naughty phase and in my freshman year got kicked out of Home Ec class for refusing to cook (don't tell my kids). For punishment, my teacher put me in an advanced sewing class with a bunch of seniors. I loved it! It was my favorite class in highschool. Then about three years ago I began sewing polo wraps for fun and selling them at local horse shows. Last year I added sleazies. The business is small but it has done well. It's fun to create fun custom sleazies for girls in colors they want, not just what's available at a tack store. And I can do it out of my home. I mainly sew to support my horse habit and to fill that void of I-need-something-to-do-with-my-life.

Okay, the obvious question from non-horsey folks--what the heck is a sleazy?

A sleazy is a lycra hood that fits over the horse's face and neck and attaches around the belly. They are most commonly used for horses being shown to keep them clean the night before a show and to help the mane lie flat. They can also be used as an added layer of warmth in winter, to help horses prone to sunburn, or to protect the mane if a horse rubs. Originally, I think they were called "Sleazy Sleepwear" but the name morphed to just 'sleazy.' I wish someone had come up with something else...I've been called The Sleazy Lady multiple times in one day!

What does life look like now? I take it you still have horses?

Life is busy and fun. My three-year-old knows all the names and colors of fabrics and loves to open the boxes from UPS when they arrive with new fabrics. My almost 2-year-old enjoys walking around with a pink tape measure draped around her neck. You know, I wouldn't trade it for the teaching/training routine. I do not think I will return to that in the future. I spent ten years meeting client deadlines and having horses to work. These days I've taken a real turn for natural horsemanship and am trying to return to the carefree joy of riding and being with horses; not always have an agenda. Currently I have a colorful Appaloosa gelding named Rascal who really lives up to his name. He is fabulous and needs lots of play or he'd be bored to death. Too much arena work and I'm sure he would find very inventive ways to amuse himself--at my expense! I hope to do some competitive trail riding with him in the future. I also have Gina, my retired Anglo-Arabian mare; she is 22. Lastly we have Cookie, a black and white pinto mini my daughters enjoy riding and driving.

What's on the horizon for your business, Sewcial Butterfly Designs?

I have been invited to be a vendor at a huge show in Nampa, Idaho in June. Last year there were over 1,400 entries! So, I have been making inventory for that and I think this will jump start the business. It's exciting but a little scary. I'm really thankful for my very supportive husband who has been helping me plan and is coming with me to be Cash Register Guy. Hopefully I'll be busy taking measurements for custom orders and helping people pick out fabrics. Besides the sleazies and polo wraps I have added more items: tail/mane bags, helmet covers, grooming aprons, English pads, quarter sheets, and shoulder guards. And I love making costumes and custom orders!

Thanks Jennifer! We wish you lots of luck in the future as you combine the things that you love. Visit Jennifer on the web and ensure your horse is fashionable at the next show (see below).