Walk Like Me, Talk Like Me

Anyone who has spent much time around a training barn or at horse shows recognizes quickly that a trainer's most valuable accessory is what I like to call his "groupies." These folks comprise the small cloud that follows him around, always close at his heels and aware of every move, much like the syncopated block of folks in a marching band.

When the trainer sits down, his groupies cluster around like baby hens and find their own seats near the nest. When the trainer acts busy, the swarm in turn flusters off in various directions to occupy themselves. And so it goes. They are like a loyal shadow, mirroring the trainer, propping up his ego, laughing at his less-than-funny jokes, and marveling at his unparalleled skill with horses. And they pay him for the opportunity to do this.

You see, groupies are important and worth cultivating because in large measure, they are an extension of us trainers and whatever impression they give the industry is-- sometimes unfortunately-- how the industry then sees us. This can obviously work in a trainer's favor, or to his detriment.

As a trainer, you hope for well-heeled groupies, not to mentioned well-behaved ones. At shows, you picture the cloud that follows you around as a fashionable ensemble of sophisticates tastes and articulate speech. You hope for a tidily groomed batch of grateful and polite women, eager to help each other out, encourage other competitors, and tell you that you're the best rider they've seen on the West Coast. When they stock your cooler with your favorite snacks and beverages, it's an added bonus.

Equating you with the quality of your groupies, fellow trainers and competitors immediately elevate you to a level that would take years to achieve by sheer hard work, good training, and a successful show record. Your colleagues and prospective clients automatically assume that, judging from the caliber of your groupies, you must surely ride only the best horses, collect top dollar for your services, and speak in a snooty nasally tone.

In fact, groupies are so pivotal in the status of trainers' careers that I've witnessed more shrewd trainers than I focus their efforts on cultivating groupies more than on training horses. Instead of riding horses all day, they put their efforts into shmoozing, photo-ops, and managing their image. They actually sometimes end up making far more money than the rest of us for the reasons I stated above. It's like the Enron business model applied to the horse world.

What the average trainer usually ends up with, however, is quite different than a uniformly well-heeled group of loyalists. There are generally at least a handful of questionable seeds in the mix. And as I've said, these characters do far more for your reputation than your talent, skill, or show record. For better or worse.

I recall an episode at a Regional Championship competition that all too clearly illustrated this fact for me. The loudspeaker paged me to the show office--a stereotypical nexus of paperwork run by over-worked grey-haired ladies and occupied by nervous competitors. Certain that I had handled every detail of my entry forms, stabling payments, etc., I couldn't immediately imagine what business I possibly needed to attend to in the office. So, I took my dear old time wandering over there.

By the time I arrived, not only was the loudspeaker paging me for a third time, but a small army of horse show officials in golf carts had been dispatched to come haul me in. I heard the commotion inside the office long before I got near the door. There was yelling and screaming. There was crying. There were boyfriends involved. Upset over-worked grey-haired ladies. It sounded bad, very bad. And I had a nagging suspicion that the source for the commotion, and the explanation for my being paged and the golf cart brigade, was one of my clients.

I swung open the door and, yes, there stood one of my own. Apparently, she had taken it upon herself to go straighten out some paperwork in the show office (ignoring strict instructions from me to never go anywhere on her own, lest she go off like a loose cannon as she was now), and nobody seemed to know what prompted it, but she was now in the midst of a full-blown hysterical breakdown. Perhaps it was the sheer stress of needing to put signatures on a few entry forms. Or deciding between entering her horse in a class on Saturday versus Sunday. Who knows. She was now choking and shuddering for breath, throwing papers around the office, her eyes were bloodshot.

The other competitors unfortunate enough to be in the show office with her had smeared themselves against the walls, much like at a high school dance where pimply teenagers try to blend into the furnishings. In this case, they tried to stay out of arm's reach from my now- crazed client. The ladies running the office stood aghast, like four helpless deer paralyzed by headlights. They had contemplated whether to call the police, the state mental hospital, or me. Obviously, they settled on me. They had decided this spasmodic emotional eruption was my problem, let me deal with it.

In the end, I did somewhat deal with it. With the help of my cowboy friend, we physically extracted the wailing woman in question from the office, restrained her in a horse stall, and outlined for her why she was never welcome to attend another show as my client. Given the extent of her distress and flailing, I considered our efforts heroic. However, they did nothing to smooth over the damage that had been done by the episode.

To this day, fellow competitors still talk about the "great horse show office meltdown." For years, I was known as the trainer "who has the crazy client," even though I never again had a repeat offender of that behavior. I was known as the trainer who could ride well, yes, but who could also sling a blathering adult woman over her shoulder and haul her from the office.