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.

Does Anyone Know What Day It Is?

One day last week, I woke up in a strange bed and tried to recall what day it was. Aha! I remembered that I had to ride a young horse in the Materiale class at 3pm today and therefore today must be Saturday. Working my way back from that information, I determined that we were in the month of July, I must be in the town of Woodside (where the show was being held), and I was therefore in a bed at my friend's house in a nearby town. Whew!

Welcome to the life of a horse trainer. We equine professionals spend so much time on the road that entire weeks blur together. In fact, I don't even remember June of this year. I'm wondering if leap years ever eliminate whole months. Anyway, I sometimes think the life of a traveling circus performer may indeed bear more stability than what we horse trainers have.

I was giving a clinic recently somewhere on the coast of California after a five-day stretch of teaching and competing in different towns when a gentleman asked me where I live. I couldn't remember the last time I slept in my own bed.

"My car?" I feebly offered, thinking that might be the most accurate thing to say.

He had read on my web site that I live in Santa Cruz, Calif.

"Oh yeah. Well, yes, I have an address there," I answered.

He looked puzzled.

"I mean, in theory I do live there... if I were ever there, that is."

You see, the nice gentleman fell into the category of people who don't own horses and are unfamiliar with the vagabond lifestyle necessary to sustain oneself in this industry. I was at a party last night with several other such folks. Pleasant innocent folks who "ooh and ahh" when they hear I train horses for a living. Their eyes widen, their mouths turn up rapidly into giddy smiles. I know what they're thinking, these people who have to work in offices all day under fluorescent lights. They think I lead the most glamorous life on the planet.

Wow, they think, she works with horses all day! Of course, to them this means that I live in a world much like the one portrayed in National Velvet. I wear fancy hats with feathers in them. I drink mint juleps every day at 4pm. I have a stable boy who lives to polish my boots and wrap my horses' legs. I gallop like Lady Godiva through lush green countryside in the late mornings. All while collecting a paycheck.

"It sounds more glamorous than it is," I admitted to the party-goers, wondering if the goo on my right arm was dried horse slobber or fly spray. Little do they know I've never had a mint julep in my life and I think the last time I galloped through lush green countryside was in 1996. But I can live for weeks out of one suitcase, and like most horse people, I can sleep positively anywhere. I may not immediately know where I am when I wake up, but I can usually toggle together those details after a cup of coffee and a phone call to my groom!

A few weeks ago, I was driving down a highway somewhere here in California when my mother called. I was admittedly a bit groggy from shaking off the previous day's heat exhaustion, horse show fatigue, and general weariness. Nonetheless, I was leaving a horse event in one town for another event in a town a few hours away. Characteristically chipper, my mom asked where I was.

I looked at the road signs and then at the brown hillsides. Then, I looked at the other cars on the road with me. Embarassingly, an answer did not present itself immediately. I forgot for a moment if I were leaving a horse event or heading to another one, or both.

"You know, Mom, I'm not really sure," came my answer. "Hopefully, I'll figure it out by the time I get where I'm going."

God Bless the Mares

My sanity as a trainer had been called into question numerous times. The reason is because I love mares. Most trainers-- perhaps possessing better judgement than myself-- prefer to work with geldings for the simple fact that they are easier to work with. Much easier.

With mares, you get unpredictable moods, sometimes erratic work ethics, alpha issues, etc. Basically, you need to spend twice as much time to accomplish the same thing with a mare that you do with a gelding. But as lacking in reason as it is, the fact remains that I love them.

I blame my affection for mares on my father. Put a bitchy mare in front of my dad and he goes all soft and mushy. He still denies it, but the doey look in his eye when a mare is trying to kick him or bite his arm off is indisputable.

My father belongs to the small percentage of the horse world that lacks enough self-preservation to compete in Combined Driving Events. To the unacquainted, these events include hurling a horse and carriage through death-defying obstacles at the speed of sound. For these competitions, my father was well-known for always driving an ornery mare that no other trainer in his right mind would hitch to a carriage.

At one competition in Gladstone, New Jersey, my dad galloped out of an obstacle, his mare kicking apart his carriage until pieces began to fall off. The crowd gasped. The mare squealed and charged, champing on the bit. My Dad could be heard softly uttering "Adda girl, git up. Good girl." I think he may have actually been smiling as his carriage fell to pieces around him.

Somehow, he managed to finish the course in a record-setting time and win the competition. Afterwards, he sponged down his mare like a proud father. The rest of us wanted to kill her for any number of reasons: public humiliation, financial loss of broken harness and carriage, knowing the next competition would be a repeat of the same, etc. My father, though, gently patted her and went to collect his blue ribbon.

Over the years, he drove numerous feisty mares to unlikely victories. Once, a mare he was conditioning at home took off in a full gallop headed straight down a busy road. The fact that his life was in jeopardy seemed not to phase my Dad, who decided his best option was to stop fighting with her to slow down. Instead, he stood up in the cart and pronounced, "Okay, you wanna run, girl? Then, let's run!" We heard her thundering hooves against the road from miles away. Next thing we knew, she streaked past our farm like a race horse with my Dad standing upright in the carriage, chariot-style, holding on to the reins to keep from flying over the back of his seat.

When I began training professionally on my own, I quickly realized that I, too, was cursed with this affection for mares. While sane enough to avoid Combined Driving Events, I'm still askew enough to always have a far greater number of mares in my barn than geldings. And when their moodiness impedes my day, I blame not them but my father!