1. The Fashionista
Most of us can fall in this category at some point or another. This is the type of equestrian who has the matchy-matchy bug. Blue polos and yellow saddle pad? Never! Green saddle pad and purple turnout blanket? Absolutely not! Never mind the fact that they will never be on the horse at the same time. Every horse has their assigned color. There are rules about these things. How dare you imply that it won’t kill her to have a mismatched tack room! Besides, she got most of it on sale. So that’s not really spending extra money. That’s saving money…right?
2. The Serial Horse Owner
This is the girl who has it all. She’s got the money to have any horse she wants (usually on daddy’s dime), but every horse she gets just doesn’t seem to measure up. She’s blowing through a new horse every few months. Many of them walk in the front door sound and are hustled out the back door a few months later with stifle injuries, laminitis, or any number of other suspicious soundness issues. She likes to sell them sight unseen across state lines with a lengthy contract that includes multiple “sold as is” and “no returns accepted” clauses.
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3. The Budget Guru
This is the horse-poor equestrian who has to make do with a shoestring budget. Her horse may have 20-year-old blankets that have been mended and patched so many times there is barely any original material left and mismatched tack bought used from ebay, craigslist, or the local used tack store, but the horse is still the shiniest, healthiest horse in the barn. He may not get the fancy supplements and a monthly acupuncture treatments, but he somehow stays sound and healthy anyway. If the horse needs message therapy that the budget guru can’t afford, she figures out how to do it herself. She takes lessons from a farrier to trim her horse’s hooves and figures out how to do basic maintenance on the truck and trailer herself.
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4. The Vet’s Best Friend
This is the horse owner who single handedly keeps the local vet and nearest veterinary teaching hospital in business. Her horse is constantly coming up lame. He’s got chronic abscesses, colic, laminitis, fused hocks, and stifle issues. Every time it rains or snows he twists an ankle or injures a tendon. He has the apparent inability to regulate his own body temperature as he has enough blankets to keep the rest of the barn warm.
This equestrian spends more time hand walking her horse than riding and the nearest veterinary hospital has a permanent stall with her horse’s name on it. Number 1 on her speed dial is the vet, 2 is the farrier, and 3 is the equine ICU. She’s on a first name basis with the veterinary hospital staff and buys holiday cards in bulk to send to the veterinary staff and farrier. Her stock of medicine and veterinary supplies adds up to more than all of your local tack shops combined and you always know who to go to for bute or vet wrap in case of an emergency.
5. The Show Stopper
If she’s not winning in the show ring, she’s throwing a tantrum at the barn. It’s the horse’s fault, the trainer’s fault, her parents’ fault, the judge’s fault, the ring steward’s fault, the other competitors’ fault, and everyone else’s fault but hers because obviously she is just too perfect to do anything but win. Obviously the judge is too stupid to recognize true talent when he sees it.
She’s got to have all the latest fashions even if it means shelling out hundreds of dollars every few months for new clothes. Obviously she has to have a different set of clothes for every class, every horse, and every season. Her tack is dripping in silver and her outfits are encrusted with sequins. She shines so brightly in the sun you can see her from half a mile away.
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6. The Collector
This is the equestrian who never seems to stop collecting horses. She probably thinks she’s rescuing them. She might even try to convince everyone she is running rescue and solicit donations when she can no longer afford to feed her herd. The problem is that while horses keep coming in, few–if any–make it out again. She probably justifies this as having high standards for re-homing.
Most of the horses probably don’t even get ridden. They are rude, pushy, and may even be downright dangerous. Their hooves haven’t been trimmed in six months, they haven’t seen a vet in three years, and their enclosures only get cleaned when the neighbors complain too much or someone volunteers to do it for her.
Related Content: Why the “rescue” label can do more harm than good
7. The Natural Horsemanship Guru
I’m pretty sure we’ve all encountered this one at some point. She’s the one who owns every DVD and book on natural horsemanship that’s ever been published. She’s got a membership to every natural horsemanship club and goes to every natural horsemanship seminar, demo, and clinic within a 200 mile radius. However, her own horse still runs all over her, pulls her around, bucks, kicks, bites, and can’t even be ridden. She spends her time playing the natural horsemanship “games” and then brags about how well Fluffy does. But whenever someone is watching Fluffy magically gets stage fright and doesn’t do it right.
Every time she sees a bit she launches into a tirade about how cruel and abusive they are. Heaven help you if she catches you with spurs. Those things are forged in the blood of Satan himself. If she does get into the saddle, she uses a giant mechanical hackamore, jerking on the horse’s face and wondering why he transforms into a bucking, bolting, giraffe.
8. The Walking Wikipedia
Want to know the recipe for homemade fly spray? Ask the walking Wikipedia. Need to know how to wrap polos? Ask the walking Wikipedia . Didn’t ask her opinion on anything? Too bad. You’re might get her opinion anyway. Some walking Wikipedias might actually be helpful at times, but they still can get annoying if they don’t know how to keep their nose out of other people’s business. Of course, then there are the other walking Wikipedias who don’t know squat but throw in opinions anyways. These are the worst kind.
Hmmm some truth in these 8 but what about the other horse owners? The animal lovers, the sponge, the precision breeder, the aspiring athlete, the aficionado, and the person who wants to share the most wonderful childhood love with every young girl she meets.
You are just getting started. And though I’ve met some of each of the eight you describe, non of these folks are why we horse people do this.