The Children Are Our Future

20 Replies to “The Children Are Our Future”

1. The trick is to get women out of it and back into the kitchen, etc.

2. I am wayyyyyy too poor to be in the “horsey-set” … but I have a very wealthy Uncle who was. Very wealthy. And I had THE most spoiled, bratty, cousin who had her own horses. Yes, she even boarded her horses at her Private Prep school. She was the prototypical modern rider that Katie rues. She would pitch a hissy fit if her mommy didn’t buy her the latest riding boots, or fancy bridle. She LOOKED like a really fancy, polished rider … I guess … ? I sorta don’t think she was ever any good … but looked the part, by dripping $$$$

3. Look up Rick Gore on YouTube. He has much to say about the general deterioration of horsemanship, and the tyranny of the “barn witches”. Oh, he’ll let men have it too. The biggest red flag is… pink. Pink saddle blankets, pink halters, pink wraps… If you see too much of that in a barn, turn around and leave.

4. You can take the essentials of Mz. Prudent’s complaint, and apply them to most competitive sports.
   It appears that the space between ambition inspired by hardship and the decadence of overabundance has been tragically short.

5. A former colleague from my post-secondary teaching days was involved with quarter horses, largely as a rider and an owner. We had numerous discussions on the subject, though he never mentioned anything about people referred to in the article.
   I last spoke with him about it many years ago. Perhaps the situation has changed since then.

6. How exactly? Most sports rely on the athlete and athlete’s skill alone no matter how much or how little money their parents have. Sure some sports are expensive and out of range for average families but that doesn’t negate the responsibility of the athlete to train hard.
   I believe Prudent’s comments can very easily be applied to North American society in general but to our sports culture in general? absolutely not. We are still churning out some of the best athletes in the world and that is due to good coaching and most importantly the drive in athletes to do what ever it takes to win.

7. I think that she is probably correct in her comments regarding the monyied horsey world, but that has always been a money sport though obviously more so now. On the other hand look at sports like the NFL or baseball, it should be obvious that most of these player never saw a silver spoon, at least not till they signed the big contract.

8. And as it evolved, it became clear that bad amateur riders who had a lot of money could buy really good horses and compete with the professionals.
   This strongly implies that rider skill isn’t as important as she thinks. If a good horse can get a bad amateur in the same field as a professional, then it’s the horse that matters, not the rider.
   That said, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for complaints that spoiled rich girls are ruining the sport. Show jumping has always been a rich person’s sport.

9. Any sport that is more dependent on the animal you own than the skill you have should not be in the olympics. The only way to save the sport is to make riders ride on a pool of horses so as to remove the money advantage.

10. Here’s how my family has always handled it:
    If you want to ride (or show the other animals), then you have to take care of them. We do not have the money for grooms and stable workers…those would be known around here as “the children”.
    And you might as well ride (or show the other animals) because you’re going to be taking care of them anyway…because those are known as chores. At a point, you will be required to do these on your own with no adult supervision (but with adult quality control check-ins — woe to you if you decide to slack off and cut corners).
    You also have to keep your grades up and do your household chores if you want to get the privilege of showing the animals or even going out for school sports/clubs.
    If you do those things, and have some free time, you might get to go hang out with your friends (if it’s approved) with a little spending money (because you will not get paid for doing chores, those are a necessity and we don’t get paid for doing necessary things).
    When you’re 14, you will go out and get a job — either a paying one or as somebody’s working student. This will be on top of the work you do here and at school. You learn a work ethic and time management skills — also dedication, diligence, and how to improvise, adapt, and overcome.
    This is of course much easier to accomplish when you have a large number of siblings and/or cousins to help out — which makes you appreciate a big family and mitigates any resentfulness over having to share stuff or not getting a lot of material things. You also get a certain leadership role because you have to teach younger family members the ropes and mentor them, often giving your old show clothes, equipment, horses to them; maybe even giving up some of your own ride time to teach them a lesson. Just as your parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles help you. You learn to be a leader, hopefully a more responsible one.
    And we do not have the money for fancy show horses (this part was always a bummer: the fancy horses were for selling to more wealthy people…people like Miss Manicure, who you knew were not going to care for them and really did they love them? in this you learn that life is often not fair and frequently bittersweet). So, you learn to make due with what you’ve got, which means learning about keeping less than ideal animals sound and working to the best of their ability. This makes you a better handler and trainer in the long run, as well as a more ethical, professional person. And that is really the only reason to have animals in the first place. It helps to have had grand-parents that actually worked animals and whose lives depended upon them — my grandfathers’ work horses were a bigger thing for him than even an Olympic rider’s horse, if they didn’t work; he didn’t eat. My uncle’s cow horse brought him home safe in bad weather; the hunters (horse and dog) saved many a family members behind or helped to put food on the table. Without the terriers and barn cats, rodents and vermin might have destroyed valuable food. The collies managed the livestock and actually saved a life or two by keeping the bull from charging. My dad’s scout dog saved his life on more than one occasion, which is a far more intense level of need than somebody’s dog winning them a ribbon at a show. These are the things that matter; these are the things that count.
    But a lot of people do not require such things of their kids, and they do not know or care about the true reason to have animals…and the show environment (any animal) is truly overall toxic…as it is nearly always about ego (and being on the end that has to care for and reclaim burnt out animals does help, along with parental guidance, to give your kids a good grounding in that — once you can say “no” to chasing the ribbons while competing for them, then you’re on your way to being a stable, healthy adult…but most people are not like that).

11. Yes and no. Of course the horse is doing the work, but here’s the deal:
    1) Most of those horses are ridden at home by the trainers and their assistants. They usually get worked by them 4-6 days a week, the owner comes out and takes a lesson (sometimes with the trainer/assistant warming the horse up first; often with the trainer hopping on during the course of the lesson to correct something or riding the horse after the lesson to “tune them up afterwards”. And at shows a lot of the warm-up work is once again done by the trainer and/or the assistant. I know this because I come from a family of assistants/grooms…all of my older kids have done it. It’s the one time we get to ride the big fancy ones. I’ve handed a horse off right at the show ring gate, and I’ve gotten on one nearly 10 steps coming out of it after a bad ride by the owner.
    These are the riders who can really ride, so the horse (and I’ve seen it with dogs to an extent too) are usually getting worked by somebody very capable. A lot of the owners are schooled well enough to sit up there nicely and stay out of the horse’s (or dog’s)way. They take lessons every day or most every day — but…the trainer is still getting on the horse to work out any kinks and the groom is the one who takes care of the horse (in this the trainers have gotten rather shoddy: trainers used to manage their horses far more in the stables; they knew them better in that way — now the groom has everything done and takes the horse to the trainer waiting in the arena; the trainer never sees them but for that).
    2) Horses (and dogs) are very willing and generous animals for the large part. If they know their jobs well most can and do go on auto-pilot for long enough to get through a round or test with a modicum of success provided the rider/handler stays out of their way and doesn’t totally screw up the cues. This is not indicative of the highest levels of the sport…once you get to that level you are not going to be able to just sit up there. It also does one no good if things go wrong, but quite often you can do this. And we have been very successful in breeding animals that are really quite good at their specific jobs as well as being very compliant and generous…perhaps too good at doing this.
    Not all of the owner riders are this way; some are very good indeed, better than some trainers — but we have started to see more and more of riders who cannot do anything but pose up there. Such people do well at shows and then think that they can become trainers themselves. Knowing but a little, they fancy themselves experts. This usually leads to disaster all the way around. It is leading to disaster (we are now seeing people at the highest levels that were a part of this category).
    And no, it isn’t gender specific: I’ve seen both men and women who are guilty of this.
    PS. my daughter has a sweet little grey mare; she likes to “dress” her in pink…but same child is also mucking out the stable too and is herself dressed in torn jeans and tee shirts while her horse is sparkling clean and gets pink polo wraps (which are not horribly expensive; I can afford to shell out $16 for that sort of thing)…I’d say more to the point: beware of any stable or kennel where the people seem more interested in fashion than the work is a better piece of advice.

12. …and I would also add:
    While other parents are out buying the latest iPhone or electronic gadget, I am buying a saddle pad with pink trim and little green dinosaurs and matching set of pink polo wraps for Christmas (all of which is under $50) because that is the only thing on my child’s Christmas wish list (and for a grey mare named Lolita, no less, so the color scheme sort of fits the horse and rider here). A 10 year old girl who is probably doing more work than all of the boys in her class, likely more than many who are far older than her.
    So you will see pink stuff at our stable.
    I consider myself money ahead at this point, but I do worry that my child will be stuck with picking out a marriage partner sometime in the future from a bunch of boys who have spent their lives sitting around playing parent purchased, expensive video games and have never done more work than picking up their room prior to living on their own (and often not even that, or living on their own).

13. Good stuff Jenny, thanks.

14. I disagree.
    One of the best softball outfielders I knew never took to the field without her hair and makeup just right. The coach was almost apoplectic about that. But the team won state.
    A girl should know how to ride horses, shoot straight, change the oil in her pickup truck, and always, always, always look and act like the lady she is.

15. I know next to nothing about show jumping, but what you’ve said doesn’t really contradict my point: all the complaining about riders not wanting to do the work is undermined by the fact that you can buy a win. For all that riding and training with the horses matters, you may as well have the riders carry rocks from one side of the field to the other and back again all day if you just want them to work hard.

16. I would be interested to know how many riders come from poor families.

17. Pink pooper-scoopers and wheel barrels ! The horror! Lol I hat them with a passion

18. You can buy a win to a point.
    When the horse suits you to a tee (and there are several types of horses that make good jumpers or dressage horses — both physically and mentally — some are lighter, some are heavier, some are light on their feet, some are really strong, some are more forward, some more laid back) and you are having a good to perfect day, yes, you can buy a win. You might even be able to buy a win on a decent but not great day.
    But bad days will happen, and that is where you need to be able to ride, which actually takes a fair amount of athleticism and mental ability/toughness.
    And not every horse is going to suit you to a tee, so being able to ride a lot of different types is a plus. This involves a fair amount of athleticism and mental ability/toughness.
    Also, not every horse is going to be trained exactly to your specifications. Horses can come with some mental and physical baggage — that will have to be worked out and may involve needing some good riding just to stay on. This involves a lot of physical and mental training — horse riding can be a pretty tough sport on the training end of it. You will be working hard, and you will have to deal with a lot of mental frustration…if you are training horses. It provides some good life lessons.
    If you don’t have both the physical as well as the mental ability (and a good dose of experience dealing with less than ideal situations/horses) you will not only not win, you could very likely end up in the hospital…or in a coffin. I’ve seen some pretty hairy situations, mentally and physically shattered kids — and a couple of pretty nasty deaths. These could have likely been avoided IF people would lay off the ribbon chasing and go home, work on the basics, leave the ego out of it (parents and trainers are often very guilty).
    A lot of our competition riders come from very wealthy families now — and wealth has always been a good thing to have in the horse world, but now we don’t have horse owners giving talented but poor kids a shot at the good horses. Rich families buy big and can employ trainers. Poor but talented kids work for the trainers…they don’t show; they school the horses. It has gotten to the point that the riders in the show rings often don’t do anything with those horses other than hop on right before the in-gate. That’s what the market demands.
    But they won’t be able to handle those less than ideal conditions well.
    Horses, trainers, staff that can’t give them the ideal conditions all the time usually don’t fare too well either.
    It used to be that the money was in hunters, saddle seat, and western pleasure because you had to have the “just right” horse to be competitive (and lots of outfits for both horse and rider) — jumpers, eventers, western speed classes, and even dressage was done locally by people of much more modest means and the horses were certainly not perfect. You didn’t need a closet full of expensive outfits, your tack didn’t have to be super fashionable just functional, and the less than perfect horse could be competitive up to a certain point with a good rider and good training/management which the rider was providing the majority of. That is no longer the case.
    Most of the jumper riders now started out on the hunter circuit — I think there is something to that (and this is no knock against hunter classes persay — it takes some skill to develop a good hunter, but even moreso than the jumpers you have to start out with a horse that is really capable; if they don’t move, look, and act just right, then forget winning in the hunter ring; it’s the same with some of the western classes.
    LOL…Mel as long as my kid is cleaning the barn I don’t care what color the poop scoop is…my son insists on navy blue, so when he’s out there it’s nice, masculine navy blue.

19. What a fabulous parent you are. Your daughter is destined for a very successful life … so long as she doesn’t re-bel … or pick one of those slouching game boy experts.
    If our society had more parents like you … like we used to … there would be far fewer crises and trouble in society. Sorry, but the 1950’s had far more things RIGHT … than wrong.
    You made me smile, and feel more hopeful … which is rare these days

20. I haven’t a clue about horse competition. the one time I climbed onto a saddle around 13 or 14 I feel off when the horse shifted. cant remember if the drunk that owned the horse told me to stay off or I refused a 2nd try.
    I never worked on a farm, but agonized over wtf does it take to do so? any farmers out there willing to let me do so unpaid for a couple weeks/months just for the adventure?
    nope. well, their loss because much later in life my knack for mechanical things and deeply rooted work ethic left me with my own place and early retirement. yup, their loss.