You have got to be kidding me, its 70 degrees out!

Yeah, I know but its almost October, Will, October, its time to start thinking about these things. Look, this one is a nice plaid, no doofy purple this year.

Uh oh, you’ve been shopping on Ebay again haven’t you?

Yeah, I got a great deal on this one and if it fits, she has a lightweight one in green! Hold still.

Unh, its hot! Whats with this neck, you put it on wrong its all they way up on my neck.

Its a high neck, nice huh? Rhino makes em’ right don’t they? Hold still. I’ve got to adjust out the belly straps.

Oh, look I can put my head all the way down with this one, cool!

Put your head up, and stop making faces at Angel. What are you 3?

She’s making faces at me!

Fine, whatever, stop making faces. Put your ears up and hold still.

Seriously, its 70 degrees out. I already have a blanket I don’t need a new one.

Too bad, you’ve got a new one, and you’ll get one more, I’m donating your old ones before you completely destroy them.

You told me the last one had a two year warranty!

Doesn’t include horse damage…That means when you make bad faces at the girls and they bite you and rip your blanket its not covered.

There’s hay waiting for me in that stall you know.

You don’t look like your starving. Walk around, make sure it doesn’t rub.

Did I mention its 70 degrees out today…and humid?

One lap down the aisle and we’re done, c’mon clippity clop!

Hey Dancer, how’s it going?

DON’T YOU DARE………….kick at him.

Heh heh, surprises him every time, little creep.

You know he would be your pal if you’d stop trying to kill him all the time.

He bites.

Not, like hard though.

Ok, dinner time, I’m done with this fashion show.

Do you like it? Is it going to be warm enough?

Sure, fine, whatever….HAAY!

Two more minutes.

What? No, hay.

Pick up your foot.

Wha…No Hay! You send down to the end and back, now its hay time.

Yeah, well I forgot to pick your feet, now c’mon, foot please.

FOOT.

Fine, here, hurry up.

Thank you. Now this one.

Unh, hay.

FOOT!

Ok, you can go eat. Is your waterer working?

Yes.

Ok, goodnight.

Um, are you forgetting something?

Your halter is off, water is working, aisle swept, brushes put away….think we’re good.

Treats.

What?

Treats, you know cookies, you forgot the cookies.

No I didn’t, I just put them in the feed room.

Don’t you think I deserve a cookie.

For standing in the barn aisle?! No, I don’t think so.

Not even just one cookie?

Maybe after our ride tomorrow. Goodnight.

Ride?

It was 9 AM and, even though the sun was promising a hot summer day to come, there was still dew clinging to the grass. Kids and their ponies were scattered around the outside of the small local stadium, clumped in groups of two or three. A few still looked sleepy eyed – no doubt hauled out of bed extra early for the day’s festivities – but most looked bright eyed and excited for the competitions to come. Horses and kids alike were decked out in their finest, dads and moms rushed around attending to last minute details. A mom carefully pinned a number to the back of her son’s shirt, adjusted his hat. A dad fussed with a horse’s mane, spoke softly and seriously to his teenage daughter – a little last minute coaching? A steward announced that horses and riders in the day’s first class should begin lining up. The taller kids scrambled aboard on their own, the shorter ones got a leg up from a handy adult.

It could have been a 4-H show in Iowa, or a hunt class in Connecticut, or the start of the annual rodeo parade in my own Colorado hometown. I said as much to my companions as we watched kids and ponies form a rough line outside the stadium entrance. It could have been anywhere where people still love and ride horses but, in fact, it was the outer reaches of outer Mongolia. There were stark differences too, of course, and though I took note of those over the coming days it was the similarities that I carried home with me. I went to Mongolia for a variety of reasons, some deeply personal, others rather silly, but the main reason I went was to meet and ride with one of the world’s original horse cultures.

The morning’s first race was for mature stallions, marked by their long manes (all other riding horses in Mongolia sport roached manes) they were small, 12 and 13 hands high, and sturdy, able to easily canter to the next county in a day without tiring. Their forelocks had been tied up into a distinctive up-do, resembling Pebbles on the Flintstones, their tails were wrapped in sky blue katas – ceremonial Buddhist scarves. The jockeys were children between 8 and 13 years old, all had ridden since the day they were able to pronounce the word chuu (Mongolian for giddyap) and hold the reins. The kids were dressed in traditional brightly colored jockeys’ outfits – many handed down through generations – they included a crown shaped hat and sometimes, a cape. All but the smallest jockeys would ride bareback and, for reasons I was never fully able to discern, barefoot as well. The race would be 30 kilometers long and last three or more hours, most of it out of sight of the spectators who waited at the finish line for horses and jockeys to cruise in from an ocean of grass – rather like watching a yatch race to conclude.

Nadaam Festival Racer

As strange as some of the trapping of a Mongolian horse race seemed to me, there were things Mongolians found strange about me. Wearing a helmet when one rides is seen as very eccentric to most Mongolians. Mongolians name horses about as often as Americans name their appliances, they are after all, not members of the family, nor are they pets. Most Mongolians would be perplexed, even horrified, to see horses kept confined in stalls for much of their days, they are after all, meant to roam free the wild steppe and open grasslands. I found myself incredibly grateful for the gift of affluence. For having been born in a society with the wealth that affords us decent veterinary care by merely picking up a phone. The wealth that allows us to keep horses not as transportation or wealth or food but merely for the pleasure of an afternoons ride. The wealth of knowing that if I fell off my spoiled horse on such a ride, a hospital was just a short ambulance ride away. I suddenly realized what a gift it was to be able just to gift my horses with a name because he was my friend and not the key to my daily bread.

Despite all this I found that the nearside of a horse is the left side the world around and horse people are basically horse people wherever you go. Get a couple of young people on horses and soon enough they are giving each other those familiar sidelong glances, sizing each other up, the race is soon to be on. Nothing in my opinion, can quite compare to racing off across the fenceless wilds of the Outer Mongolian grasslands.

We travel I suppose to see the remarkable, the exotic, the unfamiliar, but in the end it is really the familiar, the utterly mundane, that we usually bring home with us. Later in the afternoon, after the kids races had been run, the wrestling matches and the archery competed, the festival food all eaten, the local gossip passed around, our guide set out a couple of empty water barrels in standard clover leaf pattern and challenged a couple of young guys to an American style race. Whooping and laughing, they rollicked around the barrels in what couldn’t really be described as a standard pattern, but, it could have been any backyard rodeo in Wyoming or a playday in Texas or gymkhana in Ireland. Wherever people still love and ride horses.

Trying a hand at barrel racing

As some of you may have guessed by reading a few recent posts, Whales & Friends® has a new contributing blogger, Teakay. Her passion is horses and we are thrilled that she has joined us. If you share Teakay’s fervor for horses, own a horse, dream of riding, have a child that prefers to spend their days in the barn,  consider the stables to be your second home, or maybe your first, then check back often to read the words of a kindred spirit.

Whales & Friends® Horse-themed gifts are great for any occasion.

My first official steed was actually a burro, concrete and sized for a four year old. He lived in my grandmothers yard. It was with him that I first began to learn the intricacies of tacking up. Using my Encyclopedia of the Horse as a guide, I fashioned halters and bridles and harnesses from clothesline, built sulkies and chariots from cardboard boxes. His ears eventually crumbled away leaving two spikes of rebar to impale the shins of unsuspecting adults. Over the years, a few days before some school holiday or another, an uncle would valiantly attempt to effect new ears with a bag of Quickerete and some chicken wire in anticipation of my visit, but inevitably the repair would fail and within a month and the burro would return to rebar ears. I always felt it lent him an air of character, this burro was, after all, an adventurer not content merely to tote baskets of flowers like all the other garden burros, it was with him that I would ride into the Colorado sunset.

Because I had to leave my steed behind in Colorado, I had other horses at the home stable in Idaho. Breyers, of course, the Cadillac of horse toys. I acquired my first on my seventh birthday, there was a special trip to a department store where I was allowed to choose whichever one I wanted. I chose Buckshot, a gray and black leopard spotted mustang, whose flying mane and tail and jaunty pose made him irresistible – and totally unable to stand up without leaning on something. I soon had a small herd of Breyers, including Man O’War, a fine Dappled Tennessee Walker, Misty of Chincoteague, and several cheap plastic horses (for use at the beach and in the bath, to spare wear and tear on the show horses). I received my one and only Barbie from some deluded relative or another, but decided she was stupid because she was unable to ride any of the Breyers with her non-bending legs, I longed for a Breyer Brenda with her knee joints and blue jeans and sensible footwear.

Christmas at this house came in late summer when a neighbor’s grown son would arrive on a Saturday or Sunday with a stock trailer full of cheap (and usually broke down) ranch horses purchased at auction early that morning. The horses were unloaded, bathed right on the front lawn and tied along side the trailer (standing right in the street!) to dry while their manes and hooves were trimmed, in the late afternoon they were loaded back up and returned to the auction, hopefully to turn a tidy profit. In retrospect this was perhaps not the most scrupulous of businesses, but to be able to sit on the sidewalk and gaze or ride my bike slowly up and down the street, to pick out just which one I hoped to own someday was a time I looked forward to all summer long.

When we lived for a time in upstate New York I preferred to go back to school shopping at the outlet mall, not because of the fabulous bargains on name brand apparel, but because a trip to the outlets meant driving past pastures full of Thoroughbred brood mares and their foals. I really hoped someone would buy me a jockeys whip or goggles from one of the silly tourist shops in downtown Saratoga Springs and I began staying up late in the summertime to watch the sulky races live on TV. Around this time came a silver studded bridle that would hang in my bedroom for nearly a decade before being pressed into service on my very first horse.

By the time I reached Colorado and high school I had a loose association of friends and acquaintances all of whom owned horses I could ride on a regular basis, a decent pair of riding boots and my eye on a cheap place to board that first horse. His name was Puppy, he was a grade horse out of Texas, black with only a white star, a marked ear, and loved to chase cars and barrels. Ten years and yet another state later I have a car full farriers equipment and loose hay, an apartment that could be mistaken for a high end tack room, and my eye perpetually on some Icelandic horse or another. The silver studded bridle still hangs on my wall and though I outgrew him after too long my burro was returned to me as a graduation gift, and currently resides between the TV and the stereo, rebar ears still a constant threat to shin bones. I recently sold most of my Breyers off on Ebay, but there are still a few hanging around and in the right light my aging chestnut Quarter Horse could almost be called orange.

• National Velvet – Poor Mickey Rooney so young…did he know he would be forever linked to horse movies after this? Did he know that hardly anyone would remember the rest of his career? This is the original, and I mean original Girl and her Horse movie, it invented the genre.
• The Electric Horseman – Redford, Fonda, a gorgeous horse, the very best of the Utah backcountry. Need I say more?
• Into the West – This is the horse movie hardly anyone has ever seen or heard of, that is too bad because it is probably the best one on the whole list.
• The Horse Whisperer – For extra fun you can play spot Buck Brannaman in some of Redford’s “whispering” scenes. Try not to cringe during the opening sequence that did for trail riders what Jaws did for swimmers.
• Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron – I have not actually seen this movie, but I did put enough Spirit plastic toys on ice cream cakes to know there are about 4 million six year olds out there who would want it included.
• Sylvester – Shamelessly hokey, shamelessly early 80’s, Melissa Gilbert in the spunky girl role and Richard Farnsworth in the Mickey Rooney-gruff-but- loveable-horseman role, yet another overcoming-long-odds-with-my-horse story, what’s not to love?
• The Black Stallion – I know everyone will tell you that its the first half of this movie that they found most inspiring at age 8 or 11, especially this gal: Stacy Westfall and yeah, the whole riding bareback on the beach is pretty irresistible, but personally I always found the second half a little more gratifying. Kelly Reno may have been chosen for his riding abilities, but he and Mickey Rooney are so good together, the shots of the Black running through those empty city streets are so ghostly and haunting, and the final race somehow overcomes its goofy trappings to come out quite perfect. Its really the second half of the movie that shows you why Carol Ballard directed four of my top ten movie picks.
• Dances With Wolves – I would argue that this movie is the real reason “Dun Factor Fever” hit the western US in the 90s and hasn’t quite left the horse world yet. Yes, there are Indians and a civil war and romance and some kind of history lesson and dancing wolves in here, but I think the real story here is all about Cisco. If you’ve ever driven through South Dakota and seen the highway signs every like, 12 miles advertising “the REAL Cisco from Dances With Wolves” at the next gas stop/tourist black hole only to find some buckskin nag in a corral out back, then you understand why I feel this way. Truly that horse hit some kind of nerve with the American public.
• Hidalgo and Wild Hearts Can’t be Broken – What? these movies aren’t anything alike! Well ok, but really they are…Both shamelessly, hopelessly hokey, hokey, HOKEY. Both about flawed but basically good people who have had some bad breaks overcoming long odds with the help of that one special horse that understands them better than the humans around them. Both “based on a true story” and then sanitized, glamorized, and Disney-fied to be almost unrecognizable from their much darker and more controversial roots. Do I own both of these films on DVD? You bet. Have I watched theses movies over and over to the point of memorization? Yup, and I haven’t tired of them yet.
• The Man from Snowy River – The movie inspired by a poem that inspired a TV show, a musical “arena spectacular”, an Olympic opening ceremonies, and basically an entire tourist industry in Australia…Yes, actually its that good. Personally I have always been more of a fan of Return to Snowy River – I know, I know but what is a horse crazy child of the 80’s to do? It was the first movie I ever saw in a theatre. The first. Actually, it may have been Harry and the Hendersons, but I’m not prepared to talk about that right now.
• The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit – Dean Jones, a Disney contract player from such films as The Ugly Dachshund, The Million Dollar Duck, Monkeys, Go Home! and That Darn Cat stars in….You’ve never heard of The Ugly Dachshund?! You missed Monkeys, Go Home?! You don’t know about the Million Dollar Duck?! Well that is really a sad loss for you though hardly unexpected, however if you haven’t seen That Darn Cat you are beyond help…Anyway, Dean Jones’ movie daughter wants a horse, Dad can’t afford a horse so he gets his pharmaceutical company boss to sponsor her, enter Aspercream the dapple gray show jumper, zany escapades ensue….and oh yeah, a very boyish Kurt Russell appears. This movie has the barest hints of being inspired by the real life Snowman….You don’t know Snowman?! Snowman – bought off a slaughter truck went on to win several national show jumping titles? Snowman, like the greatest Cinderella story in horse history? Ok, well if you ever spot The Horse in Gray Flannel suit jammed in the bargain rack between straight to video Barbie features and a Vin Diesel flick, its worth the $4. Trust me.
• Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers – No, this is not a movie about trolls and elves and evil wizards and walking trees. This is a movie about horses, and horse people. This is a movie about Shadowfax and….that horse that Viggo Mortensen rides. And have you seen the totally awesome extras on the expanded DVD? No I do not think its geeky to own the expanded 4 disc DVD set. If you saw it you’d wish you got to be one of those New Zealand riders who got to camp out with their horses and dress up and armor and you know, try and kill orcs and trolls, and its SO cool how they trained all these horses and how they did all the battle scenes and yeah, they sold the horses afterwards and some of the stunt people got to buy them….yes that’s right some lady OWNS Shadowfax. Oh, I bet you’d like to see all this cool stuff but you can’t borrow my DVDs now. Not after that geek comment.

My Friend Flicka – No its not on the list, because it is a good movie but a better book, and no I am not open to discussing the possibility of including the remake with Tim McGraw either.

Seabiscuit – Box office gross notwithstanding, read the book.

Black Beauty – I think there are like 14 different versions of this story on film, the reason? None of them came anywhere near the phenomenal and phenomena that was the book.