By: Bob Goddard
It was a turning point in the history of our family. For seven years, our lives centered around horse shows. With two horse-crazed girls, my wife Jenny and I had grown accustomed to watching our money, our weekends, and our sanity vanish into a vortex of horse show mania. But now, at 17, our daughter Jamie announced she was giving it up, “I want to switch to trail riding, Dad.”
One down, one to go.
It wasn’t a surprise. Jamie had been attending fewer and fewer horse shows in the last couple of years. It’s kind of like flossing: if you let more time pass between each occurrence, eventually you have to admit you’re not really doing it at all.
Besides, Jamie always seemed to have more fun on the trails than in the show ring. On the trail, a girl can take all the wrong leads she wants and the woodland creatures won’t mark her down.
I thought of all the money we were going to save with just one girl showing. Of course, we were going to miss Jamie’s share of ribbons and trophies. I think we still had a few storage boxes that weren’t quite full.
So yes, this was a good thing. I nodded to Jamie, “Okay. Go do it. Go trail ride.”
Jamie glanced at Jenny with the He-Doesn’t-Get-It look. “Dad, I’m going to need some things.”
I wasn’t about to discourage her. “You mean like a backpack and a thermos?”
“Actually, I need a new saddle. One designed for long distance riding. You know, an endurance saddle.”
“An endurance saddle…”
“Yeah, a lightweight synthetic one. And new saddle rigging. I’ll need double rigging, maybe even triple rigging, you know. And a Ride-N-Tie bridle, a browband strap, wide stirrups, a bosal, and a breast collar, and a crupper.”
“A crupper…”
“It helps keep the saddle from slipping when you’re going down hill.”
“Sounds like a great idea, Jamie. Do they have cruppers for checking accounts? Why can’t you use the things you already have?”
“I can’t trail ride with show stuff, Dad. I need functional equipment, not decorations. You want me to trail ride in a saddle seat outfit? That would be like you going to church in your Star Trek uniform.”
“I got rid of that.”
“No you didn’t. I saw it in a briefcase under a box of ribbons in the garage.”
Jamie handed me a copy of a trail riding magazine. It looked like one of many I had seen around the house lately. “Look through this, Dad. You’ll get the idea.”
What Jamie was proposing was not a casual thing. This magazine had ads for special trail equipment, articles on how to use special trail equipment, reports on trails across the country, tips on preparing your horse for the trail and information on trail riding vacations. And a lot more. I could see how trail riding could become a way of life – especially if you got lost and never found your way back.
However, the one thing missing from the magazine was an ad for a bank or other lending institution. And I did not notice the words “bargain” or “sale” anywhere.
With Hiliary sticking to showing and Jamie on the verge of trail riding utopia, Jenny and I would now have to support two ways of life.
We were about to become a mixed family: one horseshow kid, one trail rider kid.
Here, in our little family, alien worlds were about to collide. It would be like having the Liberals and Conservatives under one roof. It would be like yin versus yang, East versus West, Arabian lovers versus Quarter Horse lovers … well, hopefully not that bad.
