Last year I met a lady with lifelong equine experience, every bit of which came as part of the established horse world. She lacked the haughtiness and arrogance of so many such people but she had every bit of their ignorance of horses. She was an interesting case study.
Our conversation reminded me of something that I had forgotten in all of my arrogance and haughtiness. I am learning every day and have been doing so for the past decade. I was recently thinking over the things that I either once did not know or was dead wrong about.
There was a time when I:
1. believed that horse feed and stables were good for horses.
2. believed that horses that were ridden a lot would benefit from being shod.
3. did not know that the oldest and rarest genetic grouping of horses in America are located in Corolla.
4. did not know that obesity is the greatest threat to a domestic horse's health.
5. did not know that, after proper conditioning, a 13 hand, 750 pound Spanish mustang could carry my 220 pound body 50 miles in a day with no difficulty.
6. believed that the show world's idea of proper equine conformation had any basis in reality.
7. believed that a harsher bit was the answer to the problem of a horse that was difficult to handle.
8. believed that there was a correlation between the cost of a horse and the value of a horse.
9. believed that Lido and I could go on training wild horses for another 20 years.
10.believed that happiness could be found anywhere out side of the horse lot.
(The photo above is of Croatoan, the father of my last 1/2 Corolla, Werowance, left to be sold.)
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