I Know A Few Horse People!

Surprise Is A Near Sighted Porcupine Falling In Love With A Cactus
Cowboy Proverb

I remember hearing my creative writing instructor say, we should write about things we are familiar with and understand. I repeat this advice to myself at least once a week; my old writing instructor’s words have served well as a guide, but they have never been humorous until today.

When You Got Nothin To Lose, Try Anything
Cowboy Proverb

Robin Abcarian was probably excited about the prospect of covering the horsey story of Ann Romney, while trying to gain political traction for the failed presidency of Barack Obama; however, writing an article on a minnow in the shark tank and trying to expose the secrets of life in the shark world is laughable.

Apparently, Ann Romney sold a horse and the horse turned up lame at a later date. Does Robin know how many advanced Dressage Horses turn up lame at some point. I’ll let you in on a little secret, Robin, nearly all of them. Lameness finishes up all the careers of dressage, jumpers, hunters, and three day event horses; it is not a question of “will” or “if”, it is a question of “when”.

It was the end of a long day in a stuffy Simi Valley office building. Ann Romney had been under oath for more than four hours, testifying in a sometimes contentious deposition about a pricey horse she sold that may or may not have been afflicted with a condition that made him unrideable.

In the airless room, Romney was getting annoyed.

“That really is — that really is irritating,” she said when the opposing attorney implied she didn’t know who looked after her horse in Moorpark when she was at her home in Boston. “Of course I know who was looking after my horse. You’re just trying to irritate me.”

Stupidity and overwork on the part of a rider or trainer can lead to premature lameness, but if a horse continues to advance and compete, they will eventually become lame. (Ask any human athlete at the upper levels if he has lameness) There are a few “iron horses” that never display lameness, but they are approximately one in a thousand.

Is Dressage an Elitist Sport? It can be, especially, if you ride in Sullivan Canyon, Beverly Hills, Malibu, Calabasas, Thousand Oaks, Hidden Valley, and Moorpark; however, there are low scale operations in those areas, where the riding is comparatively inexpensive. Although, I must report, some of the Liberals’ biggest and wealthiest donors and fat cats are horse owners who live in these areas and their horse stories of indulgence would make delightful reading material for many Americans. I am sure they would gain far more traction than Ann Romney’s deposition over a horse deal that went south. (Not an uncommon event by the way, but when someone feels like a fool in California, someone else should pay.)

When we speak of spending excessive amounts of money on equine indulgences, comparing the Libs in Sullivan Canyon and Malibu, to Ann Romney in Moorpark, would be like running a race between a freight train and a fat man. The LA Times might call some of the Lib Fat Cats with horses and ask if they mind having their horse indulgences opened up to the internet. Ask if they want the public to know of luxury bathrooms in barns that cost more than most homes in California or if they want to hear of wood from Africa and South America being used to build stalls for their horses. Luxury digs for horses within twenty or thirty miles of people living in the drug infested squalor of the ghettos of LA. The same ghetto dwellers for whom they pretend to care for so self-righteously.

Do Not Tamper With The Natural Ignorance Of A Greenhorn
Cowboy Proverb

Ann Romney says she loves her horses and I believe her; although, I have never worked for her and I don’t know her, but I recognize her compassion for animals, for people like her, people with genuine or real compassion for horses, generally have the same compassion for humans.

Many horse owners have no compassion for horses when they can no longer perform, they become more like inanimate objects; to be frank, they become disposable, they become devoid of value when they no longer allow the limelight to shine upon the rider. They are discarded with extreme indifference, for they have served their purpose. This is the real story, a story of cold callous cruelty, especially, among those who wear false compassion on their sleeve.

“It’s like children,” Romney, a mother of five, testified about Super Hit, the horse at the center of the lawsuit. “You don’t … say one is better than the other, but I loved him.”

Ann Romney spends her own money on her horses, she feels they are therapeutic and for those of you who have read my articles on horses, you probably know, I agree with her.

Romney, who rode horses as a girl, began riding seriously as an adult after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998. “I was losing most of the function of my right side,” she testified at her deposition on June 3, 2010. “And I decided I needed to go back and do what I loved before I couldn’t do it anymore.”

She soon fell in love with dressage, a fussy Olympic sport that is also called “horse ballet.” In dressage, a horse moves in delicate, dance-like steps to music as the rider, formally clad in top hat and tails, imperceptibly guides the animal.

Because it requires tremendous muscle control, dressage also provided Romney unexpected therapeutic benefits.

“Riding exhilarated me; it gave me a joy and a purpose,” Romney told the Chronicle of the Horse magazine in 2008. “When I was so fatigued that I couldn’t move, the excitement of going to the barn and getting my foot in the stirrup would make me crawl out of bed.”

So now, we know why Romney is not suited for the presidency. His wife sold a horse that became lame and during a deposition she became annoyed with a lawyer or maybe it is because she has a healthy hobby, a hobby she pays for with her own money, instead of flying around on vacations at taxpayer’s expense with an entourage. Oh excuse me, Michelle’s vacations are to promote good will around the world and show poor people how the Obamas can spend money on indulgences like separate jets to vacation hot spots, now there is an indulgence.

I would rather write about more significant political ideas, but if the LA Times wants to continue trying to smear Ann Romney over senseless and inane horse trivia, they might be surprised at the some of the secrets of the elite equestrian world.