A Case of Arabian Horse Addiction

Arabian Horse Times Feature

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hen I was growing up, I had a dream job all lined up, just like every other kid out there. Contrary to popular expectations, it was not to be a horse trainer (even though I worked longer hours at the small training barn down the road than the stable hands did). Instead, I desperately wanted to live in the picturesque woods of the northern hemisphere, tracking wolves and protecting the ecosystem. Of course, my constant companion was a national champion Arabian horse, who just happened to be an equally talented trail horse. Beyond the occasional forays into the limelight to re-prove his worth, my faithful steed and I would stick it out in the wilderness, blissfully doing good deeds.

Now that I am grown up (at least as far as the government and my parents are concerned), I have come to the sad conclusion that I have missed the bus for the wolf-tracking woodswoman. Instead, I am graduating from a small liberal arts college with an English degree, a résumé as “liberal artsy” as they come, and no clear way to support my addiction to Arabians.

Photographic documentation shows me sitting on my first horse at the tender age of 2 months. (Actually, 90% of all my photographs are of me with horses.) However, my first actual equine memory is my 1-year-old sister and myself (3 years old at the time) sliding down the side of our 15.3 hand Half-Arabian/ half-anybody’s guess during an attempted Christmas photo shoot. I am sure that the picture would have been adorable, but all I remember is the sting of my scraped arm and my mother resolutely setting my sister and me right back up on the mare.

My mom switched to raising Arabians when she was 10 years old after a homicidal At the age of Saddlebred ran away with her sister in a near-

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ddiction

by Lauren Peyton

fatal encounter with a clothesline. She grew up showing backyard horses, and the prevailing mentality in our family was that the trainer might know how to train the horse,

6, Lauren Peyton rides CDA Winged Fire in her first class.

Arabian Horse Times • April 2006

A Case Of Arabian Horse Addiction but mom knew everything else. My younger sister and I were raised to know horses, and, thanks to my mother, I can administer a Banamine® shot, converse intelligently with the farrier, and drive a trailer. At home, on our own miniature little ranch, I learned to drive the tractor years before I could legally drive a car. Chores weren’t something that you could put off or cheat on; everybody had to be fed, mucked out, put out, exercised, etc. Proficient at the art of stall cleaning from the time I could lift a pitchfork, I viewed it simply as “payment” for the hours of streaking along the trails my sister and I enjoyed.

Growing up with a barn in the backyard, miles of trails, and a trainer who lived 10 minutes away allowed me to experience every aspect of owning and riding horses.

I had the constant, strict, day-to-day grind of nationals-level competition as well as trail rides that by all rights should have put either my horse or myself in the emergency room. In fact, our purebred gelding, CDA Winged Fire, had the dubious distinction of being entered in the most classes of any single horse at the first Youth Nationals in 1993. I had quickly tired of only walking and trotting, and had moved on to the 13 and under level at the age of 8. This

wonderful horse, being your typical, versatile Arabian, did everything; he dealt with 9 classes, two kids under the age of 10, the Oklahoma City heat, and, of course, the obligatory tornado. However, he rather miraculously survived and even managed to garner us a couple of rose blankets.

At the barn, in return for doing countless tails and longeing horses for untold hours, I got to ride basically everything. I was the guinea pig tossed on when nobody wanted to be the

Lauren riding Golly Ned to the 2003 U.S. National Half-Arabian English Show Hack Championship.

Lauren enjoying a ride with her younger sister.

Arabian Horse Times • April 2006

Lauren and her mother share a passion for the Arabian horse.

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A Case Of Arabian Horse Addiction first one on an unbroken youngster or if the horse was a bit of a dud and nobody else wanted to be around it. I rode them all, and I loved it. As I became more and more of a jack-ofall-trades, my responsibilities increased, both at home and at the barn. I worked all the horses when the trainers were gone and gave beginner lessons. I was always encouraged to stay as involved with the day-to-day training of my horses as possible, and this I did with great gusto. Riding a minimum of 5 days a week throughout the year, I came to know my horses inside and out, but I also became familiar with the basics of training in general.

In my quest to ride everything, I climbed aboard Quarter Horses, Saddlebreds and jumpers. I rode my (very confused) Arabians in team-penning competitions, and, of course, exposed the Nebraska 4-H circuit to Arabians. I even ventured into the dressage world.

As a competitor in both open and Arabian dressage competitions, I experienced first-hand the stereotypes against Arabians at the open competitions. One summer, my mother and I, notoriously late for life, showed up at an open dressage show a scant 20 minutes before my scheduled “time.” In dressage, your time of go is treated rather like one of the Ten Commandments, and people start preparing about half a day before they actually ride. My mother and I came flying into this smaller show, whipped my National Show Horse, Vallejo Heats On, out of the trailer, and in true quickchange tradition I was on the horse and heading towards the arena with my mom still braiding his mane. In dressage, everything is slow, and our mad rush was the talk of that show (especially since I won my class). My mother and I saw nothing unusual about the hasty preparation, but then we had both grown up in a world of multitasking Arabians.

A few years ago, I made another 348

foray into the world outside the Arabian show circuit and decided to try jumping. After taking lessons irregularly during my breaks from college for about five months, I decided to go to a show. Since I was taking one of the barn’s horses (and was completely clueless about the actual mechanics of a jumping show), everybody in the barn set out to help. Unfortunately, once the show began, everybody became involved with their own preparations and I was left to fend for myself. When the call for my very first class came over the loudspeaker, I wasn’t remotely prepared. Stunned that I could have misjudged the timing that badly, and mindlessly conditioned to obey the announcer’s “calls” after years of Arabian shows, I flew, tacking up the horse and myself in record time. When I arrived, breathless and excited, my trainer informed me that the classes can actually take hours to get through the order of go, and I, second to last on the list, was by far the first one ready. Feeling like a rank beginner, but too terrified of misjudging the timing to go back and untack, that poor horse and I stood at the gate for over an hour.

He got back at me in the next class, however, when during our first round he opted to duck out of a fence, easily shedding himself of me. I have been thrown off

Arabian Horse Times • April 2006

A Case Of Arabian Horse Addiction horses in more ways than I can count, but what got me about this was that it wasn’t even a concentrated effort on the horse’s part. I managed to do the slow-motion slide down his shoulder pretty well, and even kept hold of the reins. Alternating between worry over the state of my coat and laughter at my ignominious dismount, my mom told me to get out there and actually ride. That ribbon for reserve champion overall in the “short-stirrup” division of a Nebraska jumping show is hanging right next to my Nationals roses blankets, and it won’t be going anywhere soon. (Neither will the footage of my fall.)

All of these “extracurricular” activities have only served to enhance my appreciation of the Arabian horse and the Arabian show circuit. However, college interrupted my riding routine and forced me to look beyond my local barn for another way to feed my addiction.

This past year I was lucky enough to show ZA Always A Lady, a mare that my parents bought as a yearling and that I broke. There is nothing as satisfying as picking up a blue ribbon on a horse over whom your leg was the first thrown.

Sadly, or perhaps happily, economy (and my father’s business sense) won out and we sold her, setting a record

Arabian Horse Times • April 2006

for my family in two significant ways. First, we actually sold a horse we loved before it died of old age (and had to be rather illegally buried in the backyard), and two, we made a profit. My newest dream is to start my own little “cottage industry,” as my mom puts it, buying one baby at a time, breaking them (using the knowledge learned from all my wonderful trainers), and, hopefully, selling them at a profit. At the moment, this seems slightly more feasible than being a wolf biologist, but who knows what the future holds.

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