View From the Cheap Seats

Creatures of Habit and Humiliation?

by Sarah Vas

Show season is normally well under way this time of year but the massive hiccup from 2020 has a lot of us still getting into the swing. I haven’t ventured out with a trailer full of horse shoes and hand grenades since September, 2019. I’m a bit out of practice. Out of practice filling in entries, packing tack trunks, braiding manes. I never gave much thought about hauling to and from a long season’s schedule of events but even driving feels wildly unfamiliar these days.

I’ve had some crazy moments behind the wheel, even though most are inconvenient blips compared to Kansas. Nothing will ever top Kansas. But, like Kansas, blown tires or burst brake lines are external emergencies that I have to manage. Only rarely has a catastrophe been by way of my own doing. Only once, was my indiscretion fodder for public ridicule.

I was squeezing my gargantuan trailer into a challenging spot at a local year-end show. No big deal for me to navigate a dog leg through shed rows, back blindly towards a chain link fence, and stick the landing with my truck squarely aligned under the gooseneck. Normally, I wind up unhitching our rig all by myself. The Beast, as we’ve dubbed my behemoth six horse head-to-head, has a stout set of double landing gear with a good ol’ fashion, two-speed manual crank. We’ve considered a fancy-pants electric power jack conversion kit every year. But like most creature comforts, that expense always got shoved to the back page of the budget priority list. Therefore, few will escort me twice to the trailer parking because everyone takes a turn cranking.

So, there I was, popping Ol’ Bessie into park and climbing down to detach her fanny from our 40-foot traveling circus when a friend happened along. He and his father-in-law had also just arrived with their collection of kid-broke ponies and ponybroke kids. He planned to squeeze his trailer next to mine. As I went through the motions of the unhitch routine, a lively chat about all things ordinary commenced. I shimmied over the bed rail and opened the coupler while we agreed on the convenience of these spots close to our respective stall rows. I wrangled mismatched chunks of 6x6 wood post under the left and right jack plates while we compared class schedules. I dropped Bessie’s tail gate and unplugged the trailer while the father-in-law excused himself to herd the grandchildren.

I was then poised for the long, arduous task of exposing that mysteriously puny ball out from under the kingpin coupler. No stranger to this chore, my friend politely excused himself as I began my several minutes’ workout at the crank. No worries! I don’t have the breath to really chat while fully engaged in what is the equivalent physical effort of an hour-long, upperlevel spin class. So, I cranked… and cranked…and peeked under the gooseneck…and cranked some more…and some more… and peeked a second time, hopeful for daylight.

I’ve accomplished full body clips on tack-stall-phobic, jigging, jittery horses in the dark of night at state fair facilities. I’ve survived epic hurricane force summer storms blowing through the wind tunnel shed rows of the Kentucky Horse Park. I’ve packed, hauled, shown, and cared for six horses, three teenagers, a toddler, one Nana, and a dilapidated RV at a regional event in the heat of July. Nothing is more exhausting or more loathed than hand cranking The Beast up off the hind quarters of my trusty one-ton, especially at the start of a long competition weekend. Much like that dreaded annual visit to the ‘lady doctor’, I just bear down and go to my happy place until it’s over. I had cranked with everything I had until the coupler was well clear of the ball. My thoughts were already ticking through the setup checklist awaiting me back at the stalls as I slide into the cab and pressed lightly on the gas.

If you’d had told me, with all my trailering proficiency, that I would do the thing seasoned haulers say only inexperienced newbies and city folk do, I’d have laughed you right outta Dodge. The thing I thought I’d never do… I did. If I’d have believed that the thing I did, I would actually do one day, I’d have done it years before. Gotten it over with. At home. In Private.

Something about my friend’s

Behold, the Horse Show Dad...

Who says they only hold the horse and write the checks? Looks like guarding the tack room to us!

Winfield Farm & Forge, Ltd.

Exploring the Arabian/Welsh Sport Pony Cross for Carriage & Dressage Kevin & Sarah Vas / Owners, Breeders, Artisans Grafton, Ohio / 330-242-3440

Sarah Vas, a second-generation horsewoman, writes about her decades of adventure and mayhem among several breeds and disciplines, and countless equine educational endeavors both as student and teacher. Sarah owns and operates a continuation of her parents’ original business, Winfield Farm & Forge, Ltd., that which couldn’t currently exist without constant gratitude for Kevin, her very forgiving, ridiculously supportive husband. Together, they are quietly beginning to explore the Farm’s newest chapters, both in and out of the horse world. They are returning to Sarah’s family roots, this time as breeders of Arabian/Welsh Sport Ponies for dressage and carriage while husband and wife indulge their pent up creativity producing a variety of rustic décor and iron work.