The Write Horse is a weekly feature here at WordPlay, wherein we all have the chance to peek into the mind of the horse and the trainer–and, as writers, soak up some of the very practical things necessary to the writing of horses. Offhand whimsy, horse stories, the joys and frustrations of training, the engaging or outrageous things horses do, horsey factoids, and some natural history thrown in…add in your own questions, comments and stories and as a certain transplanted Taos marshal in NYC used to say, “There ya go!”
So even if you never put fingers to keyboard with intent to Commit Horse, it should be a fun ride…
(Judith Tarr also has a horse-writer blog at Book View Cafe, wonderful stuff!)
Me and Lucy, age 5, half sister to All Round Sundown (see below), and a nice all around show and trail horse, herself! 2021
Patty Wilber is our “insider” in the training world:
I am not a dog person. I am a horse person. It seems to have skipped a generation and settled on me. My grandfather, Quentin, grew up on a farm and liked the mules, but he left at 16 and worked the night shift in a St. Louis Post Office most of his life. He must be the link. My mother said beginning when I was two I would look out of the window of the car, searching for horses…..so, however it happened, I am a horse person.
I started riding seriously at 14, trained my first show horse at 16 (a horse I leased), begged, borrowed and bummed horses whenever I could, had a race horse trainer’s license and finally started my own official, tax-paying training business (after being under the table for a while).
I have had some success at the National level with Appaloosas, and success on the trail in the back country, too.
In my “spare” time I teach biology full-time at a local community college.
Oh, modesty! She left out about the part about All Round Sundown, which pretty much sums up the philosophy around here–good stuff everywhere you turn. At three years old, All Round Sundown was packing out (overnights, hobbles, high line, ponying)–and at four (2008) she won a national title in western riding, placed top five in hackamore/snaffle bit reining, and top ten in trail. There’s your all-rounder–with a 14.2hh low-cost girl competing against giant leggy western pleasure horses.
So if you enjoy horses or you like a fresh and amusing voice–or if you don’t know what 14.2hh means and maybe you should if you want to write that scene!–then this is gonna be fun!
