“It’s not even the cost that bothers me,” said the man standing to my left at a cocktail party. “It’s the thought of having to call my boss and tell him I’ve thrown my back out carrying granola for a horse.”

  We were discussing his recent purchase, a horse for his teenage daughter Katie, and his obvious state of bewilderment at finding that this purchase had thrust him into a whole new lifestyle.

  I tried to think of a comforting word to say to a man whose life was going to change forever.

  “I don’t know why we need a horse,” the man continued. “We don’t even own a plow. Oh, I tried talking Katie out of the idea. I suggested she form a rap group, which would be a whole lot cheaper. But she insisted all her friends had horses.

  “I explained those friends had fathers who ran international conglomerates or were governor of New York. I was afraid Katie only wanted a horse because it was the ‘in’ thing. I’m not sure she’s ready for the responsibility of horse ownership.”

  The man acknowledged his daughter rode with a fair amount of skill. “She has a boyfriend who fox hunts, which I find uncivilized if you live in the city. And she has a few friends who spend all their spare time and most of their trust funds showing horses. It seems they show them to other people who also have horses,” he explained, shaking his head.

  “Apparently every weekend her friends and their parents get up in the dark and travel to places that are either hot and dusty or cold and rainy and the bathrooms are all outside.

  “The way I see it, they spend most of the day sitting around waiting to go in three or four hunter or jumper classes that are spread out over 14 hours so you can spend a lot of money at the food booths. I figure parents sit around one full day every weekend to watch their child perform for 40 minutes.”

  “Amazing,” I answered, recalling a few thousand identical weekends.

  “Are you sure Katie really wants to show her horse?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he sighed, “because that’s what her friends do. I thought you got a horse to ride around the countryside.

  “And then there’s paying for the horse’s house if you don’t own a farm. It’s really quite complicated,” he said.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Well, you’d think if you spent as much money per month as the mortgage payment on our house, you’d get certain amenities. You’d think buckets and brushes and saddles would be thrown in. Just buying buckets took up an entire afternoon because it seems, while horses in olden days drank out of a regular bucket, this ancient skill was lost, and now you must provide three-cornered buckets that cost $35 a pop. And I’m not at all sure how horses of yesteryear ever survived without surgical steel hoof picks and electric-blue plastic hay nets,” he added.

  “Does your daughter have a trainer?” I asked, evoking a horrified stare.

  “Katie never mentioned a trainer! She’s concentrating on buying clothes for herself . . . you can’t believe what you need to show a horse,” he wailed.

  Actually, I could.

  “I thought you put on blue jeans and boots with pointy toes and carried a rope. But Katie said you need two jackets to show if it’s hot or cold, three pairs of fancy pants, two pairs of custom made boots, and a hat that not only protects her head if she falls off a horse, but if she falls off him from a 40-story building. Katie told me you absolutely have to have this kind of outfit. She does look pretty in it, though. Maybe she could get married in it,” he mused.

  “Then there’s the matter of the horse’s clothes,” he sighed. “Katie’s horse wasn’t going to be satisfied with a rawhide bridle and Navajo blanket, no sireee! Along with German saddle and bridle, the tack, I think they call that stuff, there are blankets and sheets and lead shanks and pads and even a sheepskin thingy that goes over the saddle that saves seats . . . somehow.”

  “Well, I’m sure taking care of a horse and showing will keep Katie busy and out of mischief,” I reassured him.

  “Sometimes mischief is good,” he argued. “Now she’s talking about going to shows so far away we’ll need a trailer and probably a new truck to pull it!”

  “But, you do like horses, don’t you?” I asked.

  “From a distance,” he admitted. “When the horse first moved in to the boarding stable up the road, the only thing Katie wanted was for me to ‘make friends with it.’

  “I tried to convince her I’d be happy just to pay the bills . . . I didn’t want to make friends with something that outweighs me by a thousand pounds and makes manure in its water bucket. But she nagged and nagged, so to speak, so I went to the stable and tried to act nonchalant standing next to this wild ‘almost’ stallion.

  “Katie said the best way to establish rapport with the horse was for me to get on him. She assured me we’d just walk around the arena and if I sat quietly and patted the horse on the neck, he’d love me forever,” he explained.

  “If I just showed him the receipts from the past month, he should love me forever. But to please Katie, I pulled myself into the saddle and sat down. Problem was, I didn’t sit long and I never got the chance to pet the horse because he promptly bucked me off. I was in the air probably half an hour before I hit the ground falling around 80 m.p.h.,” he said.

  “Luckily, I did not land on my feet, which would have driven my knees through my eyebrows. Though unbroken, I was sore every place there was a place. Katie reminded me that if I didn’t get right back on, I’d never ride again.

  “And I certainly hope that’s true.” 

-CL-