Horseaholics Anonymous

I would like to welcome all of you to this month's online meeting of Horse-Aholics Anonymous.
  You may be sitting there thinking that you are OK, and don't really need any help. It is not easy to realize that you are a horse-aholic, and even harder to bring yourself to a HA meeting for help. HA is here to assist you. I have some questions to ask to try to determine if you can be helped.

• Can you say 'sheath' in public without blushing?
• Do you know exactly what 'snaffle' means? (No, it is not a drink!)
• Do you drive a truck with some type of towing package and/or dual rear wheel when everyone else you know drives a real car?
• Do you have more than one type of trailer because you own horses?
• Do you spend your holidays going to shows, sales, clinics, and seminars when everyone else goes on cruises?
• Do you discuss things at the dinner table that would make a doctor leave in disgust?
• Do you consider formal wear clean jeans and freshly scraped boots?
• Does the inside of your home look like your interior decorator is 'State Line Tack'?
• Do you often have barn boots on your front porch?
• Is your mail made up primarily of breed magazines and horse catalogs?
• Do your shirt pockets often contain bits of feed, hay, and empty syringe covers?
• Do you worry about paying your monthly feed bill before you think of paying your electric bill?
• When you meet a person, do you ask how many horses they have, and pity them if the answer is none?
• Do you remember the name of a great-great-great grand sire when you can't remember your own Great grandfather's name?
• Is your primary dream in life to breed the perfect foal?
• Do you find non-horse people boring?
• Is 99% of your e-mail about horses?
• Do you have a collection of bits even larger than your collection of horses?
• Does you halter collection include more than four foal halters, all the same size?
• Do you know more than five people this list fits exactly?

If you answered YES to three of these questions, you are in pretty good shape. You will lead a long, dull life, and never call your mother and tell her "I'm in the hospital, but everything is fine! The horse is OK."

If you answered YES to 10, you are in serious trouble. Give in gracefully, and become a member of Horse-Aholics Anonymous now... You will qualify eventually anyway.

If you answered YES to 15 or more, you are incurable.
My advice to those who, like me, are incurable is as follows.....
Sit back, smile, read your email, and know that your life will always be filled with good friends and better horses, and it will never be dull.

Only horse people...

• Believe in a 11th commandment: inside leg to outside rein.
• Know that all topical medications come in either indelible blue or neon Yellow.
• Think nothing of eating a sandwich after mucking out stalls.
• Know why a thermometer has a yard of yarn attached to one end of it.
• Are banned from Laundromats.
• Fail to associate whips, chains and leather with sexual deviancy.
• Can magically lower their voices 5 octaves to bellow at a pawing horse.
• Will end relationships over their hobby.
• Cluck to their cars to help them up hills.
• Insure their horses for more than their cars.
• Know more about their horse's nutrition than their own.
• Have Neatsfoot oil stains on the carpet right next to the TV.
• Have a vocabulary that can make a sailor blush.
• Have less wardrobe than their horse.
• Engage in a hobby that is more work than their day job.   (and usually more fun!)
• Know that mucking stalls is better than Zoloft any day.

Signs That Your Horse Show Is Rained Out

• Fiona’s British Thoroughbred says, ‘"I swam the English Channel and, by jove, I can jump this course, too!’"
• Marsha checked and she’s getting credits for her Marine Biology Course just for being here this weekend.
• Suddenly the bookies are giving great odds on the entries named Swim Jim, Fin, and Australian Crawl.
• There’s an enormous trout in Phil’s horse’s stall and it’s saying, ‘"How does it feel when I invade YOUR space????’"
• Your friend who rides pure dressage has stopped teasing you about 'all that crazy jumping’ and is now razzing you about not riding for at least half an hour after meals.
• Apparently, ponies float like corks. Draft-crosses do not.
• Jill had to scratch because her Arabian ran away from home. He left a note: ‘"Found mildew in my ears. Can’t take it any more. Going home to the desert. Please understand that it’s me, not you.’"
• As your coach discusses the stadium course with you, he stops saying things like, ‘"the Oxer going away from the in-gate’" and starts using directions such as ‘"upstream’" and ‘"downstream.’"
• The Best Conditioned Horse Award went to the horse who could hold his breath underwater the longest.
• The wash rack with the backed up drain is now the driest spot on the grounds.

Political Correctness & The Horse Community

The horse world is dreadfully guilty of political incorrectness. Citizens, we can fix this!

• From now on, the rider who came in 128th out of 127 competitors isn’t a major loser; he’s ribbon-deprived.
• We’ll refer to awful jumpers as potential dressage horses and horrid dressage horses will be called event prospects (oh, wait, we’ve been doing that for years anyway).
• Prominent horsepeople who go to jail for tax evasion are, um, ethically challenged.
• Judges who make stupid decisions are myopically magnificent.
• A twitch is a lip tourniquet.
• Instructors, refrain from telling any student that she has a bad seat. Instead, tell this rider that she has astronomical potential for butt improvement.
• A horse that always crashes through the jumps is merely in touch with his personal sense of gravity. Likewise, a bad mover isn’t an eggbeater with legs --- he’s kinetically challenged.
• A horse who won’t go forward is a whoa-overachiever.
• Waterlogged showgrounds are humidity super-enriched.

New Horse Reality TV shows:

Joanne Millionaire: Rich young women are first introduced to the exciting world of horses. They become completely hooked on the finest purebreds, the best trainers, fabulous stabling and expert instruction. In the last episode...they discover they're penniless.

Survivor - the Endurance Ride: Ten elite show riders leave their oak tack trunks, their minimum wage grooms, their canopies and gooseneck living quarters behind to spend 2 days in Death Valley. They have to perform heinous acts such as cleaning their own tack, grooming and caring for their own horse, and getting along with other riders. As we sit back and watch riders succumb to torture, the strongest break away from camp to search for cell phone, golf cart and running water.

American Show Idol: Thousands of equestrians must audition in front of exacting judges who pick apart their ride using colorful evaluations such as "try tennis!" and "clucking to your horse makes you sound like a chicken." George Morris guest stars.

I'm a Dressage Queen, Get Me out of Here: A Prix St. Georges rider and her Hanoverian stallion are shipped to a working cattle ranch. In Episode 3, s he ruins her full seat Eurostar breeches while closing the cattle gate. Unable to ride until her new attire is shipped, the local wrangler round pens her horse and starts roping off his back.

Matched by America: Contestants who are tired of looking for Mr. or Ms. Equine Perfection allow the studio audience to vote on which horse is truly the best partner for them. Tossing breed and color preferences to the wind, contestants discover that: 1) a good horse can be any size, age, color; 2) when you find the right match, there can be happy endings! ...watch for more.

And a new sitcom: Studs in the City: Two young, hip, good-looking round pen trainers share a New York apartment as they learn about life, work, & love in the city. In the pilot episode, Patrick gets arrested after slapping his chaps at a girl who won't turn & face him (she turns out to be an undercover cop), and Roger ends up in the emergency room after trying to round-pen his new girlfriend's Siamese cat.

Horseback surprise!

An attractive lady from Seattle was driving through a remote part of Texas when her car broke down. A local on horseback came along and offered her a ride to the nearest town.

She climbed up behind him on the horse and they rode off. The ride was pretty uneventful except that every few minutes the guy would let out a "Whoop" so loud that it would echo from the surrounding hills. When they arrived in town, he let her off at the local service station, yelled one final "Yahoo" and rode off.

"Hey, what did you do to get him so fired up?" asked the service station attendant.

"Nothing," shrugged the woman, I merely sat behind him on the horse, put my arms around his waist, and held onto his saddle horn so I wouldn't fall off.

"Lady," the attendant said, "that guy was riding bareback ..."

Wierd sounds horses make!

especially when the are bored, more youtube fun!