PrintAlmost every barn I've visited claims they don't have a hierarchy amongst the workers. “We all do stalls together in the morning,” so many managers have told me, magnanimously.
That manager, I’ve found, is always wrong.
In every stable a pecking order emerges after only a couple days of study. At Market Street, Anne Kursinski and her partner Carol Hoffman are the bosses, but Asa Bird—it's more fun to call him by his full name, Asa Bird, the two syllables somersaulting off the tongue—is the first mate, the co-pilot; he is our leader by unspoken agreement.
Asa Bird is the son of a Pennsylvanian mushroom farmer. He was a high-school wrestler and big too: 6 feet, 220 pounds. He has lost 40 pounds since then, but he still walks with the swagger of the bigger man he once was. At Market Street it doesn’t matter if someone else has the title of manager or rider or assistant trainer; Asa is our go-to guy.
My theory is that this has happened for one simple reason: Asa Bird is a hard worker. Two reasons: He is a smart, hard worker.
And because he is such a good worker, and because he has been with Anne for three years, he has earned and inherited many responsibilities.
Asa administers the medicines; he packs for shows and looks after the top horses, the most expensive horses (somewhere along the way, when working at stables like this, one can forget that one, just one of these horses is worth more than most people make in their entire lives); Asa does the ultra-sound and infra-red and makes decisions about when horses should turn out or have blankets put on. Asa is in charge when Anne and Hoffy aren't around, and that is a lot of responsibility.
I've only seen Asa crack once; only seen him really well up, about to cry, only seen him really just have to stomp and shout and yell and swear, just once.
A Night Out
It probably wouldn't have happened if we hadn't gone out to Players the night before.
In Wellington, everything that doesn't happen at the show grounds happens at Players. A night out always starts with a nap after work. It hardly seemed like I had fallen asleep when Liz, a new groom, whom we affectionately called “Skinny-Jeans,” came to wake me up.
“What?” I asked, groggy, “a bit more, it’s still early.”
“You're not really tired. You're just tired 'cause you just went to sleep.”
Her reasoning was often like that: logical in a way. And then she stood in my doorway and started to rap:
“Tick-Tock on the clock! DJ blow my speakers up! Don't stop, make it pop!” She went on, like a metronome, snapping her fingers. “Tonight, I'mma fight! 'Til we see the sunlight! Tick-Tock on the clock!” Then she stopped and pouted, “Tik-Tock. Please. Let's go!"
At Players it's all about who you know. Liz looked around while we waited in line, pointing people out. “That’s so-and-so, who is riding for such-and-such.” And, “Look at her. I can’t believe she’s here, she’s grooming for whatshisirishface, and look at her skirt. My God.”
The night started off slowly, with sangria, but finished full of thunder, full of sweat and Red Bull and vodka, at 3 a.m. We fell into our separate beds. I wasn’t sure I would sleep with the ringing in my ears, but the linen felt clean and fresh, although I knew it wasn’t, and the next sound I heard was my alarm. 5:30, still dark outside.
"You Gotta Help Me Out!"
