Although she knows a free horse is the most expensive kind, the author just can’t resist.

My trainer had a brilliant idea; she thought we should  start a chain of treatment centers for horse addiction. We discussed the idea for a while before reluctantly coming to the conclusion that it would be unethical. Not because there isn’t a crying need for such centers; impoverished horse owners, and especially their spouses, would welcome this service. No, eventually it just would have bothered us to know we were taking the profit and plowing it right back into our own horse operations.

I’m convinced that horse addiction is a real disorder. The only thing slowing its documentation is that every mental health professional who spends enough time in the horse world to observe the phenomenon has already been bitten by the bug. Gradually she loses interest in doing research, publishing in professional journals, or in fact doing anything besides tending to her new Warmblood-Paint breeding program.

The truth is that some hide it better than others, but basically we’re all certifiable. This fact is never so apparent as during horse-related shopping or business. (I use the word “business” in the loosest sense, since it implies a logical plan for commerce, and therefore one wouldn’t imagine it might include things like the use of pot-bellied pigs to greet clients). Basically, I have observed that when it comes to commerce there are two types of horse people: those on the cutting edge and those scavenging along behind them. I call the types Trendsetters and Salvagers. Both are important to the wacky world of horse business.

Trendsetters are the ones always on the prowl for the latest innovations. Some of the changes they bring are incredibly beneficial, such as the popularization of joint supplements to make performance horses more comfortable. Some of the changes just seem downright silly, such as the practice of denuding jumpers’ ears of all the hair God gave them and then buying crochet bug shields. Are bugs really such a problem at all those well-manicured show grounds, especially when galloping at 20 miles an hour? There’s just something odd about a gorgeous, 1,200-pound animal with a doily on his head. (I hasten to admit here that I am a Salvager, so it’s hard for me to judge.)

Salvagers are the ones lurking in the consignment rooms at the tack stores, buying up all the lovely low-profile velvet helmets that suddenly fell out of fashion when the Trendsetters decided to wear GPA helmets. The GPA helmets are undoubtedly models of good design, but I still can’t shake the impression that they look like something from a movie about space aliens.

We all know the Salvager type, and they are certainly no more rational than the Trendsetters. You can always recognize the Salvager by what she is doing when she could be riding. She is the one rehabilitating the old eventer that has three really good feet, taking in the pot-bellied pigs when the Trendsetters get tired of them, and bragging about how well her PMU colt moves (when he’s not racking).

Both Trendsetters and Salvagers are prone to a savior complex, in that we all seem amazed that our current horse(s) ever got along without us. Part of horse addiction seems to be an unshakable belief that we benefit every horse we’ve ever ridden or owned.

The need to tell stories that demonstrate how we have improved our horses’ lives is inherent in both Trendsetters and Salvagers, but you can always distinguish them because of the circles in which they travel. For example, a Trendsetter will say: “I got Licorice Schnapps Mint Radish for only $25,000 because he was stopping at the liverpools, but he got over that when we installed the hot tub in his paddock.”

In contrast, a Salvager might say: “I got Dreamkiller off the track for nothing. In fact his groom tipped me $20 when I showed up with the trailer, and now my grandmother rides him to church with hardly any problems.”

Saving Scrappy

At my house we have a pony that embodies the Salvaging spirit perfectly. His name is Scrappy, but my 2-year-old son has an unfortunate habit of dropping ‘s’ sounds, so for the time being the pony often gets called Crappy. Now Crappy, I mean Scrappy, is about 35 years old. His breeding is indeterminate, probably mostly Shetland along with a dash of something taller. I suppose you would call his color grulla, but really his gray/brown coat looks like the original color just got worn away over the years.

We got Scrappy from my farrier, a hard-working woman I’ll call Ellen. Ellen is a mother of three and was going through a nasty divorce last year. Someone had given Scrappy to her and said he had been used for pony rides at fairs. Ellen needed to scale back, and she knew I was looking for a gentle pony to carry my toddler on occasional walks around the stable yard. It seemed like a perfect fit. I congratulated myself on getting a nice pony for free. The boundless optimism all Salvagers possess (“This time will be different; I’m sure he’ll work out.”) helped me to ignore the old adage about a free horse being the most expensive kind.

I made arrangements to pick Scrappy up. We pulled in a few minutes before Ellen returned from an errand, so my husband and I walked over to look at Scrappy. As the only pony at her Appaloosa-Warmblood breeding operation he was easy to pick out of the crowd. The fencing at her place was a little creative, but her horses looked sleek. Scrappy stood out as the glaring exception. He was eating grain when we came up, but the old pony was an absolute rack of bones. It would have been easy to teach the equine skeletal system using him as a model. His spine jutted out of his back a good two inches. His neck had the most incredible ewe from lack of flesh, and because his mane was so long and heavy it had actually pulled his crest over. Truthfully, I was shocked.

“I don’t know if he can make the trailer ride,” I said to my husband, Joe.

Joe was equally skeptical, and he reminded me that while he doesn’t mind digging holes for our animals when they die, he would prefer the animals at least come to the place alive. However, we had driven a long way, and Scrappy was bright-eyed. He seemed quite oblivious to the fact that he should have been dead. So we decided to try to rehabilitate him.

I think you can see where this story is headed. After he made the trailer ride home with no problem, I had his teeth floated and my vet ran blood tests. It turns out that Scrappy has Cushing’s Syndrome. Fortunately, this is treatable with a medicine that has to be compounded especially for him and only costs one-half of a truck payment per month.

Part Of The Family

Nine hundred dollars later, my “free” pony is doing well. He is still thin, but no longer emaciated. The flesh on his back is actually level with his spine. At first I fed him only senior horse feed and mushy alfalfa cubes in warm water. He would eat some alfalfa and drank the warm green water in the pan like a nourishing broth. As he gained a little weight he also gained a bit of an attitude, and one day for no apparent reason he turned his nose up at the mushy food.

“Don’t give me that slop for geriatrics,” he seemed to be saying. I had no choice but to try him on regular timothy hay and dry senior feed. He does manage to consume these, although at a rate that can only be described as glacial. It takes him a whole night to eat his grain and one flake of hay.

It’s kind of humbling to be around Scrappy. One senses his incredibly old, incredibly wise, and slightly mischievous spirit. At first I wondered whether it really wouldn’t be kinder just to put him down. We had some low points, such as when he stood dejected in the back of the stall for a whole morning after being treated for an episode of choke. Another day, when I first put him out with my horses, they literally ran away snorting in fear. That was when he still looked more like a specter than a pony, with a white mane that dragged the ground from his painfully thin neck. I felt sorry for him then; he looked so lonely.

Then one day Scrappy got away from my husband and cantered up to the barn. Joe laughs telling the story, because he claims he could have caught up to Scrappy at any point simply by walking faster. But there was just something about seeing the old pony kick up his heels that tickled Joe. Scrappy seemed to be saying “My time isn’t here yet!” That was when I knew he’d be with us for a while longer. Now it is a pleasure to see Scrappy spending his days in conversation with my old Thoroughbred mare.

I guess I’m a Salvager by nature, but someday I hope to experience life as a Trendsetter, just for the heck of it. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get a PMU foal that will turn out to have Grand Prix talent’when he’s not racking.