Funny Stuff I've grabbed from other peoples' pages and various e-mails to me, bless their generous and amusing hearts. Especially Catherine Fulmer, who had the best stuff, much of which I believe came from Rec.Eq. and Equine-L. Special thanks to Heidi Banks of Richmond, Va, the lovely rider in the above animation!

The Top Ten Reasons To Ride Dressage

 Deadly Adventures

Just as I was giving up hope and losing consciousness, the Walmart manager came and unplugged it. Thank goodness for heros. -- Anonymous
 
 

Zen Riders:

Excuse me a moment....I have to go throw some more money on my horse.

Equus.....Costus.....Muchus

Gotta go...my horse is ringing for room service....

My horse threw a shoe in a 30 acre field. My farrier wants to know if I found the missing shoe. Like I looked for it.

At least when my horse loses a shoe I don't have to buy four new ones.

He who holds a carrot in his mouth to give to his horse earns the nickname "Nolips"....

Horses love carrots. Does that make them really big rabbits?

My horse rolls in the mud in order to test my ability to get him clean without getting him wet...

You can have my horse when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the reins.

If my horse runs and plays with the other horses in the pasture but comes limping up to me...does that mean I'm being taken for a sucker?



You know you're a horse person when....(YKYAHPW)

YKYAHP when: You pull a $17,000 horse trailer with a $1,700 pickup truck.

 -- You seriously consider trading your 1994 Buick for a 1986 Diesel crewcab dually pickup truck, even swap.

 -- You dress like a lawyer on weekdays and someone who needs a lawyer on your days off.

 -- You plan your pregnancy around the show season so you can send your horse to your dressage instructor for training during the eighth and ninth months.

 -- You put a gun rack in your pickup truck to carry dressage whips and riding crops.

 -- You buy duct tape by the case, and carry rolls in your pocketbook, your briefcase, and the console of your car.

 -- You realize that finding a horse shoe truly is lucky because you've saved ten bucks.

 -- You have saved five old left mud boots "just in case" and another right one has sprung a leak.

 -- Your children have everything they need to become Olympic equestrians --Except wealthy parents.

- you would rather ride a good horse than a good man/woman.

 .. you'll drive an hour in a snowstorm to ride your horse, but God forbid you have to drive 1/2 hour to a friend's house for dinner.

 -- when your six-year-old brother tells everyone that he's going to be the "ring steward" at your aunt's wedding! Kendra Gale

 .. your friends no longer ask to get together with you on a weekend afternoon because they know you'll say -- "I can't, I have to ride."

 -- you consider a pristine golf course as a waste of good pasture land.

 - every time you drive past a road construction sight you think what nice jumps the barricades would make.

 . . . When, after arriving at the barn and finding the indoor being watered, you go ahead and ride in it anyway. What's a little indoor "rain"?

 -- your horse gets shoes more often than you.

 --your boyfriend complains that you love your horse more then you love him and you answer: "And your point is?"

 -- your husband does something nice for you and you say "good boy" and pat him on the neck.

--You also know your a horse person when you're trying to get by a co-worker in a restricted space and instead of saying "excuse me" to him/her, you cluck at them instead. :)

 --You patch your mud boots with duct tape and slog through knee deep mud to get hay to your horse, who has commandered the ONLY dry spot for miles.

 -- you show up in city clothes dressed for appointments and when you get there people reach over the breakfast table to pick alfalfa out of your hair.

 --You get up at 5am every morning while your in college, drive 10 miles to the barn, feed, muck stalls, ride, and rush back to your 10am class smelling like a barn without complaining.

 --No one wants to ride in your car because they'll get sweet feed and hay in their socks and purses...that's ok because then you'd have to rearrange all the tack to make room for them, anyway!

 --You are totally grossed out by human hair in the sink or tub, but don't mind horse hair in your washer, on your clothes, in your food...

 --You know you are a horse AND a dog person when you don't mind throwing the frozen manure balls for the barn's goldie to fetch!

 --you look at all the piles of laundry sitting next to your Washing machine and most of them are breeches, horse blankets, saddle pads, etc... plus you don't even care about the horsey hair residue that will be left in the washer/dryer.

 -- Your secretary does a "hay check" on your suit each morning and your first stop in the office is the ladies room to remove the shavings from your shoes.

 --Your non-horsy friend gives you a funny look after glancing into the back seat of your car, and you realize he's noticed your whips and spurs.

 --You say "whoa" to the dog.

 --You pass up attractive social invitations because they'd confilct with your lesson schedule.

 --The back of your station wagon is an auxiliary tack box.

 --You choose your SO partly on the basis of his attachment to your horses.

 --Your mother, who has no grandchildren, gets cards addressed to Grandma, signed by the horses and the dog.

 --You don't even want to think about how your car would be paid for, your mortgae would be much smaller, and you might have some savings if you didn't have horses.

 --Your husband brings the new saddle to bed so he can work on it while watching TV.

--You trade your yuppie mobile for a truck, so you can better accomodate your horses.

 --You see the vet more than you see your child's pediatrician.

 --The floor plan of the house you're building accomodates a horse lifestyle.

 --You clean a horse's sheath and don't hurl.

 --You groom your horse and you haven't been to a beautician in ?

 --Your horse gets new shoes more often than you.

 --You give directions to your house and say, "It has lots of horse trailers in the front yard."

 --You pull change from your pocket at work, and hay falls all over.

 --Someone says, "Does anyone have a screwdriver?" and you hand them a hoofpick.

 --The doctor says the bump on your finger is an inflamed tendon sheath, and you tell him, "Oh, you mean a windpuff."

 --You cannot imagine why anyone would think it kinky to own whips.

 --The real estate agent asks what kind of house you are looking for, and you say, "More than six acres."

 --You know you're a horse person when for once you have extra money to buy yourself something, and you get the check out counter and decide that you don't really need that shirt anyway. That $25 could be an entry fee!

 --I was gonna say "the horses get fed first." but around my house it's "the horses are the only ones that get fed by me. Kids fend for themselves."

 --you save the hoof shavings for the dog.

 --you poke your honey in the ribs, saying, "over", in the kitchen.

 --you clean your tack after *every* ride but never ever ever wash the car.

 --you have the worming, lesson and farrier schedules in your head, but frequently miss the kid's piano lessons, girl scouts, or changing the oil in the car.

 --you yell at the kids, and the horse's name pops out.

 --on rainy days, you organize the tack room, not the house.

 --your tax refund is targetted to a new saddle, not the family vacation.

 --you are unreasonably pleased to get a horse item, ANY horse item, as a gift. "They really cared!!!"

 --you actually like all horse items, any horse items, regardless of execution.

 --you stop channel surfing at budweiser Clydsdale commercials.

 --books and movies are ruined for you if horsemanship references are incorrect.

 --you actually get to a point where flies don't bother you so much.

 --your horse's mane and tail get better care than yours, and it shows.

 --your horse gets more compliments for grooming than you do.

 --you spend more time preparing nutritious meals for your horse than for your family.

 --you kiss your horse more often than your husband or boyfriend, and enjoy it more.

 --you've considered moving into the barn, since it is cleaner than the house.

 --your horse seems the right choice when you need to talk something out with someone.

 --you remember worming and vaccination schedules, but not your mother-in-law's birthday.

 --you find yourself analyzing leg and foot conformation on your friends, and thinking how corrective shoeing could improve their way of going.

 --you jump out of bed at 5:00 a.m. on Sunday to feed before an early ride, but barely hear the 5:00 a.m. alarm on Monday morning.

 --your husband hangs around the barn hoping to get a massage when you've finished on your horse.

 --your mood today depends on how yesterday's training session went.

 --you use the house-hunting trip your new employer provides to figure out where you will board your horse.

 -- you often sneak furtively into laundramats and pretend that you really didn't just put that stinky, filthy horse blanket into the comforter-sized machine.

 -- you run your tongue over your back molars and idly wonder if they need to be floated.

 -- you go to the museum with a non-horsey friend and, whilst wandering through the ancient bronzes, suddenly realize he is asking exasperatedly, 'Well? What about the conformation on this one?"

 --you know you're a horse person when ALL of your pockets have hay in them.

 --you know.....when you have a small knife on your key chain (and you're a woman)

 --you plan corn on the cob for dinner just so you can feed the cobs to your horses for a treat

 --the highlight of your day is working with your horses and your SO works by your side cuz its the highlight of his day too

 --you have more pictures of your horses in your office than you have of your family.

 --you leave work feeling stiff, tense, with a stomach- or headache, and all those feelings disappear the minute you go through the first gate to the ranch.

 --you open the door to the closet where you keep your boots and the aroma of manure wafts out.

 --you can find your boots in the dark by the aroma.

 --you think the barn smells better than the latest Calvin Klein fragrance.

 --you drive up in the yard, get out of the car and inhale the perfume of the manure pile.

 --you talk to the horses like they were kids.

 --All your stock has 4 legs.

 --the only picture of you that your wife(husband, SO, whatever) has of you shows you on your horse.

 --you hate posing for pictures unless you're on your horse.

 --you spend a lot of $ on a trip to Europe and end up spending most of your time watching horses.

 --you chirp to, cluck to or spur your truck/car.

 --you say whoa to your truck/car.

 --you don't notice the barn smells on your clothes/shoes and wonder why "regular" folks are sniffing the air

 --Most of your social life is with other horse folk.

 --Cooky McClung's stories in The Chronicle of the Horse, however humorously told they might be, sound like a "normal" life.

 --you get so mad that you can't get cable TV out at your farm that you put in a satellite dish just so you can get more horse sports coverage

 --you have a _terrible_ fall off your horse, and your only concern is if the horse is okay.

--you buy watermelon when you don't even like watermelon so that you can give it to your horses.

 --you spend more time going to horse events than you spend at home.

 --the only pictures in your office have are of your horses.

 --the concept of sleeping in on the weekends has long since faded from your memory.

 --you known more about equine nutrition than human nutrition and it shows.

--you find a human hair in your food and it makes you gag, but horse hair goes down fine.....

 --All of your clothes have horsehair on them, even if they've never been worn to the barn. --you keep a horse Grooma by the front door, to get the horsehair off of your levis after riding bareback.

 --you're buying clothes, and you choose them on the basis of whether you can wash horse slobber/manure out of them.

 --you grump at your husband for eating so much of the apple crop, for fear there won't be enough left to last the horses until next year.

 --you live with electric fencing tape around the lawn, so the horses can mow it for you.

 --you've got a perpetually skinned place on your knuckles or the heel of your hand, from when the hoof rasp/pick slips....

 --Folks ask incredulously how many horses you have, because your bulletin board at work is covered with 10 pictures of each horse and only a couple of your spouse or your kids (human, canine, or feline).

 --you've forgotten what a vacation is, because you spend all your paid time off (re)building fence, meeting the vet, going to shows, etc.

 --you're about to petition the Town Board and the County Commissioners to grant you a variance to build a larger building than the zoning laws allow.
... Where else is one s'posed to ride in bad weather?
... ( > $20,000 just to have a place to ride????)

 --you don't try to figure out your to-date-expenses for the critters, cuz you don't want to know, and it doesn't matter. (It's the same with flying)

 --you get out of your warm bed at 3:00 AM, and go outside to let the horses in cuz it's snowing (that wet, heavy stuff). If that's not enough, you scrape off the snow, and even dry them off a little, before going back to bed. (Only to leave for work at 6, and see them back outside, with 2 inches of snow piled on their backs. No, *that* won't happen again.)

 --your breezeway/mud room has hay & crud all over the floor, a saddle on a rack along the wall, misc. tack hanging from the chairs, muddy boots & gloves, etc. lying about. Someone's coming to visit. You don't care.

--After it snows, the pathway to the manure pile is the first thing that gets cleared, then the front porch and sidewalk.

 --you aren't interested in watching the news, but have to, in order to catch the weather, so you know if the barn needs to be left open for the horses.

 --Suppertime is generally at 8PM, and everyone has been home since before 5.

 --you RUSH to the front window to watch the horses run & buck in the pas- ture, even if you're in the middle of a meal. Good, clean fun!

 --you trade your nice, nearly-new Suburban for a 1-ton 4x4 pickup, so you can haul hay & straw for the critters. (And have that 454 engine for pulling the trailer up those looooong hills.)

 --you launder your stable clothes before your work clothes (tho' sometimes the categories overlap).

 -- you'd rather stay up with a friend's sick horse than babysit her kids. BUT. . .
-- you will babysit a friend's kids while she stays up with a sick horse, even though you HATE babysitting.

 -- you go on a diet for your horse's sake, but not your SO's.

 -- a new friend walks in your door for the first time. Takes a smell and says with a smile, "I didn't know you had horses." ;)

 --When your bicycle is mostly used as a bridle and saddle rack.

 --the only thing your friends, colleagues, passing acquaintances can think of when they see you is "How are the horses?" or "How many horses do you have now?" or "Are you still riding?"

 --you get knocked down and split your lip wide open on the horse's halter because you were doing something you KNOW you shouldn't have been doing, and with blood running down your face your first concern is making sure the horse is alright, calmed down, and put in his stall. Then you go to the hospital for stitches.

 --you spend more on that 6-year-old jumper than you've EVER spent on a car!

 --you get your income tax refund and the first thing you do is head for the tack shop.

 --you go on a diet, not to be more attractive, but to be a better rider.

 --Co-workers start pointing out green slobber or straw on your clothes. You solution is to start wearing exclusively "hunter green".

 --Every time you go to the stable, it takes 3 hours and you can't imagine where the time went.

 --your first sign of spring isn't see a robin, but seeing a fly.

 --you know you're a horse person if you get a little whiff of manure smell and breathe deeper to get the full impact. That goes double for the smell of leather.

 --your horse has its mane pulled more often than you get a hair cut.

 -- you buy lime and grass seed instead of the clothes you need for other work.

 --you live hand to mouth and somehow come up with the $800 for emergency vet bills.

 --a non-horsey co-worker asks how your horse is and you think: "she's not doing very well since I just changed to a milder bit but I want to give her a chance to get used to it.", and you say "Fine." Because you know if you say what you are REALLY thinking, by the time you're done, your co-worker will be sitting there with a blank look on her face.

 --You don't think that weather is just casual conversation. It is very important so that you can figure out your horse's wardrobe for the day/night.

 --your house is "decorated" with bits, saddles, bridles, halters, blanket racks, trunks, trophies and ribbons.

--there are bits soaking in your bathroom sink and going through another cycle in the dishwasher.

 --you save every horse magazine you have ever bought.

 --you show up at work with bran mash (unbeknownst to you) all over the back of your coat.

 --.your car is the only one in the company parking lot with mud splashes on the windshield.

 --your car is the only one in the company parking lot that has an inch of dust INSIDE and when you open the door, a swarm of flies emerge.

 --you drive by ANY field ANYWHERE and look very hard for horses. This includes trips to foreign countries.

 --your horse gets vitamins and supplements everyday and you can't remember to take vitamins yourself.

 --you can't make it to work because of bad weather, but somehow still make it to the barn.

 --you feel tired all day at work and then go to the barn and happily ride 3 horses.

 --you can pinpoint anything you might need in 2 seconds in your tack trunk but seem to have misplaced this month's electric bill.

 --the first bills you pay each month are all horse related. You don't really *need* a phone anyway (unless you have to call the vet -- oops, better pay that one).

You know you're a hunter/jumper/ct person when:

 --You teach your sisters how to post on the arm of the couch before their first riding lesson.

 --You longe your dog and she listens to you.

 --Your baby shower gifts include a fleece seat saver.

 --You do stalls the morning before your labor is to be induced.

-- When the doctor tells you that they have to do a c-section your first question (much to your spouse's horror) is how long will it be until I can ride?(And you are devastated when he says 6 weeks.)

 --You don't have to be asked by your non-horsey family what you want for Christmas anymore, cuz they now get their own Horse catalogs.

  --You learn you will go on a trip driving from Mass. to New Hampshire and the first thing that pops to your mind is: "Yes, I will finally be able to visit State Line Tack."

 --and you know your spouse has accepted you as a horse person when he who can't stand more than one hour at the mall tells you that there should be a two hours time limit to your visiting State Line Tack. Two hours, all right :-)

 --you are proofing your entry in the phone book and notice the name "ROEMER" and wonder what in the world *he* is doing on campus.

 --when you gladly lug two buckets of water through rain, up hill twice a day, for your horse, but make the kids carry in the groceries.

 --when you find yourself eyeing the rag rug in front of the kitchen sink, wondering if it would work as a saddle blanket ...

 --when you find your self asking yoru husband if he's seen your white girth, "you know honey,the one with the gold buckle that fits through the belt loops on my black slacks'. Girth?

 --when your toddler's first SENTENCE is "mommy go to barn?" (don't laugh, it happened!)

 --when you choose your new dog by which breed is best w/horses ...

 --You tell your small animal vet that your cat's flea bite dermatitis looks like rain rot.

 --You know your *daughter* is a horse person when she asks if she can wash her saddle pad with her clothes, because she doesn't have a full load and doesn't want her brother's clothes contaminating hers.

 *You keep a spare curb chain in your purse for emergencies*

 *The family photos are in the bedroom; the horse photos in the den*

 *The board check is paid before any other bill*

 *Your instructor and vet are the only non-family on your speed-dial*

 *You always have new foal pictures in your wallet*

 *The photo Christmas cards feature the horses*

 *You have memorized the addresses of your breed association and AHSA*

You Know You Married A Horse Person When:

 YKYMAHP when: You can justify any conceivable modification to your pickup truck by claiming that it will make it a better towing vehicle. ("Chrome running boards?" "Less wind resistance.")

 YKYMAHP when: Her favorite fashion designer is Carhart.

 YKYMAHP when: She treats you like a hero for giving her a home-made boot jack on her birthday.

 YKYMAHP when: You start using her hobby to leverage your own. "Sure I can make you some saddle racks. All I need is a new table saw."

 YKYMAHP when: You buy her so much heavy duty winter clothing that you wind up on mailing lists for hunting, fishing and survivalist catalogs.

 YKYMAHP when: You find yourself unquestioningly trudging through a sleet storm to feed the show horse that she won't let you ride.

 YKYMAHP when: You find yourself juggling roofing steel in a New Year's day blizzard to finish "her" horse barn while your alma mater is playing in a bowl game, and you wouldn't dream of going inside to watch.

 YKYMAHP when: You realize that not only have you become expert in trailer backing, horse grooming, tack cleaning, and giving her a leg up, you can also repeat her riding instructor's comments from her last lesson verbatim.

 YKYMAHP when: You get so used to her doing things like mucking stalls with a broken finger or showing her horse with a stress-fractured ankle that you can't understand it when morning sickness wipes her out.

 YKYMAHP when: She names your first child "Dan Patch" or "Misty".

 YKYMAHP when: You've spent so much time at the boarding stable that people think you're the maintenance man. (with good reason!)

 YKYMAHP when: You wear NASCAR baseball caps to horse shows so people won't ask you questions that you can't answer.

 YKYAHPW you bring your notebook to the barn the night before your final exam, so you can study while you groom." --Rosemarie Arbur

 You know you caught the horse bug from your wife (YKYCTHBFYW) when you start hoping for a daughter just to make sure you will still be going to horse shows for a long time to come.

 You get to the checkout at the grocery and the only things you're buying are 5 gallons of corn oil and 10 pounds of carrots. Oh and maybe a frozen burrito if you have enough money left...

 There are more carrots in the garden than anything else.

 When you buy more carrots & apples than you can possibly eat.

 You buy about 15 lbs. of carrots a week, but wouldn't eat a carrot if somebody paid you.

 When you buy more carrots in five pound bags and lament because they don't come in 10 pound bags.

 When you coax your horse into the trailer with a carrot, give him a bite, and walk out finishing it yourself. (I've seen this one - family germ theory apparently extends to horses).