Happy Horse Labor Day

Horsekeeping

 
Thank you to …

The people who feed and clean up after our horses. In my house that would be us. The people at Stepping Stone Farm and Falcon Hill Farm who take care of the horses I ride for lessons.

The people who sell the feed and hay our horses eat. The people who sell the shaving our horses sleep on. The people who grow the corn, oats, or soybeans. The people who work in factories that mix the feed. The people who grow and bale the hay. The people who grow, chop down, and chip up the trees that go into a bag or pile of shavings. The people who make the bags the feed goes into, who make the bags the shavings go into. The people who deliver bags of feed, bales of hay, piles of shavings.

The people who choose to be farriers and vets in order to take care of our horses. The people who make the supplies they use. Their assistants and accountants and advisors.

The people who make our brushes, our bridles, and our britches.

The people who run those tempting tack stores that sell brushes and bridles and britches. The people who keep the brick and mortar stores lit and heated. The software coders who keep the online stores metaphorically lit and heated.

The people who box up, ship, and deliver all our goods, either wholesale or retail, either before or after we buy. Everything we touch has been transported multiple times by multiple methods, passing through the hands of countless people.

The people who make horse shows possible. The people who run shows, who judge, who ringmaster, who announce, who mind the gate, who mind the warm-up, who mind the office. The people who clean up once the show is gone. The people who manage the facilities that provide us with places to show.

The people who make it possible to get to shows and recall them after. The people who run convenience stores so that we can fill our trucks with gas and ourselves with trip treats. The people who provided us with our photos. The people who run the stores that keep the photographers in cameras and cables and memory cards.

The people – instructors, family members, and barnmates – who stand on the horse show rail and ride every stride with us.

How far back could we take this? The people who raised the cows that were used in our leather saddles and leather boots. The people who mined the ore that was smelted to make the metal that went into our stirrups and bits. The people bred our horses, the people who bred our horses’ dams and sires, the people who bred their dams and sires and so on ad infinitum back to Eohippus.

It doesn’t take village. It takes the entire freaking planet.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott