My Cronies
Te rewards of befriending like-minded horse people
By Patsy Gray
o
ne night, as my husband and
i were getting ready to go to a
party, he said: “i recommend
that you not have more than one drink
and that you not talk to my business
associates like you do to your horse
cronies. i have to work with them.”
Prior to that comment, i had
thought of “horse people” but not
necessarily “horse cronies.” Te term
cronies suggests something illegal
done in dark rooms by powerful people connected by their vices. Horse
people are connected by their addiction to powerful
creatures, but surely
that is not a vice.
nor did i realize that
the way i talked to
horse people might
not be pleasing to
polite society. on one occasion, i was talking to
a teacher of gifted
children. i asked her
what good gifted
classes did, given
that the children
did not seem to
learn anything special and that their
peers envied them
for escaping their
regular classes.
Te teacher replied
that sometimes the
gifted class was the
only class in which
these children could
feel average and
therefore normal.
is this not what
my horse cronies
do for me? i rode
alone as a child and
did not discover
riding companions
until i was 37 and
leased a horse at a
boarding stable. i
was overjoyed to be
riding again, but at
frst i didn’t quite
FRIENDS: Te writer with her Knabstrupper mare, Cita
52 June 2014 • USDF ConneCtion
[email protected]
know what to make of my fellow riders. Tey had so many opinions and
were so free with them, never mind
that the opinions were unsolicited and
often unwanted. However, i soon realized that these same women shared
my disinterest in housework, sewing,
interior decorating, and ladies’ clubs.
Tey believed money spent on a horse
was money well spent. Why spend it
on clothes, houses, cars, fne china?
Tese women understood what was
important in life. i started to fnd
their outspokenness refreshing and
liberating. i became less thin-skinned.
Tese people understood me as no
one ever had before. i began to feel i
might be normal!
Some of us swapped out on babysitting. We shared kids and ponies.
one day i called a horse- crazy friend
and asked her if she would help me
get rid of a dead body. She said yes
without even asking whose body it
was. it happened to be that of my very
large dog.
Horse cronies have thrilled me
by commissioning me to do their
horse portraits. Tey have soothed
me by listening to my problems. in
recent years, they have supported
me through two hip replacements,
bringing me food and companionship
and later lending me their safe horses
when i was healed enough to ride.
Yes, they have more than occasionally enraged me with their comments on my horses or my riding ability or lack thereof. Tey have sold me
both good horses and bad. Yet i have
learned and gained from it all.
i’m pleased now that my husband
gave me cause to really examine
that relationship i have with horse
people—people to whom i can truly
speak from the heart. Tey have
enriched my life. s
Patsy Gray, of Huntsville, AL, has
been doing dressage for 27 years
while trying out various breeds:
Arabian, Toroughbred, Hanoverian,
Morgan, Azteca, and fnally a sweet
Knabstrupper mare named Cita. She
also does pastel horse portraits. BEATE KUSKA PHOTOGRAPHY
the tail end