Ethnography Essay 1 English 102

8/7/2019 Ethnography Essay 1 English 102

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Stuck up white gloved riders

Pat Parelli proudly presents his programs and proclamation that prior and proper

preparation prevents P-poor performance particularly if polite and passive persistence is

practice in the proper position. This perspective takes patience, from process to product,

from principal to purpose. The promise that Pat plans too prove is that practice does not

make perfect, only perfect makes perfect, and it is peculiar how prey animals perceive

people as predators and not partners. (Parelli).

This is the concept I, and many natural horseman have lived by.

As far back as I can remember horses have always been a part of my life. When I was

three my babysitter Stephanie took me to her barn every night to feed; I owe her so much for

introducing me to the horse world. Every night, with her guidance, I would measure out grain

into feed buckets; drag hoses to fill water tubs, and get as dirty as I could while getting shavings

for the stalls. Stephanie would let me ride her horse, Missy, around in the ring. She would hold

onto the long line and I would be able to ride for being such a ³good´ helper. I become a part of

the barn, everyone knew who I was and, in turn I knew them. I saw two different types of people

at the barn. I saw people like my babysitter who worked hard with the horses, and I saw people

who would walk into the barn and have someone else tack their horse up. They would ride for an

hour and have someone else put them away and go home. I then realized that was not how I

wanted to be viewed in the horse world.

After I moved to Marshfield I was no longer able to go with my babysitter and ride her horse

as often as I had. I begged my parents to sign me up for riding lessons at the barn down the street

from my house. Later that night my dad came into my room and told me that in a month, if I felt

the same way, I could start in April. It was the longest month of my life but, there was no way I



was going to forget about my passion for horses. April first was my first lesson. I took two

lessons a week; at the time, I was unaware that my mom had to take a second job as a waitress to

pay for my lessons. I took to riding as if it was in my genes. I remember my instructor telling me

I was not like the other students because when I went I did not just want to ride, I wanted to help

clean stalls, and brush horses, and fill water buckets. I wanted to be an active rider; not like the

riders I saw getting everything done for them.

The older I got the more involved I became in the horse world; which meant more expenses

for my parents. When I was thirteen they sat me down and told me I needed to take a break from

horses because it was becoming too expensive. I was heartbroken but I knew they had sacrificed

so much already in the last eight years so I could ride. I was determined to find a way to ride.

The next day I rode my bike to the barn and proposed a deal. I offered to muck stalls every day

in exchange to be able to ride on Saturdays. From then on I knew I would have to work hard to

do what I loved.

I had one more month of school before summer started. Every morning I would wake up

and go to the barn before school. I would muck out eighteen stalls, ride my bike home, shower

and rush to the bus stop. At school I would hear girls talk about how they were going to see their

horse that day, they would talk about it as if it were a chore.

When I was sixteen my dad handed me a scratch ticket, as he had done every year since I

could hold a penny and scratch a piece of paper. I won a thousand dollars. My parents thought I

was going to put the money I had won towards a car. They should have known better. I spent a

few weeks looking for the right horse to train. I found a challenging horse named Mustang. A

true wild Mustang and she was being sold for eight hundred dollars. I called the next day to see

her, and a week later she was at my barn.



That summer, instead of partying with my friends and hanging out with my boyfriend, I

was training a wild mustang, and taking care of my horse, Moon. I remember one night after I

had iced my knee, from getting thrown from the mustang; I wished I could be like the girls I

heard in school when I was younger. I babysat everyday from one o¶clock until seven. I set up

lights in the ring to work with the mustang. I would go home shower go to bed and wake up at

five to work the mustang again and start my day all over again. Even though, at that time I

wished I had it differently, now I look back and I wouldn¶t change it for the world.

Years later, I have a deep down envy for the spoiled girls that do not have to lift a finger

at the barn and reap all the benefits of their father¶s wallets. I developed a distain for these types

of riders. So for my site I decided to study just that type of barn. I decided to study Magic Penny

Stables in Hanover MA. I do not have much knowledge about the barn but I know a lot about

barns like this one. I know that the horses are not treated naturally. The horses are usually by

themselves because their owners fear they might get kicked. The horses are blanketed, as if

horses in the wild have them too. The majority of the riders are show riders. For what I assume

there are still many questions I have about, and for the owner of the barn. I want to know how

the barn is run, and if there is a rough board option. So many borders choose to shoe their horses,

I want to know if and why they do. I want to know if the barn owner has strict rules the borders

need to follow. Also I want to ask the borders how they like it.

I already know that I will have a bias studying this culture. I have many different

opinions than those that keep their horses unnaturally. I keep my horse barefoot; he does not

wear metal shoes. My horse does not get blanketed, it¶s unnatural. He is kept in a herd like

environment and constantly has forage (hay). I know my stuff, so talking to people at the barn

will not be hard. I have been told I can be outspoken so I will have to try to sit back and observe.



I want to try to keep an open mind; I want to understand the logic behind the way they keep their

horses. When I was younger, people did not take me seriously, only because of my age. I want to

at least try to give everyone a fair chance to enlighten me.

Make sure you walk out the hose

Take a right at the four way intersection, I stop at Mary Lou¶s, get a minty lou and

continue on Broadway street. I turn left onto the dirt driveway right after the wood pile. There

are stacks of wood and logs all along the drive way, I later learned that the owner of the barn,

Jen, keeps the horses on her dads property and he sells fire wood. As I continue up the drive way

I pass the riding ring on my left and two decent sized paddocks on my right. The drive way is

about four hundred feet long. It¶s 8 am on Friday morning as I pull into the parking area. No

one¶s here yet; I already have gotten permission from Jen to go in the barn look around and wait

for someone to get there.

It¶s really cold as I walk around and look at the paddocks. Each paddock has a ten gallon

water bucket and a number on the post, 1-7. Two of the paddocks have wood that looks like it

was cribbed on. Cribbing is an anxiety driven habit that horses learn from lack of exercise,

boredom or lack of forage throughout the day. Two paddocks behind the big barn have lean

too¶s, a shelter for a horse outside. One horse is outside, he is a gelding (a fixed male horse), a

big bay quarter horse. The ring, which is about the size of half of a football field, has a good

solid inch of ice. In the ring are jump rails along side of fence. There are also barrels, used for

barrel racing that really heightened my interest. There are two paddocks that are run ins. There

stalls connect right into their paddocks allowing them to go in and out as they please. There are

three water spickets with no hoses attached outside and around the barn; not surprising since it is

freezing out and the hoses would explode if they are not emptied. Trying not to let my curiosity



get the best of me I went back into my car to wait for someone to show up; I didn¶t want to open

the barn because most horses kept in all night are very eager to get their grain in the morning and

I don¶t want to get them antsy.

8:27 am a green suburban pulls up. A woman in her mid fifties gets out of the car and I

introduce myself. Her name is Maureen; she has platinum blond hair, and tanned skin. I follow

her into the big barn where we are greeted with antsy whinnying just as I had thought. She

opened the sliding barn doors and there were three stalls on the left and five stalls on the right.

On the left the first door is the grain room that has all the horses¶ grain and supplements and has

stairs up to the hay loft. At the end on the left side is the wash stall used to hose off a hot horse

after a ride or to get clean before a show. At the very end of the big barn is another set of sliding

doors that lead to the tack room. As I was looking around Maureen was very short with what she

had to say; ³You can sit on the bag of shavings and watch as I feed´.

As I was sitting I wondered if she was the only person that fed in the mornings. First she

went into the grain room and brought out eight assorted colored buckets of grain. She opened the

stall windows and poured the buckets into a larger corner bucket. Some of the horses allow her to

pour the grain in nicely and a few lounged forward and tried to grab the colored buckets out of

her hand. I noted down witch horses acted ill mannered, and kept observing. After the horses

were done with the grain it was 8:53. Maureen took one horse at a time and led them to their

paddocks. As she was leading the horses from the big barn the horses in the little barn were

pacing back and forth in their stalls waiting to be fed.

11:35 am a gray Toyota Tacoma pulls up a man get out of the car with a brown carhart

jacket, jeans and a pair of work boots. This was the first and only man I saw. I introduced myself

and told him about my project. He told me his name was Hoss and he has the two year old



Friesian stallion named Elvis. Elvis had been one of the horses who grabbed at the grain bucket.

I asked him if the same woman who fed every morning and he showed me the bulletin board

with a feeding schedule. The barn was run by everyone who boarded a horse; each person took

three shifts a week. A shift could be morning feeding, stalls, or night feeding. As I was reading

the schedule I felt bad I had made a snap judgment about the people that boarded there without

even knowing how it ran. I had assumed that most of the people paid full board and only say

their horse when it was applicable to their schedule. The bulletin board also had some

miscellaneous papers:

y

Come to my Lia Sophia Jewelry party

y Stable sledding on Saturday

y A brochure from the local vet

y The ferries number

y A flyer for a horse that is for sale

I found the jewelry party flyer and the stable sledding to be the most interesting. It made me

believe that Jen wanted everyone to get along with everyone.

Admiring the Friesian, a minivan pulled up the long driveway. Two young girls about

fifteen and sixteen drag themselves out of the van. The blonde one, wearing a winter jacket,

brown ear muffs, brown gloves and a pair of rubber rain boots, has a sour look on her face. The

brunette, wearing a very flamboyant pink and green jacket, neon orange gloves, a wool hat, and a

pair of bright pink rain boots, looks excited to be at the barn. After an argument over who has to

clean what paddocks the blonde gets the smaller one and the brunette takes the larger paddock

and is stuck with a smaller wheel barrel having to make multiple trips to the manure pile to her

sister one.



I already have the assumption that most of the riders ride English because of the jump

rails in the ring. I wondered into the tack room. English saddles lined the whole right side of the

room. English bridles and bits rung on every hook.

Its 4:35 pm and time to feed again. I noticed that the blonde and brunette sisters left

without helping put the horses into feed. I thought that was strange because had it been me I

would not leave if my horse was still out. The girls in charge of feeding that night, Bri and

Lindsey who co-own a dark thoroughbred named Busta. They were talking about the indoor ring

they get to use at a barn down the street. I decided I would go the next time they went, to observe

their riding style.

Bri and Lindsey brought all he horses back into their stalls. As they walked by I saw that

all but two were shoed. I took a mental note to ask the owners why they were. The assorted

colored buckets came back out and were poured into the big buckets. The same horses as the

morning lounged forward and grabbed the bucket our of Bri¶s hand. I want so badly to offer help

but I sit there and watch as they finish up feeding. The hay loft upstairs has individual hay shoots

that go right into the stalls. They drop two or three flakes to each horse. Lindsey grabs the hose

and starts to unravel it and fills up the water buckets in the stalls. Then she ravels it back on the

hook. In my head I was thinking that the hose needs to be drained. The girls are finished and

offer me to come to the indoor the next day. They tell me the barn is Bella Luna Stables, I know

the place and I meet them there the next day at 11 am.

The next morning, I get there at 10 am. My cousin keeps her horse there so I went to see

her. Bri, Lindsey and four other riders pull their trailers into the parking lot. English saddles are

tightened and bits are put into their mouths. I recognized one of the horses that had been

disrespectful at feeding time and paid close attention to how she was under saddle. Horses that



have bad ground manners usually transfer to the saddle. Her owner took her two laps around the

ring and then the horse reared and sent her owner tumbling to the ground. Bri and Lindsey took

turns on their shared horse. He was a little heavy in the mouth, probably because they had

different riding styles and one pulled on his mouth while the other didn¶t have an in depended

seat. Which means she bounce way to much on his back. According to Pat Parelli one of the six

elements of communication with your horse is to have an independent seat. The blonde girl with

the sour face was riding a smaller paint. She looked frustrated. The paint kept taking off on her

and acted as if she was not even on his back. She finally gave up and handed him off to her

sister. I later learned that Roper, the paint, was a lease pony, meaning many different people paid

Jen to ride him. That explained his lack of respect for the blonde. He knew what to do and how

to push her buttons to get her off. Her sister had a more patients and better handling skills.

The girls flew over the jump rails. Jumping was never something I was interested in but

watching the horses gracefully clear the jump and land softly on the ground was really a

fascinating thing to see. So I learned that in the few day I was observing the barn not to make a

snap judgment about owners. I left the indoor ring at one with a notebook full of questions to ask

on my next day observing.

Righty Tightly, Lefty Lucy

There are tractors and trucks, skid steers and log splitters rushing up the long dirt drive

way to different paddocks. Today is the day everyone from the barn is required to show up and

help rebuild the barn fences. I fit my car in the only open space to park. I am immediately

greeted my four huge dogs. I spot Jen giving out directions to some boarders. She must be very

happy her dad sells all this lumber. All of the horses are locked in their stalls. I feel bad because

it is so nice out. Jen introduces me to all the men working on the equipment. I say hi and try to



remember all their names. Soon I learn that they are all her brothers. I walk around to see who is

there. I spot Jen¶s daughter and another little girl from the barn playing in the ring. It makes me

smile because I remember being that young and having the same passion for horses that they

have at such a young age.

One of the boarders that I did not get to know yet was walking around aimlessly with a

hammer. Jen redirected her to the muddy paddock. I watched as she sunk in her English riding

boots, cursing that she just bought them. She walks over to someone working on the fence and

starts to complain saying she does not know why she has to be here. Her father pays to keep her

horse here and she should have to partake in repairing fences. I find Hoss, the owner of the

Frisian stallion. I finally get to talk one on one about his plans for Elvis. He tells me that Elvis is

behaving so much better now that he gets out every day in the round pen. I smile and tell him

that¶s really great and just from the small amount of time I have been coming to the barn I have

seem a drastic improvement of his ground manners. I make a point to also point out how great

his feet look. ³They do, don¶t they. Well for another year or so he will be barefoot and then he

will go to shoes. I mean, I want to make sure he has the best of the best. My dad was a mounted

police officer and his horses were always shoed. They have been forever.´ Elvis will start next

year (he will begin the processes of being able to ride and taking the bit, the metal instrument

used to steer most horse). He¶s a little over two years old and his bones are not done growing,

starting to ride to early can lead to serious health issues regarding bones and joints. A lot of race

horses have such problems. Today is really busy but I get to see everyone at the barn at once and

how they interact with the other boarders and me.

Bri and Lindsey are working together on taking all the electric fencing down. They are

always together at the barn; I have never once seen them apart, except when one is riding. They



got their shared horse Busta off the race track last year. He just was not what the owners wanted.

A thoroughbred, like Busta, is used for racing. Most do not make up the time needed to race.

They put a lot of work into him in the past year. Lindsey said it¶s really hard to go to school so

far away and only get to see him on the weekends. Bri just smiles. She says she goes to school

locally and visits him every day before work even if it is to just give him an apple. They tell me

he has on metal shoes because their vet advised them to leave them on when they asked if he

could go barefoot.

As I continue walking around I see Jens daughter, Kay. Kay¶s friend runs up to me very

enthusiastically, saying that they get to ride later when the fences are finished. They bring me

over to a very older looking small pony. Kay tells me Dusty is going to be one hundred and sixty

seven tomorrow and she is very excited to make her a cake! I do not even have to ask any

questions because she is talking so fast and indulging in her whole five year life stories. She has

been riding since the day her mom let her come out of her tummy. Last year she needed help

riding Dusty, ³mommy would have to hold the long rope so Dusty wouldn¶t run me into the

street but now I don¶t need help, I am five´. She gives Dusty a pat just as fast as she was talking

she left to finishes playing with her friend in the ring.

I ran into a boarder I only had met only once when she made clear by her facial

expressions she did not want to me bother her. She was heavier set woman, with short dirty

blonde hair. She was head to toe in riding gear. I saw her struggling to get her paint gelding to

walk past all the commotion of the bob cats. He was rearing up and she was trying to pull him

back down. Not only is she not doing the correct thing she could get hurt. I walk over and ask if

she wants help. She hands me the lead rope and tells me that she doubts I could if she could not.

I imagined she would think that in her head but I wasn¶t really expecting her to say it out loud.



There tend to be two distinct ends to the spectrum when it comes to a person¶s attitude in

getting a horse to do something. There¶s the stick attitude, used by the person who bashes

the horse with a stick to make him do it. Such a person uses force and intimidations to

make a horse perform. Then there is the carrot attitude, used by a person who sweet-talks

the horse into doing something. Such person is usually ineffective and begs the horse

instead of asking and getting respect from the horse. (Parelli).

I fall in the middle. When her horse reared up again I stepped to the side of him and pulled his

head to the side that way he lost his balance and had to come back down. I made him do a circles

giving me my space but also to distract him from the bob cat and he simply walked right by.

Being assertive, gental as possible but with as much force as necessary gets you the respect from

a horse she was lacking. I hand the lead rope back to her and tell her I had work with a horse that

rears and tries to strike out. As I walking away she introduces herself as Jill and asked me more

about the horse I work with.

After talking to Jill about what I did she finally opened up. As a kid she moved around a

lot and never made any real friends. She didn¶t like sports. ³My mom got really worried about

me so one day she drove me to a dressage barn in Pennsylvania and that¶s where I started´. She

met her now husband while buying the horse Baby, that was rearing up. He was selling him

because he had adopted him from a rescue just to fatten him up and sell him. I smile and wait for

her to continue but she doesn¶t. The little connection I had made by helping her with Baby had

left her memory and she looks aggravated to be talking with me. I thanked her for her time and

tried to find someone a little more friendlily.

I finally find Jen alone and ask her if she has a minute to talk. She laughs and asks what

took me so long. She grew up riding and loving the sport. She competed since she was a young



girl, hunt seat and jumping. When the opportunity came along to build a barn behind her dad

house she jumped at the idea. The barn had started off as a full board facility (where the barn

manager takes full care of your horse). She told me she got her paint pony gelding Roper when

he was six months old. She started him and trained him into the jumper he is now, eight years

later. After she got pregnant with her daughter Kay she decided she wanted to do a co-op barn so

that she could be home with the baby and still keep her dream of having a barn. A co-op barn is

when all the boarders take shifts throughout the week to care for their horses. In return board is

less expensive and all the responsibility is not laid so heavily on one person. She was so excited

to have a daughter so that she could pass on the passion for horses. She tells me that at times it

can be difficult to run a business on your father¶s property but she admits she would never be

able to have her barn without him. And she adds she would never be able to afford all the lumber

they are using today. Jen tells me her biggest pet peeve is when her boarders slack off on their

duties. They only have to do a shift two or three times a week and they have it pretty easy. She

adds that she hates when people run out of hay and not even asking use her hay to feed the horses

that do not have any. ³I mean of course I do not want a horse to go a night without a few flakes

of hay but at least ask me first, you know´. I tell her I understood I used to be at a barn that I

literally had to only bring over enough food for the day because if I left my hay there it would be

gone much quicker. She rolls her eyes and says she cannot stand it! Her horse Roper was left

barefoot and never shod. He had nice feet as a baby. He was her first and only horse that was

barefoot. Now that Kay is in kindergarten she is excited to start working with Hoss¶ horse Elvis.

She had loved starting Roper and wanted to start another project. She admits she never has

worked with a stallion but will not let that be an excuse to let him get away with anything. I

really like the way she thinks and smile.



I let Jen get back to repairing the fences; I noticed she kept looking out the window. She

apologized for having to cut short but she needed to redirect her brother and boyfriend who were

enjoying their cold beer more than getting the posts in the ground. Before she left the tack room

she turned and told me if I wanted to talk to someone with a very different outlook on horses to

talk to Kandice. She points her out as the girl who had complained about having to help.

Kandice practically sprints over to me. She looked more excited to get away from the

fences than she is to talk to me. After only a few minutes of talking with her I realized what Jen

had meant about her having a different outlook. She spends five minutes dominating the

conversation complaining about why she was here. She tells me that she rides when she has the

time, and her dad pays for whatever she wants. I wear a forced smile as she tells me that she

want to get a Hoverian cross but she could not get one until she helped do the fences. I tell her

thank you for your time but I will be late to my client¶s barn if I don¶t leave right now. I wave

bye to Jen who gives me a ³wasn¶t I right´ look. As I maneuvered my car around all the

equipment and piles of wood I realized my many assumptions where wrong about most of the

boarders. I was intrigued with Jen and her true knowledge of horses. After talking to with

Kandice I had instance flash backs of the prissy annoying girls that were at the barn were I

worked at when I was little.

Magic Penny had proved most of my assumptions wrong. The barn was not full of

snobby people, only a few. The barn¶s atmosphere was much closer knit than I had ever planned

on it being. Jen tried very hard to keep positive relations with her boarders; unless they let the

hose freeze! The boarders that kept shoes on their horse¶s feet just didn¶t know any other way.

There had been that one boarder who made the whole white glove remark stand true to its

meaning.

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Ethnography Essay 1 English 102