July, 2021
I love horses. I had a horse when I was a girl and I loved him. Someday I’ll tell you about him, but today I’m going to tell you about my visit to a business near Lake Goodwin (where I was boondocking), a business that boards and trains and shows horses and riders, and they have their own Arabian horses that they breed and raise and show all over the USA. Saddle up, let’s go! 🙂
I pulled in and parked. When I first pulled in around some trees out at the entrance to the property, and then I saw the horse “statue” above, I thought it was a real horse. Wow, cool. 🙂
First thing I did was find some people and ask them if I could walk around and, if so, what areas were off-limits, and could I take photos, etc. They were the friendliest folk! They said “sure go ahead, walk anywhere, nice to have you here, take all the photos you’d like, happy to have you here.” Gosh, I could have moved right in.
This place has many barns, many buildings … lots of barns and buildings! The one in the photo below is a building that has stalls in it to keep your horse in, but you’ll need to come and exercise your horse since each stall is just a stall (though the stalls are sizable), no way for the horse to get outside and get any exercise by itself.
Here’s the front entrance to this building below. At first I thought there was a number 83 in the green part above the wide doors. But I looked more closely …
It’s four used horse shoes welded together to form a four-leaf, um I mean four-shoe clover.
Here’s the inside of this building … it was so clean. Everything here was so clean.
Just outside that building was this exercise walking ring (below) where you can attach your horse to one of the arms and it will lead the horse around in a circle. Turn your horse around to face the other direction, push the other button, and it will walk your horse in the opposite direction around the circle.
The large shed below was full of sawdust. Sawdust is used for many things around a place like this, but mostly it’s used to cover the floors of stalls, which you’ll see in a few photos below.
The next photo (below) shows the largest building on the property. It might look like a two-story building but it’s not; the “windows” above simply let in light so it feels more natural inside.
If your horse is in this building, each stall has a door that allows each horse to go outside if it wishes, walk/trot up and down a bit, talk with the other horses, etc.
On a fence outside yet another building were these pads and blankets airing out, drying.
Off to one side of the property … well, sort of off to one side, the property seemed to go on forever, but off to one side of the major buildings were these tents (below). Hey, camping! Maybe I could camp here? 🙂 Well, no, these tents are for horses not for humans. The horses that live in these tents (not in freezing weather!) have a long “run” where they are free to exercise on their own. There’s one horse to each tent, and the “run” behind each tent is about 30 feet wide and about 210 feet long.
Ok, let’s go take a look inside that very large, main building. Just inside the door was this board (below) showing each stall in most of the buildings, though not all of the buildings … there was another board elsewhere that listed other locations and other horses’ names. You don’t really want to get mixed up about which horse is Diva vs which horse is Empress vs which horse is Cosmic, no sir!
Obviously, cleaning is an on-going activity around here since horses are horses, if you know what I mean … hence the use of sawdust on the floor, kind of like a huge litter box.
Here’s the inside of another building (below).
Speaking of clean … here’s the indoor shower where you wash your horse.
And tack rooms … oh there were lots of tack rooms in all the buildings. Western riding gear and English riding gear … halters and bridles and reins, hackamores and saddles and blankets, breeching straps and blinkers, brushes and combs, hoofpicks to martingales, from breastplates to cruppers and everything in between.
Outside, in a another huge area of the property were numerous horse trailers and tow vehicles … lots of these too, just like there were lots of buildings and lots of horses and lots of really friendly people here. The rig below was a big one, although not the largest.
The trailer was about 34 feet long; the truck was about 23 feet long.
Last but not least … most of the horses here were pretty quiet, maybe a bit bored, they didn’t seem interested in me. And, I didn’t whistle or click or tap on things to get their attention since I was just a visitor in their home. But a few of the folks here did seem to notice me and shared eye-contact and even a bit of a chat.
The mare above hated flies, those pesky flies, keep them off my eyes!
The fellow below gave me a quick wink and a nod, and told me some stories. He was quite the talker.
And these two below just couldn’t take their eyes off me. By this time in my travels around the property, I must have smelled like I fit right in. Maybe the two horses below hoped I would unlock the gate and take them for a ride. I was thinking the same thing myself. 🙂
Enjoyed the photos so much. There sure is a lot of infrastructure that goes with horses. I wonder if that is artificial and modern. It is hard to believe our grandparents and great gp’s got into all that.
I’ve wondered that too, since my experience with horses has been pretty “rustic”, just a large field for my horse (and two other horses) and a small shed for them, and a small barn/shed to house the saddle and bridle and store hay and such. But in my readings, it seems there have been lots of money spent on show horses and racing horses for many generations … in the USA back into the 1600’s! Here’s a link to a webpage with info about race horses. https://www.bethq.com/blog/the-most-famous-racehorses-in-history
My sister and I grew up with horses, oh this takes me back. Our two horses were boarded on a farm near where we lived, along with one other horse that belonged to another neighbor. In the winter they were kept inside a barn, but otherwise they were outside in a large field that also had a small rather open shed that had a roof so they could get in under cover when it rained and the hay was kept dry for them too. This was great! Thanks Ann. 🙂
Janey
Oh Janey, sounds exactly what I had and did as a kid too, down here in Washington State. I would walk to the pasture from home, or drive there after I turned 16 and had my license. How many days I’d simply walk over there and just hang out with my buddy and the other two horses, not even riding him, just combing him and talking with him and walking around the pasture with him following along right behind me and sometimes nudging me to hurry up. 🙂
My grandfather worked on the horse racing circuit when he was a boy back in the late 1800s. I never had a horse but I loved his stories. He loved those horses more than anything. He could never make enough money to get ahead so finally saved up enough to go back to school and become an accountant. He liked that too, but he missed those horses so much. He would have loved this blog.
I bet your grandfather had a lot of great stories. It sounds like he’s no longer here. I wish I could sit with you and him and just listen. Being an accountant was good, but not the same as being around horses. Thanks Joe. Here’s to your grandfather.
Never had a horse, but they seem so wonderful. Thanks for showing us around. I think I can smell the smell of horses even! I love it. 🙂
These stables/barns were so clean that there wasn’t much smell, but yes the horse smell was there, a lovely warm horse smell, a smell that makes you want to hug and love those horses. 🙂
There’s nothing like the good warm smell of a clean horse barn. I think I could smell it from just reading your blog too, Ann. It’s a really warm welcome kind of smell. Guess it’s time for me to go visit some friends of mine who still have horses.
Exactly, Tim, you know the smell. Yes, go visit your friends (the horses!) and then visit with your human friends too. 🙂
Thanks for sharing, Ann. And they’re Arabians, no less! ❤ Lovely place, and I’m enjoying reading about your latest adventure.
I was told, while I was there, to stay away from two stalls that had really high strung Arabians in them. I did that. But other Arabians in these stalls/barns were perfectly happy and friendly. They are so good looking. On the other hand, my horse was a Quarter Horse and he was the most handsome horse ever!! 🙂 Thanks Virginia.
Horses, horses, crazy over horses.
Barney Google, with the goo-goo-googly eyes.
Remember that cartoon and that song? I can’t find it online, but I sure remember it and loved it.
Yes!! I remember that cartoon and song too. And I can’t find it online either. Keep looking Fran and let me know if you find anything … I will too. Gosh, thanks for the reminder.
I’ve always wondered if the modern day search engine “Google” was named after Barney Google, with the goo-goo-googly eyes … his eyes were so big! … like he could see everything in the whole world! 🙂