Some stage setting perhaps: My wife and I met later in life. She knew I was involved in sports car racing and I knew she had owned horses in the past. In a attempt to curry favor and show interest, I volunteered to go to a horse show to see what it was about. This was well before before I bought her the horse as a Christmas present. How hard can this be??? Buy a ticket go through the gate and any intelligent guy can recognize a horse: nose, two ears, two eyes, four legs, mane and tail. Hay in one end, unmentionables out the other… HAH!!!
“Look it’s a morgan… performing in the ring, right there!” (really, I was expecting to see a 3 wheel Morgan Motor Car…already this is not going well). “There’s a saddlebred!” (aren’t they all saddle bred?…no silly that is saddle broken…! UGH!!!)
Things were really not going so well, but then we go to the paddock: big time shock! We are at a sports car race without the cars! Is this the twilight zone or something? Big trailers, defining attire so you know the drivers (oops riders), from the pit crew (oops stable hands), places to buy new or replace broken items, food, unique smells. Beginning to look promising, maybe I have a framework to learn from. Now if I can just learn the makes and models in time: Saddle Bred, Arabian, Friesians, warm blood, cold blood…UGH! I did get one: Budweiser Clydesdale (Don’t give me away, they attended a race I was participating in about 40 yrs ago.)
