Mugwump / Janet

By Laura Crum



As any of you who have been reading my posts here know, I’m relatively new to blogging. Until the folks who created this site invited me to write a bi-weekly blog for them (and I accepted) back in March of this year, I had never even read a blog. I had no idea what was out there in the blogosphere. But having accepted the invitation to write one, I figured I’d better go find out what it was I was supposed to be writing. So, I looked around and found a veritable army of “horse blogs”, some with many readers, some with very few. It was instructive. I learned what blogging amounted to. But among these blogs, one stood head and shoulders above the rest (in my view), and that was “mugwump chronicles”.

Most of you are probably already fans of mugwump, so I’m preaching to the choir here, but for those of you who haven’t read this blog, mugwump is a horse trainer. She has had a long career training reined cowhorses and she is, in my book, a very talented and savvy trainer. Her blog offers well thought out and very tactful advice (for free) to all who ask—how cool is that?

But even more wonderful (if possible) than her skill as a horse trainer is her talent as a writer. By great good fortune, the day I stumbled upon her blog was the day she posted chapter one of her “Sonita story”, one of the most moving chronicles of training a young horse that I have ever read—anywhere. Like so many others, I became addicted to this story, waiting eagerly for the next installment. And, of course, I wrote to mugwump and told her what a great writer I thought she was/is.

Mugwump wrote back and we discovered we had an amazing number of similarities. We had both trained and shown cowhorses, we were both interested in writing about horses, she loved mysteries, we are the same age, we both went to Catholic school….the list went on and on. Our views about horses and training horses were almost identical. I think we were both blown away by how much we had in common. In the course of this dialogue, mugwump gave me her name and revealed that in her “real life”, get this, she was/is an artist. And she gave me her website address.

So I went to http://www.cowhorseart.com/ and I was even more astounded. Because this talented horse trainer and writer is an equally talented artist who has illustrated many books, done some wonderful commissioned portraits of people and horses and has an incredibly delightful series of cards for sale. I promptly ordered some Xmas cards for myself and asked mugwump, who I now knew as the artist Janet Huntington, why she didn’t use her popular blog to promote her artwork.

Turns out, as some of you already know, that mugwump/Janet is a modest, private person and she just wasn’t sure if she wanted to go public with her other career, so to speak. So, to make a long story short, I pretty much begged her to do so. I felt that lots of her fans would love her artwork as much as I did, and be just as amazed as I am/was that she is so multi-talented. (I couldn’t draw a decent horse to save my life—this is one thing we don’t have in common.)

In the end, Janet has decided to go public as mugwump, and I know you will all enjoy her artwork as much as I did. And you’ll probably all want Xmas cards, too. So, just for fun, we decided we’d do a joint promotion: the winner of today’s contest will receive a set of Janet Huntington Xmas cards and a signed copy of my first equine mystery, Cutter.

And all of you, please, do yourselves a favor, visit http://www.cowhorseart.com/ and take a look at what a wonderful artist mugwump is. On top of being a terrific horse trainer and a great writer. It ought to be illegal to have so many talents. (I’m kidding—I’m just jealous.) And for those, if there are any, who haven’t yet found her mugwump chronicles blog, I highly recommend a visit there, too. This is some seriously good writing about horses, and I know that those of you who visit this site are folks who are interested in writing about horses.

And now, drumroll please, for the contest. The first person to answer the question: Where in the blogosphere did mugwump and I first “meet”? and post the correct answer in the comments on this blog will get the cards and book. You will also have to email me your snail mail address so that I can send them to you. I’ll respond in the comments and let you know who won. That person can email me at laurae@cruzio.com

The rest of you will have to buy your cards and books, if you want them, and I will shamelessly say that the combo of a Janet Huntington card and a book by any author on this site will make a wonderful Xmas gift for horse lovers you may know.

Here, just to give you a taste, is one of my favorites of her Xmas cards: "Cutting Rudolf"

Have fun.
Laura Crum