"Hoofprints" is FREE Today--Happy Halloween!

                                   by Laura Crum

            So today I have another gift for you. In honor of Halloween, my second novel, Hoofprints, is free today and tomorrow (Oct 30^th and 31^st) as a Kindle edition. Hoofprints features my series protagonist, veterinarian Gail McCarthy, and centers around the world of reined cowhorses. Hoofprints is rated four and a half stars on Amazon.  Click on the title to find the free edition and to read more about the book, as well as plenty of reviews.

            It occurred to me that perhaps some potential readers might wonder what credentials I have to write about about reined cowhorses and/or cutting horses. So today I thought I’d fill you in on my background in this area.

When I was in my twenties, I was obsessed with cowhorses. I went to work for several well known cowhorse and cutting horse trainers as an assistant, and I rode many, many accomplished horses in these barns, as well as helped train over a hundred young horses. I trained my good gelding, Gunner, to be first a reined cowhorse (we competed at the Snaffle Bit Futurity and placed in the Non-Pro and the Ladies Divisions), and then a cutting horse (we placed in the Non-Pro Division of the Northwest Superstakes when Gunner was four years old and went on to win numerous smaller awards, including the cutting at our local county fair). The photo below shows Gunner and me winning the cutting at the Santa Cruz County Fair when Gunner was eight years old.

            Along the way, I rubbed shoulders with some of the “greats” of both the cowhorse and the cutting horse world. We’re talking world champion trainers, incredibly wealthy clients, and some of the most talented horses you could ever imagine. I saw things that came right out of a mystery novel, from outright scams and incredible abuse, to charming sociopaths who would rip you off without a second thought. I also met some genuinely good-hearted folks who knew more about training a horse than most backyard horsemen can even imagine. I learned a lot. I saw a lot of, uhmm, colorful things. And when I began writing mystery novels at the age of thirty, I knew where I would set those novels.

            And so Cutter, my first novel, was set in the world of cutting horses. For those of you who have read the book, I can assure you that every single character and incident was based (sometimes loosely) on something I actually saw or knew about (with the exception of the murders, of course). The horses, too, are all horses I have known. Cutter is rated 4 stars on Amazon and the Kindle edition is currently just 99 cents. Click on the title to find the book, and to read more info and reviews.

            Having finished Cutter, I knew I wanted to do justice to the even more cutthroat world of reined cowhorses, with its own subset of wealthy owners and high stakes trainers. And so Hoofprints was born. Here is a brief synopsis of the book (from Amazon):

In this second installment in the Gail McCarthy series, the young vet stumbles upon two murdered bodies in the course of a routine call. When a midnight emergency turns into an attempt on her life, Gail knows she must uncover the motive before its too late. Plenty of authentic horse lore and an action packed plot from an author who spent most of her life training cowhorses and knows whereof she speaks.

            Hoofprints has always been one of the most popular titles in my mystery series. It stands well on its own, but also holds its place as the second in a twelve book series about the life of veterinarian Gail McCarthy. One of the main characters in the book is Plumber, who, in real life is a horse I bought as an unbroken three-year-old and trained myself. Plumber went on to become a winning rope horse, bringing home numerous trophy saddles and buckles and many, many paychecks. The real Plumber is very much as described in the book—a sweet, kind, willing horse who really likes people. I still own Plumber—he is 24 years old and lives here with me as a retired horse and we all give him lots of love and attention.

            Plumber as a baby, next to his mother, Bucky.

            Plumber packing my son and me—yes, I know we should have worn helmets, but Plumber packed us like this without one misstep for three years.

            Plumber today--24 years old.

            So for anyone who enjoys a good mystery and loves horses—here is a Halloween gift for you. Hoofprints will be free today and tomorrow as a Kindle edition. Get it while you can.

            Happy Halloween!

My Life With Horses--Part Four

                                               by Laura Crum

            So at this point I had two horses-- my ranch horse, Burt, and my expensive new three year old colt, Gunner. I was twenty-six years old and working for minimum wage for a well known reined cowhorse trainer, and I could barely afford to own one horse, let alone two. But the trainer was so impressed with Gunner that he offered to board and train the colt for free if I would let him show the horse. That’s how talented Gunner was.

            There was just one slight problem with this program. And it was that I could not bear to let the trainer torture Gunner.

            I had seen first hand how hard the three year olds were pushed to make them competitive at the Snaffle Bit Futurity and I didn’t want to do this to my colt. I had about had a bellyful of seeing horses pushed too hard in order to win…on all fronts.

            So in a fit of anger, sensible or not, I quit the trainer and took Gunner home—to get him ready to show at the Snaffle Bit Futurity all by myself.

            This was a pretty unrealistic concept. I had never shown at the Snaffle Bit before and I had never trained a horse to be a successful reined cowhorse. But I had ridden for the big time cowhorse trainer for all of a year, and I thought I knew enough. Remember, I was twenty-six years old.

            So I loaned Burt to a ranching family that I knew, and I spent all my time and all my money training Gunner. I practiced with my colt at our family ranch. Here we are, cutting cattle.

            I took lessons from trainers as I could afford it. And I rode Gunner every single day (poor thing). He was a really talented horse and I made a lot of progress with him. But he was still a homemade horse and I was very green at showing. Virtually every other non-pro at the Snaffle Bit Futurity was on a professionally trained horse and had many more years of experience than I had. So I’m actually proud to say that we placed in the non-pro and the ladies division. I didn’t win enough to earn back my entry fees and I made some dumb mistakes, but overall we did OK. However, the whole experience really soured me on the reined cowhorse business.

It was just too hard on the horses and too political, and I thought (I believe rightly) that I wasn’t ever going to be much of showman, especially in the reining part of the contest. If I didn’t have a cow to focus on, I wasn’t happy. So I took up cutting instead, and began hauling Gunner to cutting competitions.

By this time I was working for a well known cutting horse trainer, and I knew quite a bit more about training a horse to be a cutting horse than I had known about training one to be a reined cowhorse. I hauled Gunner to all the small local cuttings that I could. Sometimes we did pretty well. But almost every time I went to a larger show we bombed.

Obviously the competition was tougher. But there was something else, too. Whenever I pulled into the parking lot of one of these bigger shows, I was the ONLY half-ton pickup towing a two-horse trailer in the entire parking lot (older pickup with a shabby old two horse trailer, at that). I am not kidding. Every other rig was a shiny dually towing an equally shiny multi-horse trailer, many with living quarters. By which you can see the difference between my degree of wealth and that of the other participants.

Cutting is a rich man’s sport. There are a number of reasons for this. Cutting horses are expensive, cattle are expensive, entries at a cutting are expensive. But there’s more to it than that. Cutting is one of the few horse sports where you really CAN buy your way in. A rich man can buy a well-trained cutting horse, he can keep it in training with a good cutting horse trainer, he can take the occasional lesson, and he can climb on that horse at a show and have his trainer coach him through a run…and he can win the class. Unlike the reined cowhorse world, you can be a pretty poor rider (by which I mean you could never survive going down the fence or manage to cue a horse for a good sliding stop), and still ride a polished cutting horse who knows his job and—with a little coaching—perform pretty damn well. And thus, the cutting horse world is populated by a lot of VERY rich people who don’t actually ride very well. But boy do they have nice horses.

When I showed up at the bigger cuttings, not only did I usually have the only “humble” rig in the parking lot, I was frequently the only non-pro on a homemade horse. Every other non-pro kept his/her horse in training with a professional trainer, who was there to tune the horse up and coach the non-pro through his/her run. As you can imagine, I seldom beat these people. Partly because the professionally trained horses were more solid than Gunner overall, and the other non-pros were usually far more experienced at showing. But there was another element in play.

I had taken up cutting not only because it was easier on the horse than cowhorse, but also because I thought the judging was less subjective. If you lose a cow, you get marked down a specific number of points. Same for switching a cow, or bumping the bit…etc. A judge cannot just let any horse he likes win a class. But…if two horses both have clean runs and neither gets a whole lot more accomplished than the other, well, a judge marks them higher or lower as he pleases. I did occasionally have a pretty good run, but guess what? It wasn’t often marked high enough to win. And there’s a reason for this.

The judges were usually trainers. They all knew each other, they all knew the rich clients who typically circulated around from trainer to trainer. They knew who had money and was worth cultivating because some day that person might put a horse in training with that judge. They knew if they marked a trainer friend’s client high enough to win a class that trainer friend might return the favor. So if a non-pro with no money and no trainer has a run that’s more or less the equal of a non-pro who is the wealthy client of well known trainer, who do you suppose will get marked higher? And yes, it does work like that. Not all the time, but a lot of the time.

So I placed a little and won the occasional class at a smaller show and collected some trophy buckles and headstalls, but I began to find cutting frustrating. I’ve already explained about the judged element and how political it was, but there were other things. There weren’t many local cuttings near me—I usually had to haul at least three hours (one way) to get to an event. The entries were very expensive, several hundred dollars per class at a large show. In order to practice effectively, one needed access to fresh cattle, and no matter how you attempted to arrange this, it was expensive (believe me I know all about this). And finally, except when you are actually showing, or watching someone else have a good run, cuttings are like watching paint dry. An endless amount of sitting around while the herd is being settled and the arena is being drug for the occasional few seconds of brilliance on the part of a good horse, and one’s own two and a half minute run, which was frustrating as often as it turned out rewarding. I just plain got burnt out on it.

And finally, I had progressed as far as I thought I was going to go on Gunner at this sport. Gunner was a solid cutting horse. Two local trainers had told me he was a good horse and I had done a good job on him…but he wasn’t going to get any better unless I let a trainer ride him. One trainer had offered to train and show him for free (he obviously liked Gunner) if I would pay his entry fees. One trainer had offered me $10,000 for Gunner for a wealthy non-pro client who wanted a gentle all around horse that he could win the occasional cutting on. And every single trainer told me that if I wanted to improve and “go on” at cutting, I needed to move on to a different horse. A smaller, cattier, fancier kind of horse. But I didn’t want to sell Gunner. And I was getting tired of the politics and logistics of this rich man’s sport.

So in Gunner’s nine-year-old year I resolved that my last cutting would be our local county fair. And what do you know? We marked a 72 and a half (about like an A-) and won the class. I got a big fancy buckle and that was our last cutting event. Here we are, winning the county fair cutting.

But Gunner’s career wasn’t over. Far from it. The poor horse was bred to be a reined cowhorse, and he was pretty damn successful as a cutter, considering that I trained him myself every step of the way. But all my friends at this time were team ropers, and team roping is timed rather than judged (no politics—yay!), and boy howdy does it move along compared to cutting, and the entry fees are SO MUCH cheaper. Not to mention that my uncle had a practice arena where my friends roped together twice a week. And so I decided that I would train my long suffering horse to do yet another event. He was about to become a team roping head horse. (To be continued.)

Parts One, Two and Three of this story are here.

And if you would like to read a more colorful description/rendition of the cutting horse world than I can provide in a blog post, complete with the driven trainers, wealthy clients and amazing horses that I knew (names changed to protect the innocent and the guilty, of course), try my first mystery novel, Cutter, on sale as a Kindle edition for 99 cents. Click on the title to find the book.

Training a Cutting Horse and a FREE Book About Cutters

                                    by Laura Crum

            My first novel, Cutter, was inspired by the years I spent training and showing my horse, Gunner. I bought Gunner as a green broke three year old (for a lot more money than I could really afford). Here I am, young, proud of my horse, and ready to train him to be a world beater—the day I bought Gunner.

            I had spent some time working for cutting horse trainers, and I thought I knew plenty. I was quite sure I could train Gunner to be a solid cutting horse. But, of course, I had never trained a cutting horse from green broke to competitive. I had a lot to learn.

            But I persisted. And Gunner was a really talented horse. I worked a lot of cattle on him. I rode him virtually every day. He learned to cut a cow. Here we are out at the family ranch, cutting those critters. I think we both look pretty intense. I particularly like the way my hair and his mane are standing straight up. Note the slack in the reins.

            Being able to effectively cut cattle at home is very different from succeeding in cutting horse competition. A cutting class has very specific rules. You break a rule—say you “switch” cattle, or you have a “hot quit”, well, you’re not going to score well. And then, whether you mark well or not has a lot to do with cutting the “right” cow, and you have, at most, three chances to get that done in the two and a half minute run. So, often, you may not make any big mistakes, but you don’t get a chance to get your horse “shown.” (This happened to me a lot in my early years.)

            And then, cutting is a judged event, and, I’m sorry to say, that, as in all judged event, there is a large political element. As someone on a “homemade” horse, and not being the client of a big name trainer, I was at a huge disadvantage when it came to this aspect of the sport. Nevertheless, eventually I won quite a little bit.

            Below you see Gunner winning the cutting at our local county fair. He was eight or nine by then, and a pretty darn solid cutting horse, if I say so myself. I still was no great showman, but I did a workmanlike job. And sometimes, as on this day, it was good enough to win the class. We marked a 72 1/2 here, on tough cattle, and it did the trick. This was probably my favorite victory—in front of the hometown crowd. Gunner won other awards, but that county fair buckle meant the most to me.

            Gunner went on to be a team roping horse for me. In the photo below you see me heading a steer on him. Note that neither of the rope horses in this photo is wearing a tie down. Those of you who are team ropers, or have seen much of the sport, will know that those are pretty well broke horses.

            When Gunner was fifteen I retired him from competition and used him for light riding. He’s seventeen in this photo.

            When he was twenty I turned him out to pasture with some companions—he’s the horse on the far right.

            And last year we brought him home so he could eat all the equine senior feed he needed—and get lots of attention. Here’s my son hand grazing him. Gunner is 32. Looks pretty good, don’t you think?

            So that’s Gunner’s real life story—and it’s a pretty happy one. I did successfully train him to be a cutting horse—and later, I wrote a mystery novel about that cutting horse world that I knew so well. This novel, Cutter, is the first book in my mystery series featuring equine veterinarian Gail McCarthy. Though it is no cutting horse training manual, it does have descriptions of what it feels like to ride a cutting horse, and gives a pretty clear picture of what a “cutting” is like. Not to mention there are many vivid portraits of some pretty classic cutting horse trainers and owners (yes, drawn from life).

            The horses, too, are based on real horses that I knew, and Gunner appears in this story. He is also the model for the horse on the cover.

Though the central mystery is based on a shady deal I was told about, I must admit that it is totally fictional, as it is described in the book. But in all other ways the book is a very true representation of the cutting horse world that I knew.

            So starting today, for five days only, (October 24^th through October 28^th), I’m offering a FREE Kindle edition of Cutter. It’s a great chance to give this book a try with no downside. And, if you find you like it, there are twelve books in the series, each dealing with a different aspect of the horse world.

            So here is the link to the free copy of Cutter. If any of you do/have read this book, I’d love to get your feedback. I’d be really grateful if you’d post a review on Amazon or Goodreads. And it’s totally fine to point out where you think I could have done better.

           

            

Why Ever Did You Pick That Cover?

By Laura Crum

As the author of ten mysteries featuring equine veterinarian Gail McCarthy, I’ve frequently been asked the above question. Believe me, on some of those books I would have asked the question myself, if I had been the reader. The truth is that I didn’t pick that cover(!) In fact, I had virtually nothing to say about it.

My first mystery, Cutter, came out in hardcover from St Martin’s Press in 1994. Needless to say, I waited with great excitement to see what the jacket would look like. (For those unfamiliar with this process, it takes roughly a year from the moment of turning a manuscript in to the publisher until the finished book arrives in the mail…a long wait.) I can still remember my immediate sense of deflation when I finally saw the book. It looks like Nancy Drew, were the words that came to mind.

This was my first experience with a phenomena that I later became very familiar with. For some reason, books with horses on the cover have a tendency to look “YA” (publishing industry slang—means “young adult”), unless the cover artist is quite skillful. Cutter looked very YA from my point of view.

Still, I had no idea how dire things can get in the book cover department. Not until I saw the paperback version of Cutter. Not only did this cover also look very YA, the artist had depicted my western cutting horse with an English saddle (!) You can imagine the comments I got on that one. Unfortunately, most of the world believes that an author personally chooses or designs the cover—I hate to think how many folks may consider me dismally ignorant on the subject of cutting horses, based on this jacket.

As you might imagine, at this juncture I called up the St Martin’s art department, wanting to be sure I could have some input into the cover of my next book. To make a long story short, the answer was “not”. A midlist author (publishing industry slang for anyone who’s not a bestseller but is still getting published by a big publisher), it turns out, has very little control over what cover her book will have. I could whine to the art director about what I wanted and didn’t want, sure, and he would agree to pass this on to the artist, but the net result was that the art director was interested in his/her concept, not mine.

Fortunately Hoofprints, my second novel, had a much more pleasing cover than Cutter. Or at least, I thought so. (Not coincidentally, at least in my opinion, it sold a lot better, too.) When I praised the cover to my agent, however, she sniffed dismissively. I was quite surprised that she didn’t seem to like the jacket. Novice in the publishing business that I was, I had paid no attention to the lettering. My agent was no novice. “I wish they’d done your name a little larger,” was all she said.

Sure enough. Now that I considered this aspect, I saw that my name was printed in such small letters it was hardly legible. Another lesson learned.

Finally, on my third mystery, Roughstock, I hit the jackpot. I loved the cover, and virtually everyone who saw the book did, too. Not to mention my name was nice and big. (Roughstock also sold very well, by the way.) The cover artist, Peter Thorpe, had emailed me in the course of his work (being one of that lovely breed who actually reads the material and tries to make the cover fit), so I was able to thank him for a great job. Naturally I requested him thereafter.

This system didn’t work all the time. The art director at a big house like St Martin’s has a tendency to be a “revolving door” position. Seldom did I have the same art director from book to book. So, periodically the current inhabitant of the office would decide to replace my favorite artist with someone else, usually not to good effect. For instance my sixth novel, Breakaway, which is one of my favorite books, but also probably the “darkest” of my mysteries and the least suitable for young readers, has a cover that looks more YA than all the rest. Needless to say, I was not thrilled.

So the answer to my title question is that I have mostly had very little control over the covers of my novels, which is unfortunate, as I think many people do judge a book by its cover. I have to admit, I find it easier to buy a book with an appealing cover than one with a repulsive or boring jacket (in my eyes), despite the fact that I may be familiar with the author and able to evaluate the book more fairly on its merits. I’m a big believer in the idea that covers are very important. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that overall, those of my books that have what I would call appealing covers have sold better than the others.

Thus I’m grateful that my last two books have been published by Perseverance Press, who has been willing to use Peter Thorpe as the cover artist (and thank you, Pete, for being willing to do the work). Moonblind and Chasing Cans are two of my favorite jackets—I’d welcome your input.
Cheers,
Laura Crum

The Real Horses Behind the Books

by Laura Crum

In my latest mystery novel, Chasing Cans, just out this month, Gail McCarthy, my equine veterinarian protagonist, acquires a pony for her child. This particular plot device never would have occurred to me were it not for the fact that several years ago I acquired a pony for my little boy. I had never owned a pony before and Toby was an education to me. I found the little critter so endearing that I just had to write about him, and Toby our pony is faithfully described in Chasing Cans, though the way in which Gail acquires him is rather different than the way in which I came by the real Toby.

This is often the case with my equine characters. Over the course of my ten mystery novels, I’ve based virtually every horse that Gail encounters, owns or rides on real horses I’ve known. Gunner, who is Gail’s main mount through most of the books, is modeled on my own horse, Gunner. He is accurately portrayed as to appearance (a fifteen-three hand Quarter Horse gelding with white socks, a blaze and a blue eye), personality and quirks (the real Gunner is a big spook, as is Gail’s “Gunner”), but the living horse’s history is a bit different from the fictional one.

Gail acquires her horse Gunner when a veterinary client refuses to spend the money and time it would take to allow the horse a chance at recovering from severed flexor tendons. (This occurs in my first novel, Cutter.) Gail takes the horse to save him from euthanasia. (The story is also based on a real horse; it just wasn’t Gunner.)

The real Gunner’s life history is rather different. I acquired him as a three-year-old, just as Gail did her Gunner. I was twenty-five years old and working for a prominent reining/cowhorse trainer who shall remain nameless. As his assistant, I rode a string of eight horses every day; these were horses that, for whatever reason, he didn’t care to ride. Some he considered less talented, some were in the barn just to be broken and the owners weren’t interested in showing them, some had a bad attitude (poor me)…etc. Gunner was in my string because the trainer wasn’t collecting training fees on him; the horse was just there to be sold. Gunner was a well-bred and talented cutting and reining prospect, and the trainer thought that not only would he collect a fat commission when he sold the horse, he might also be able to place him with one of his own clients who would then pay the trainer to ride the horse and enter him in the major cutting and reining futurities. Needless to say the price tag on this horse was high. He was probably the best colt I had in my string; he was also a very likable horse.

Just as he is described in my books, Gunner had a friendly, clownish personality, a willing and cooperative nature, and tons of athletic ability. He came to me with about thirty rides on him, and I took it from there. He was always an easy horse, never prone to bucking or other negative behaviors, other than his penchant for unexpected sudden twenty foot sideways leaps whenever he saw something worth spooking at, which was often. He never dumped me (and never meant to), but it was a near thing more than once.

Despite the swerves, I loved riding Gunner. It amazed me how quickly this colt came on and how much “cow” he had. As the months passed with no buyer coming up with the purchase price, I grew fonder and fonder of this horse. I began hoping desperately that no one would buy him; I dreaded his removal from the barn or seeing him placed in the trainer’s string (by this time I’d had lots of experience with the well known trainer’s rather harsh methods and didn’t want to see this kind, willing colt subjected to them.)

Eventually the day came. A prospective buyer was due to arrive, one who would surely buy Gunner. He was a rich man; the purchase price would mean nothing to him. He was known to be looking for a good futurity prospect and to like Gunner’s breeding. The trainer was very keen to make the deal. I gave Gunner a bath with tears running down my face. That morning, despite the fact that I had no idea where I would get the money, I told the trainer I would give him the full price for the horse and wrote and handed him a deposit check.

I’ve never regretted this decision. I borrowed the money to buy Gunner and I left that trainer’s employment almost immediately thereafter. I trained Gunner myself and showed him at some of the reining and cutting futurities as a three and four year old, winning some very minor awards. Gunner became an accomplished cutting horse over the years and I won many events on him eventually. Later I trained him to be a team roping horse and competed on him for several years at ropings. I still own Gunner; he’s twenty-eight, sound, and retired in my sixty acre pasture. He’s been my friend the whole time.
Photo: Laura Crum and Gunner winning the cutting class at the Santa Cruz County Fair.

Gail’s Gunner is given a slightly different history. She never uses him as a cutting horse, but does compete on him at team roping in Roped, my fourth mystery novel. In Slickrock, the fifth book in the series, she rides him on a major pack trip through the Sierra Nevada Mts of California. Though this pack trip is based on many pack trips that I made over those same mountain passes, the mount that I used on those trips was Flanigan, a horse I also rode for years and loved dearly, just as I did Gunner. Flanigan loaned his skills as a team roping horse and his quirky personality to Burt in my third novel, Roughstock.

Photo: In the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California

So the horses in my books are real horses, although almost all of them are in some ways combinations. One horse’s personality and appearance grafted on another’s history, so to speak. (This is the way I create my human characters as well. ) And though I give Gail some of my own life experiences, her responses are uniquely her own. Thus my mystery series is a tapestry of fact and fiction, which I hope will engage readers in much the same way that the real horses and life changes have engaged me.

Here’s to the three “Rs”—reading, writing and riding!
Laura Crum
www.lauracrum.com