My Life With Horses--Part Six

                                                by Laura Crum

            So just when you think you have it all figured out…it changes. I was enjoying team roping, but slowly my overall enjoyment began to grow less. Because no matter how hard I tried to dwell on the positive, I couldn’t help but see all the negatives in competition. This was the third competitive horseback event that I had immersed myself in, and it was more fair and more affordable than the first two. But it was just as hard on horses. In some ways it was much harder on horses than cutting.

            I was getting to the end of watching horses be trashed in order to win. In any form, for any reason. I was sick of seeing people be too hard on a horse because they wanted to win a damn event. I didn’t do this to my own horses, but it was all around me. My fourth mystery novel, Roped, had a lot to do with these feelings.

            I became aware that I was less and less interested in winning and less happy at team roping competitions. I began focusing on horse packing in the mountains more and more. Flanigan was my main mount at this time and he proved to be a wonderful mountain horse. We made many, many trips together, including some that were over a week long and covered a couple of hundred miles over many high Sierra passes. Here we are Wood Lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

            But despite my riding in the mountains from time to time, the thing that dominated my life was roping. I practiced twice a week and I competed on weekends. It was my life. Training horses and competing at horse events had been my life for twenty years. I didn’t know how to quit. Once in awhile I would stay home and putter around my garden on the weekends and just turn my horses out to graze…and I was aware that I would RATHER do this than go roping. But the honest truth was I felt guilty if I didn’t go. All my friends were going. Surely I should go, too?

            I had retired Gunner from competition at this point, due to arthritic changes. I was still roping on Flanigan, and I had trained my young horse, Plumber, to be ready to compete. But something was wrong. The heart had gone out of it for me. I knew how I felt, but I didn’t know how to change. So life made a change for me.

            I am going to say something here that not all horse people will want to hear. But it is absolutely true (at least for me). I had spent my life focusing on horses to such a degree that I didn’t think very hard about much else. I didn’t, for instance, think about how to create a happy marriage. I never gave much thought to having children. I was too busy with my horses. And now I was forty years old and competing on horses was beginning to seem meaningless and downright upsetting. I still loved my horses, but I went off to the ropings completely uninterested in winning or even performing well. “Please don’t let any horses or people or cattle get hurt,” was the only thought in my mind. “Let whoever needs to win, win.” By which you can see that the joy had really gone out of it. But I kept doing it. Because I didn’t know how to quit. And this is where life stepped in.

            In my 40^th year my husband fell in love with another woman and left me. And between this, and the very real angst I already felt due to losing my lifelong passion for horseback competitions, I fell into a true depression.

            Those people who have been depressed themselves will know what this means. For those who have not, I will say that depression is far more like being sick with the flu than it is like being “sad.” I had tons of physical symptoms. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I felt physically terrible. It wasn’t as if I could just sit around on the couch relaxing and feeling sad. I felt so awful that I was desperate to feel better. You know when you have a really bad flu how everything is just misery? That’s how depression was for me.

            And yes, I did try to get help. That’s what everyone says. Get help, there is medication, etc, etc, etc. Well, I am here to tell you that this doesn’t work for everybody. I saw three separate shrinks for a year straight, I took at least ten different anti-depressant meds (not simultaneously). None of it helped at all. Some of the meds just made me feel worse. The only thing that gave a little relief was a couple of glasses of wine in the evening. But the relief was always short-lived.

            And yes again, I contemplated suicide. That’s how meaningless everything seemed. But I honestly felt that I needed to survive for the sake of my animals. At the same time, I couldn’t really care for them. I did not go roping; I did not even ride. I had to drag myself through the most basic of horse chores—feeding and watering. Anything more seemed beyond me, and even this much was very hard to do. My friends and family helped me feed my horses…and they went to the grocery store and brought me food so that I would eat. Yes, it was that bad.

            But it passed. I just had to walk through it, one step at a time. It wasn’t easy. More like going through a severe illness than any other way I can think of to describe it. I felt like shit…all the time. And I endured it and continued to put one foot in front of the other. More than that, I contemplated my life and tried to see what the depression might be trying to teach me. Because strange though it sounds, that depression, as I began to understand, came to me for a reason. When I look back on it, I learned some very important things during the year I was depressed. But that didn’t make it easy to bear.

It lasted a year. Until finally it lifted of its own accord. A year and one month after it began, it left me for good. I was involved with a new man and I went to Europe with him, and suddenly life was worth living again. And I still had my horses. Thanks to my friend, Wally, who did much of the feeding and caring for them during the year I was depressed.

            The thing is that awful though it was, the depression was actually a gift. I emerged from it changed—for good. I no longer felt that I had to compete on my horses in order to achieve something. I felt perfectly free to interact with my horses in whatever way was best for me and them. And I knew that I would never again prioritize horse competitions and horse training over my marriage.

            At this point I was re-married and I knew I wanted to have a child. I still had Burt and Gunner, who were both retired, and Flanigan and Plumber. My friend Wally was roping on Flanigan and Plumber and having a fine time with them. And me? I went on the occasional trail ride on Plumber with my new husband riding Flanigan alongside me and felt that life was good.

            But there were still more changes to come. (To be continued.)

PS—I wrote Slickrock about my horse packing adventures, and Breakaway about my battle with depression during this period of my life. These books are, of course, fiction, not memoir. All my novels have classic mystery plots involving murder and such, and this sort of drama did not come my way in real life, thank goodness. But all the background material in the stories is drawn from my own experiences. Click on the titles to find the Kindle editions of these books.

Slickrock--the Making of a Book

                                                by Laura Crum

             Slickrock, my fifth book, has always been the overall reader favorite in my mystery series featuring equine veterinarian Gail McCarthy. The series as a whole is set in Santa Cruz County, California, where I live, but Slickrock takes place on a horse-packing trip in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the whole mystery occurs in that context. It’s essentially a “vacation mystery”. Sort of the vacation from hell.

            The beginnings of Slickrock are buried in my distant past—the summer I was twenty-two and spent three months living by myself in a tent at a Sierra lake, with just my six month old dog for company. I wasn’t there to write a novel—no, I was after something much bigger than that. I’d fallen in love with the book, Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, and I was trying a grand experiment in solitary living, to prove or disprove the claims of that book. I meant to write something, of course. My senior project, as an English major, was a paper to be written about my time of living by myself at Burgson Lake in the mountains, and how it compared to Thoreau’s sojourn at Walden Pond.

            To that end, I kept journals while I lived at the lake, meaning to weave them into something cohesive later. I did present the paper, but have long ago lost it, but the journals, with their descriptions of my solitary life in a tent at Burgson Lake, stayed with me. Those journals were the beginning of Slickrock.

            Here I am with Joey, my six-month-old Queensland heeler, at Burgson Lake, thirty-three years ago. The photo was taken by my friend, Shery, when she drove up to spend a weekend at the lake with me.

            It wasn’t until I was thirty that I conceived the idea of writing mystery novels—more or less inspired by Dick Francis. I came up with the concept of a female equine veterinarian as a protagonist, and began by writing about cutting horses (my first novel, Cutter), as I had spent my late twenties training and showing cutting horses. By my thirties I was involved with team roping horses (which play a large part in my third and fourth novels, Roughstock and Roped). I was also taking many horseback pack trips into the Sierra Nevada Mountains on our own horses. On the longer trips, we crossed the spine of these mountains many times, going over several different passes, and camped at dozens of high Sierra lakes. The longest trips lasted two weeks or so. I kept journals on these trips, too. And gradually the concept of a pack trip mystery began to assume form.

            I wanted to write about the pack station that I had worked at, and the lakes and passes I knew. The trails and their various obstacles were big in my mind, including the infamous slickrock, for which my novel is named. And, of course, every wreck and near-wreck that had come our way, as well as some described to me by friends, would make their way into this pack trip story. But…I needed a plot.

            Well, as I often do, I borrowed from life. I had heard a tale of real life villainy involving horses that interested me (can’t tell you—it would spoil the story). And I had, myself, stumbled upon a very dramatic crime scene that I thought would make a good opener for the book. And then there were all my Sierra journals, written while I was up in the mountains, for background. And so Slickrock was born.

            I tried to incorporate all my real life pack trip adventures into this book, as well as my favorite places. The picture below shows me riding across Kerrick Meadows, high in the eastern Sierras, and the scene of a fairly thrilling horseback chase in Slickrock.

            The horse Gail rides in the novel is Gunner, but most of my pack trips adventures were on Flanigan, and it is his stalwart nature that is the bottom line in both the story and my real life travels. This is Flanigan, possibly the best horse I ever rode.

And here I am on Flanigan at Wood Lake, a lovely Sierra lake which appears in Slickrock.

            Slickrock has always been the reader favorite of my novels—I can’t say exactly why. For me, the parts drawn from my journals that describe what it is like to be alone in these mountains are the really interesting part of the book. And I think that perhaps some readers agree. For those of you, like me, who admire Funder’s writing and blog (“It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time,” listed on the sidebar), here is Funder’s comment on Slickrock:

“And her place descriptions are amazing! Having read Slickrock I desperately want to learn to pack. She really captures the beautiful, remote, terrifying, captivating reality of the mountains. (I could do without all the calamities that befell Gail!)”

            So there you go. If that doesn’t make you want to read the book, I don’t know what will. Except the fact that it is for sale for 99 cents on Kindle—only until the end of this week. So now is the time, if you’re interested at all. I honestly think that if you enjoy my writing on the blog, you will enjoy this novel.

            Here is the link to the Kindle edition of Slickrock. If you do give this book a try, I’d love to know what you think of it.

Campfire Stories....With Horses

by Laura Crum


Reading Mugwump's blog yesterday, her story about hobbles reminded me vividly of some of my horse packing experiences. I told one of my "hobbles stories" in the comments there, and a few people asked about the way I kept my horses in camp on pack trips. This brought so many stories to mind that I thought I'd tell a few here.

First, a little background. I spent a couple of years working at a pack station on Sonora Pass in California's Sierra Nevada Mts in my early twenties. (This would be about thirty years ago.) Then, in my thirties, I spent many summers packing into the mountains with friends. We taught our more phlegmatic horses to carry the pack rigs, and fortunately I had a friend who was good at packing (which is somewhat of an art) and had the gear. Our team roping horses became sure-footed on the rock after a few shorter, easier trips, and we went on to do many longer (two week) trips, crossing numerous passes and visiting many high mountain lakes. These adventures form the basis of my fifth mystery, Slickrock.

As for how we kept the horses in camp, well, as I said on mugwump's blog, some horses will stay in camp (turned loose) and some won't. Unfortunately you often find out who are the trustworthy ones the hard way. Our usual habit was to put half the horses on run lines, or zip lines, and turn the other half loose. Usually this worked well....except for the times it didn't.

I remember one trip when a friend and I had gone in to a favorite meadow. There was a pretty creek and a lot of feed here; a horse could graze his fill. We had two reliable horses and the friend was riding a new horse, a red roan mare named Shiloh. Shiloh hadn't been on any trips that we knew of, but she was a ranch raised horse and gentle and we thought she'd be fine. We were careful, though, and when it came Shiloh's turn to be loose, we tied up both the other horses, so she'd have no excuse to wander far.

Well, we unclipped the lead rope from Shiloh's halter and she looked around the meadow with interest. She studied the creek, and her buddies on the tie lines, and our camp. She looked at the trail. And she put her ears forward and started into a long, swinging walk. Down the trail.

My friend and I looked at each other. This wasn't good. Surely she'll stop and graze, we said. Nope. Shiloh walked in a purposeful, determined way down the trail, across the meadow, and out of our sight. We flipped a coin to see who would go after her.

My friend lost and I stayed in camp with our other horses while he trailed the mare. Fortunately she ran into a party of hikers not a mile down the trail. They were standing there wondering what to do with this roan mare they'd caught when my friend retrieved her. Needless to say we didn't turn that horse loose again.

The funniest "campfire story" concerns a horse we called Lester. This was a lively, restless gelding; I often referred to him as our ADD horse. The first time we turned Lester loose on a pack trip, he looked around, lifted his head, and started out away from camp in the long trot, which quickly escalated to the gallop. My friend and I looked at each other with that "oh no" look on our faces. Lester galloped across the meadow and we waited for him to hit the trail back through the woods. But just as he was almost out of sight, he stopped. Whirling around, he galloped back across the meadow, straight at us.

Our "oh no" looks turned to "what the hell" looks, as that horse proceed to gallop right through the middle of camp, leaping over the fire (I kid you not) and out across the meadow again. On his next pass he went through the woods behind camp, jumping a log that was at least three foot six in diameter. He kept galloping around until he'd had enough (you would have thought he'd be tired after the ride in) and then settled down to graze. And we all gave a big sigh of relief. Turned out this became a routine with this horse. I can't count the number of times he ran through camp, often jumping the fire. We'd yell, "Here he comes!" and get out of the way. But he never once took off on us.

So, a couple of campfire stories for a winter's day. I'll try and post a few more pack trip tales later, for those who are interested.


Happy Holidays!

Flanigan's Story

By Laura Crum


I just got back from vacation last week and was very happy to be reunited with my horses again. Almost the first thing I did on getting home was walk down to the barnyard and have a look at the four equines living in the corrals there—our current saddle horses. All looked as if they had weathered my absence nicely—a real relief. As always, my gaze eventually went to the large rock in the biggest corral, which marks the grave of what was argueably the best horse I ever owned, or more accurately, was partners on. Now Flanigan doesn’t appear by name in my mystery series featuring equine veterinarian Gail McCarthy, but he lends his abilities, personality, exploits and tribulations to several horses in the course of my ten books, and since he’s been on my mind lately, I’d like to tell his story here.

Flanigan was a team roping horse, and a good one, which was how he came into my life. At that time, I was competing at ropings on my horse, Gunner, and my team roping partner purchased Flanigan from a well-known rope horse trader for a fair chuunk of change. When Gunner started to suffer from sore hocks and I decided to quit roping on him, my partner offered to sell me a share in Flanigan, so that I’d still have a mount for the ropings.

I was doubtful. The horse trader had informed us that Flanigan’s previous owner had been so afraid of the horse that he’d attempted to starve the animal into submission; it had taken the horse trader six months to feed the horse back up to a normal weight. Flanigan was cinchy, and if a certain careful protocol was not followed with his saddling and warm-up, he would buck. He’d bucked my partner off several times and I wasn’t eager to be the next victim. Nevertheless, my partner insisted that Flanigan was a “babysitter.”

This seemed like somewhat of a paradox to me, as I’m sure you can imagine. Neither did Flanigan attract me, as some horses in my past had done. Plain, brownish bay with a little white, Flanigan pinned his ears in a grouchy way whenever one looked at him, and he did not have a particularly “pretty” way of moving or working. In short, on the surface there didn’t seem to be much to recommend him. Nonetheless, I tried him.

The horse amazed me. If you’ve ever had the experience of a mount who would really pick you up and carry you, who attended to his job without needing much if any help, leaving you free to concentrate on your end, then you know what I mean. I saw instantly what my partner had meant by telling me the horse was a babysitter.



I bought a half share in Flanigan and roped on him for many years. In the photo above I am turning a steer for my good friend Sue Crocker, who is heeling on Pistol (who also appears in my mystery series as an equine “character”). I mastered the art of Flanigan’s warm-up program, and though he crowhopped with me occasionally on the first run of the day (something he would do right up until the time he was retired), he never bucked me off. I also rode this horse on numerous pack trips through the rocky Sierra Nevada Mts of California, where he proved to be just as reliable as he was in the roping arena. Flanigan and I traversed many tricky trails together over those years (including some spots that brought other horses and riders to grief), and I will be eternally grateful for his calm and responsive reactions, as well as his strength and surefootedness. Our travels in the mountains form the basis of my fifth book, Slickrock, and though the mount Gail rides in the story is Gunner, the horse who crossed those passes with me in real life was Flanigan.

Flanigan had other virtues, too. He would work a cow as well as a well-trained stock horse; he would pack an outright beginner and/or a small child willingly and calmly; he won many dollars and numerous trophy saddles and buckles as a competitive team roping horse. For me, though, the thing that mattered the most was the incredible “feel” I got from Flanigan. An immensely strong, intelligent, self-assured and capable horse, he made me feel safe and centered, whether we were traversing slickrock passes in the mountains or charging at full speed down the arena after a steer. Flanigan was one of those horses who simply would not fall down. Didn’t matter if a cow turned right in front of him at a dead run or a foot slipped as he followed a narrow crack in the granite---the horse stayed up.

I grew to love Flanigan as much as I’ve ever loved any horse; I understood his grouchy behaviors and saw through them to the great heart inside. I nursed him through many bouts with colic, which he was prone to, and made sure that he spent long periods of time turned out in my sixty-acre pasture getting some well-deserved R and R. When my baby was six months old, the horse I chose to take my child on his first ride was Flanigan.

Sadly, though Flanigan stayed sound and usable until he was twenty-one, at some point that year while he was turned out in the pasture, he suffered an injury (we never knew what happened) that resulted in a diaphragmatic hernia (diagnosed through ultra-sound at a major equine veterinary center). From this point on, he could only walk about the pasture. Moving faster than the walk caused him to gasp for air. (More about this in my novel, Moonblind.)

We kept Flanigan for another year, and he was able to enjoy a reasonably pleasant season in the pasture, but eventually he came down with a severe colic which wasn’t responsive to drugs. Since surgery was impossible due to his condition, we chose to put him down rather than let him suffer. He is buried here on my small horse ranch and every time I look at the stone that marks his grave I remember him, and what a magical horse he was for me, enabling me to do many things I didn’t think I was capable of. I will always be grateful to him.

I still miss Flanigan, even though I lost him some years ago, but I feel his spirit stays with me—a protective guide. I’m sure that others who have lost beloved horses will understand.
Cheers—to Flanigan
Laura Crum and Flanigan
http://www.lauracrum.com/

One Woman's Path to Publication

I've recently been invited to join equestrianink and thought I'd begin by introducing myself and telling the story of the long trail that culminated in the sale of my equine mysteries to a major New York publisher. My name is Laura Crum and I write a mystery series about equine veterinarian Gail McCarthy. The books are set in California and revolve around the world of western horses. Each book deals with a different facet of western horsemanship, as well as a different stage in Gail's life, and all of the books arise out of my thirty years plus experience training and owning horses. Here's a condensed version of my history.

I grew up riding horses for my uncle (a part-time rodeo cowboy who competed at team roping and raised Quarter Horses), and was breaking and training colts for him by the time I was eighteen. In my twenties, I worked for a pack station in the Sierra Nevada Mts and for a large cattle operation in northern California. This was followed by a period where I worked for some prominent cutting and reining horse trainers and hauled my horse, Gunner, all over California and several other western states competing at reining and cutting events. Eventually I began competing at team roping, and continued to train horses, both for myself and others.

Right around the time I turned thirty I decided I was ready for a slightly less strenuous career. Since I had always been a big fan of Dick Francis (like so many others), I decided to try my hand at turning my background with western horses into mysteries, much as he had used his past as a steeple chasing jockey to create his own books.

So for the next few years I wrote. I continued to train horses for myself and competed at team roping, but my focus began to be on writing about it. I wrote longhand, in a spiral bound notebook, and I can remember writing away in the front seat of my pickup while I waited for my name to be called to compete at various ropings. I wrote in the barnyard while I watched my hosed-off horses dry in the sun. I wrote three book length manuscripts over a three year period before I was able to get an agent to represent me, and when she did agree to take me on she demanded numerous rewrites-this process lasting another year (she was a former editor and it showed). Once she was satisfied with the book, it took her over another year to sell my first novel, Cutter, to St Martin's Press. So the path to publication wasn't exactly easy nor was it a fast track. Still I have very much enjoyed the process of writing about the many aspects of the western horse world that I've been involved with, and I feel grateful that my mysteries have continued to be published regularly ever since that first book hit the shelves.

Cutter came out in 1994 and describes the world of cutting horses. It was followed by Hoofprints, which revolves around reined cowhorses. Roughstock features team roping and endurance riding, and Roped deals with ranching and roping. Slickrock is set in the course of a pack trip in the Sierra Nevada Mts and Breakaway involves Gail in riding the trails of coastal California. Hayburner describes breaking a colt and Forged takes Gail and her horses on a pack trip along the beaches of Monterey Bay. Moonblind features a Thoroughbred lay-up farm on the cliffs above that same bay, and Chasing Cans, my tenth book, which is just out this month, centers on a legendary barrel racing trainer.

I'm frequently asked by readers who want to become published authors what my advice would be to one who is getting started. Obviously you have to be willing to persevere with your writing even when success doesn't happen immediately. (Or doesn't happen for years, which was my own case.) I think this goes without saying. I have also found it helpful to write about things I know intimately. Almost all the facets of the western horse world that I explore in my books are areas that I have participated in for years and years. (The exceptions to this are endurance riding and Thoroughbred lay-up farms, on which my knowledge is second-hand-thank you Craig and Ginny!)

Since I have had horses all my life (currently I own eleven) the veterinary calls and emergencies that Gail deals with are based on things that have actually happened to me and my horses, or to my friends. And the horses in the books are all based on horses I have known (and mostly loved). This helps the books come alive (at least for me; I hope for others).

The books are set in California, primarily on the coast near Monterey Bay, where both Gail and I live, and where my family has been running a ranch for four generations. Though I know some authors can write about places after brief trips to research them (and do a good job of it, too), I don't posess that skill. In order to write effectively about the weather, landscape, and "feeling" of a place, I have to know it intimately.

When I first began writing these mysteries, inspired by Dick Francis as I was, I used a male protagonist. However it wasn't until I re-wrote my third manuscript, changing the male veterinarian into a female version, that an agent finally accepted my work. I believe this was in part due to the particular timing; female protagonists were just becoming very popular in the mystery genre, with a great many of us riding in on the heels of Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton. I have come to feel blessed by the chance that gave me a woman to write about; I found that my ability to give Gail life changes that I knew intimately (having been through them) contributed to my ability to keep her "alive" through many, many books (at least for me, again, I hope for readers, too). "Write what you know" has become my mantra.

One of the biggest thrills in my writing career has been to actually meet the man who was my inspiration-yes, I mean Dick Francis. Since our meeting we have had a regular correspondence for the last fourteen years. You can imagine how delighted I was when he read (and praised) my novels, but the the ultimate moment came when he asked to borrow some details of veterinary medicine that I used to further the plot in Slickrock. Of course I said yes. (!) "Borrow anything you like" (though I don't know if he really did). Praise from one's mentor is sweet indeed and I am never happier than when my books are likened to Dick Francis'. (See the comment on the back of Chasing Cans-I'm very touched by it.)

All in all its been a wonderful ride-both the books and the horses. I still ride my horses almost every day, and despite all the hours I've put in writing over the last twenty years (yes, its been twenty years-I started writing mysteries when I was thirty and I'm now fifty), it doesn't amount to half the hours I've spent on the back of a horse!

Happy trails, Laura and Gunner

PS-Gunner is twenty-eight this year, happily retired (still sound) and living in my sixty acre pasture.

Laura Crum
www.lauracrum.com