Finding Equestrian Inspiration - When There Aren't Any Horses

by Natalie Keller Reinert

Write what you love, they said. Write what you know, they said. It will flow, it will be authentic, you will never want for inspiration.

And all those things are true, except that sometimes life takes you on a strange ride and the things that you know and love might not be in front of you all the time. Or at all. And you begin to forget things -- gossamer little threads that are essential to bridging the gap between what is imagined, and what is real -- and sometimes the sentences become harder to craft, the scenarios harder to picture, the reactions of the horses and the humans harder to judge.

For the past year and a half, maybe longer, I've been living horse-free. It wasn't by choice, just the way things turned out. I've tried to live it up, these days without the restriction of being back to feed or worrying about the weather. I've done a lot of traveling that wouldn't be possible if I had horses to think about, for one thing. And everywhere I've gone, I've looked for horses to inspire me.

Sometimes it's as simple as laying a hand on a hot neck, bursting with veins on a summer's day. Sometimes it's as subtle as watching dark eyes following the paths of tourists on a busy evening in Times Square. Sometimes it's as immersive as wrapping my arms around a horse's neck and just hugging, hugging, hugging.

Every little interaction is the fuel I need to keep writing about horses and horse-people. My next Alex and Alexander novel, Turning For Home, is almost there. I couldn't have done it without these horses.

To the horses that I met in my travels this year: thank you for the inspiration. I'll keep on remembering, and I'll keep on writing.

Unnamed beauty in the paddock at Del Mar, July 2014

I don't know this roan lovely's name. I was taking pictures of his glorious bare feet. July 2014.

That time I spent a half hour snuggling with a pony at Saratoga. August 2014.

Another mystery draft, this one at Walt Disney World in Florida. April 2014.

Sure, they're statues. But something about their pricked ears and bright expressions really spoke to me.
Terra-cotta horses at Epcot, Walt Disney World, October 2014.

Visiting with NYPD Mounted horses is always a highlight of any trip.
The Fountain of Planets, Flushing Meadows Park, July 2014.

Reminding me of what a racehorse in her glory should look like.
Belmont Park, June 2014.

Do I need more horse-time in my life? Absolutely -- and I have some in the planning stages. But in the meantime, these horses have been a big help to me.

Have you ever been separated from horses for a long period of time? How do you handle the time apart?

It's Possible That I'm Terrible at Naming Horses

by Natalie Keller Reinert

This is not the blog post I set out to write this morning.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure what I was going to write. I think it was something about how I'm terrible at naming books. That's mainly because I've been editing my forthcoming novel, about a three-day-eventing rider, and I feel like the title is a terrible mistake in this age of Google and online searching and accidental anonymity through uncreative titles. (The title is Ambition, by the way, which sums the book up perfectly, so if anyone would like to comment on that, your thoughts are welcome.)

But it somehow morphed into a post on naming horses, and the realization that as bad as I am at naming books, I might be worse at naming horses. I might have the worst taste imaginable. Possibly.

Read on, fearless equestrians, and tell me what you think.

It feels like this great, grand responsibility, granting a name to a horse. And in a way, it is -- especially if you subscribe to the superstitious belief that changing a horse's name is bad luck. I definitely agree with that superstition, as long as the name isn't too stupid.

But on another level (also, possibly, spiritual in nature) I've always had this grand idea that you're  bestowing an identity on an animal for the rest of his or her life. Be it grand, or be it comical.

It's always a wonder to me when a horse with a name like Cocoz Lil Zipper or DivorceLawyerWins or something horrid like that wins a race. I think "Wow, horse, way to overcome the total lack of self-respect you've been awarded by whoever named you." And then I think of a much better, more high-minded, literary/lyrical/literal name that I would have granted that brave, persevering horse, had I but been given the opportunity.

Princessforaday, Dayjur-Gallapiatsprincess. My husband named her.

 

And then, in research for this blog post (yes, "research"), I was glancing down a 2008 entry at New York Times' horseracing blog, The Rail. The 500 worst-named racehorses of all time! This is perfect. I'm scrolling through, chuckling, shaking my head, and then...

I see it.

My favorite racehorse name of all time. 

I Died Laughing.

Seriously?

Oh, the heartbreak.

I Died Laughing was a 2000 bay filly by Montbrook and out of Regal Ties, by Regal and Royal, according to pedigreequery.com. When I was frequenting the pavilion at Ocala Breeders' Sales back in my Florida days, I Died Laughing's name was one of those Florida-bred regulars in the catalogs, showing up time and time again in different listings and sales.

So obviously, I Died Laughing's name had zero-zip-nada to do with her breeding, but I didn't care. I loved it. I said it aloud. I giggled. I pointed it out to people. Her name it's so awesome.

(My husband agreed. My husband humors me, though. I know this.)

I began to think a little more deeply about my taste in racehorse names. And another favorite came to mind: Enjoy the Silence. Another broodmare regular, her foals going through the sales at various ages, I fell in love with her from afar. When she finally went through the sale herself, I hurried to the walking ring to see her. At last! Enjoy the Silence! I'd been loving her in print for years, now I would see her in the flesh.

And she was a chestnut.

And, I mean, I love chestnuts. So much. But her name was Enjoy the Silence. That's an awesome Depeche Mode song. Obviously she would be black, or at least dark bay, and she would look around the walking ring with an air of haughty disapproval, as if all of us humans in our stupid uniforms of blue jeans and polo shirts with our logos embroidered on the chest and our stallion-show baseball caps were the lowest of the low.

But she really just looked like the nicest ol' broodie you ever saw in your life.

Which probably shouldn't have been a come-down, but it was, after all I had built up in my mind for a mare called Enjoy the Silence.

So maybe it doesn't matter what a horse's name is. Maybe I've been wrong all these years, with my high-minded notions and superstitious suspicions about the value of a name. After all, of my two favorite names, one is apparently the worst name ever and the other gave me a completely mistaken idea of what the horse was actually like.

Or maybe I'm just terrible at horse names.

It's possible.

So here is a little exercise for you. Here are several names of horses from my books. Which ones do you like? Which ones don't you like? And what, in your opinion, makes for a great horse name?

Can't wait to see what you think on this one! (And if you like, I'll tell you where the inspiration for the name came from.)

A few racehorse names from "The Head and Not The Heart," "Other People's Horses," and "Claiming Christmas":

-Shearwater
-Luna Park
-The Tiger Prince
-Virtue and Vice
-Idle Hour
-Personal Best

And here's that list of the worst-named racehorses of all time.  "I'm Ugly But Fast" really does belong on the list.

 

How a Series Happens

by Natalie Keller Reinert

Hey guess what, I know how a series happens now.

When I was a kid, I really wanted to read either A) crazy long books or B) absurdly long series of books. I needed my stories to go on and on and on. Walter Farley received gold stars for his twenty-odd  Black Stallion books. Even the Island Stallion. And, grudgingly, The Horse-Tamer. I guess.

Black Stallion illustration. Man. Now I wish my books had illustrations like this.

Now most of the books I read are one-time-only deals. Literary fiction authors tend to write a book, finish the book as tidily or as untidily as they please, and then close the door behind them when they leave. Lights out. On to the next project.

I always assumed I'd do that, too. I have a list of book ideas, and they all contain new characters and settings that I haven't written about yet.

But... but... I like these characters.

Maybe it's a detachment problem, but I don't want to leave Alex and Alexander, the stars of The Head and Not The Heart, behind. What happens next? 

So... I wrote another book about them. Other People's Horses deals with what happens next. It's taken care of, right? Alex goes to Saratoga, she becomes a full-fledged racehorse trainer in her own right, she deals with some grimy characters, she makes some unlikely friends, she has some nice horses. Excellent. Good night.

But...

What happens next? 

Sigh.

This is going to become a problem for me.

I'm just completely invested in Alex and Alexander now, you see. And their farm. And their horses. After all, for two books now, that's more than two years of my life, I have thought about what would Alex do? I went to Saratoga last summer and walked around the beautiful town and thought, Alex would love it here. 

I want to write about Alex in Saratoga.

And so I did. And it became a daily obsession. Alex in Saratoga, lucky girl! Or was she?

Riding on the subway, staring out at the graffiti on the tunnel walls, wondering how Alex was going to fix a problem horse. Walking through Midtown, drinking coffee and dodging tourists, wondering how Alexander will react when Alex tells him about her new horse she bought without telling him. These people are in my head, you guys.

So (Alex and Alexander), as Amazon denotes my series title, is going to become a thing. There will be a third one later this year. I strongly suspect there will be a fourth one. So I hope there are other adults out there who never lost their love of a long series of books, who always want to know more, who always want to know what happens next. 

Other People's Horses is now available as a paperback and an ebook from Barnes & Noble and Amazon. The GoodReads giveaway for a paperback continues through April 4.

There's also an interview with the photographer who provided the image for Other People's Horses at my blog, Retired Racehorse.

Horse Heaven: Three Days in Saratoga

by Natalie Keller Reinert

Two summers ago I had the pleasure of taking a horse to Saratoga Springs, New York, to run a race at the town's storied track. I went the groom's way, in the back of a NYRA horse van, brushing hay out of my face and looping my arm through a lead shank so that I wouldn't fall out of my folding chair should the driver hit the brakes suddenly.

That night, I slept the groom's way, too: on the floor of a dorm room in a nineteenth century house adjacent to the receiving barn, up again at four thirty a.m. to the sounds of hungry racehorses. We ran a horse that afternoon and were back on the van for New York City that night. It was a little bit of a whirlwind visit.

This year, my husband and I snuck away to Saratoga for three days, traveling by MegaBus instead of by horse van. I know a bus may not sound glamourous, but let me tell you: for one dollar up and four dollars back down, we rode the three and a half hours to the Spa in style, lounging on the top-floor of a double-decker bus, eating bagels, reading, playing Words With Friends, tweeting with abandon because there were electric sockets right at our seats and we didn't have to worry about draining our phones, and generally having a wonderful time while someone else dealt with traffic and tolls and gas prices.

It's a pretty fabulous way to travel.

Everyone should have a town that is designed solely for the purpose of celebrating their personal passion. Baseball, knitting, aerospace, Polish country dances, whatever it is that you're into, I hope you have a place you can go where everyone is living and breathing that one pursuit. Now, I don't know what they do for fun in Saratoga all the other seasons, but in the summer time, racing is king, and this is a town built around worshiping the racehorse. In other words, my kinda place.

We stayed at a great hotel which I will not tell you the name of unless you email me and ask me nicely, because I want to make sure there are still rooms available next summer. Let me just tell you that it was right downtown and an easy walk to everywhere we wanted to go in Saratoga! Since we're farm people/Brooklyn people we walk everywhere anyway, and can't stand cars unless we absolutely have to go in one, so this was a huge point in Saratoga's favor!

While we were there, we took in the Fasig-Tipton Select Sale of Yearlings, home to the million dollar babies:

We visited the National Museum of Horse Racing and Hall of Fame, AKA The FUNNEST MUSEUM EVAH, and met a super-giant statue of "the Biscuit": 

We met some local residents, including this dapper young man who was so hell-bent on having his ears rubbed that I forgot I was wearing a black shirt and had a dining reservation at a very posh restaurant within the hour:

We spent a great deal of time leaning on the paddock rail, watching exchanges like this:

And watching lovely young Thoroughbreds like this filly:

And drinking enough of these that the bartender at the Post bar learned to say "Two juleps?" before we could so much as lean elegantly on the bar:

When going to Saratoga it's important to uphold old traditions, like dressing up for the races, so I found these fabulous western shirts at a vintage store to wear. My favorite one is in the Saratoga colors of red and white... I like to match my surroundings:

The whole trip was so amazing that it jump-started work on my follow-up novel to The Head and Not The Heart, and I was able to sit down at a bar and brainstorm a brand new outline for Other People's Horses. Possibly the most fun part of this outline: it's written in the "notes" section of our Fasig-Tipton Select Sale of Yearlings catalog. You know, for all those million dollar babies we're going to buy. 

I've also started a Pinterest board dedicated to all the beautiful images from Saratoga and Ocala that will part of Other People's Horses. You can follow it here: http://pinterest.com/nataliegallops/other-people-s-horses/

Saratoga is still going strong through the rest of the summer. Check out TV listings for some of their big stakes races or watch on cable... even on TV, you can see it's the most beautiful racetrack in the country. 

2012: Year of the Thoroughbred

by Natalie Keller Reinert

I hereby declare 2012 the Year of the Thoroughbred.

(I can do that. I have that power. Declarations and such.)

I write about Thoroughbreds, you know. It started out years ago with a blog about the broodmares and foals at my old Union Square Stables. Then it turned into Retired Racehorse Blog, all about my new project, a five year old retiree named Final Call. A couple more incarnations later, and I'm writing, as fast as my fingers will type, about the incredible advancements that Off-track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs) are making as they re-emerge into the limelight of the show-ring. Even my novel, The Head and Not The Heart, is about the special love a horsewoman bears for her Thoroughbreds.

And so it's a good time to be me. 

There is so much buzz about Thoroughbreds on the Internet, I'm surprised they haven't had a review in Pitchfork yet. And with websites like Off Track Thoroughbreds, Retired Racehorse Training Project, and The Thoroughbred Chronicles (not to mention my own humble site, Retired Racehorse Blog) picking up more and more hits every day from search terms like "Where to find a retired racehorse" and "What can a retired racehorse do" it's clear that the message is coming home to people: Retired racehorses can do... well... just about anything. 

Xlerate wins Horse of the Year at Barastoc,
Photo: Derek O'Leary

Consider Xlerate, who just a few days ago took home an unprecedented honor at the Barastoc Horse of the Year Show in Australia, winning both the Newcomer division and the Open Horse of the Year Division. Xlerate was a stakes horse who won a pretty penny in Hong Kong and Australia; six months ago he was eventing; now he is a champion show hack, showing gorgeous brilliance of movement and temperament. (In fact, seven other finalists for Open Horse of the Year were also Off-track Thoroughbreds.)

Consider the Retired Racehorse Trainer Challenge, presented by the Retired Racehorse Training Project. Headed by Steuart Pittman, the Maryland-based event rider who has stood at stud Thoroughbred stallion Salute the Truth, an OTTB who ran a few races before eventually eventing at the Advanced level, and a long time supporter of OTTBs, the Trainer Challenge took three Thoroughbreds, fresh off the track, and gave three trainers five weeks to put them together into something resembling a sporthorse. The video training diaries alone have attracted tens of thousands of views. 

Tens of thousands of views, of videos on how to train retired racehorses.

Something is happening here.

And it's happening on the backside, too.

The Jockey Club, once an organization formed merely to handle the breeding records of the hundreds of thousands of Thoroughbreds foaled each year, launched first Thoroughbred Connect, a database to connect racehorses with potential new owners, and then the Jockey Club Thoroughbred Incentive Program, which provides awards to OTTBs competing in a rainbow of disciplines. 

Some of the racing industry's heaviest hitters took part in the initial funding of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, including Fasig-Tipton, the Breeders' Cup, and major racecourses, in an effort to provide accreditation and standards to after-care facilities, as well as provide fund-raising efforts.

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association has launched a website, NTRAaftercare.com, offering resources and best practices for both racehorse trainers seeking to retire their horses responsibly and potential purchasers and adopters. Their Aftercare subcommittee includes members of both the racing and sporthorse communities. 

The gap is being bridged. From the backside to the show-ring, the endless possibilities that arise from a racehorse's athletic and workmanlike background are being recognized. And I, for one, can barely keep up with all the links, e-mails, and phone calls from people who want to tell me more about the OTTBs in their life. 

So yes, I declare it. 2012 is the Year of the Thoroughbred. 

(I bet that means it goes by really fast.)