On “Horse People”

First, commented yesterday that we here are clearly not "horse people," and my response was that love of a species, or animals in general, isn’t the point. What we want is for horses to be able to live their natural lives without us controlling and using them.

About a year ago, with the final chapter of Barbaro, I used author Jane Smiley as an example of a horse person who’s got some major conflict between what she says and what she does. Well, Smiley’s at it again, this time in the Huffington Post, in "My Favorite Mistake: Writer Jane Smiley on How Her Horse-Breeding Got a Little Out of Hand."

Let’s deconstruct:

• Smiley’s favorite mistake is horse breeding. She explains, "[S]omehow your advocational (sic) life, your passions and your hobbies, and the things that you spend your money and your free time on, those can be mistakes." Yes, those things can be mistakes. What does that have to do with horses?
• On what horses symbolized for Smiley: "[T]hey were the ultimate dog/boyfriend combination, but then, you can ride them, too. So they were a dog and a horse and a boyfriend combination in the sense that they were companions and warm but they were also really fun in terms of riding and doing things." I wonder what Smiley symbolized for the horses?
• On how it all began: "I bought a horse when I was 42 and I was content with that. Then I moved to California and it just came to me that it might be fun to breed a horse. I was reading a magazine and they sent me a catalog of stallions that were available for breeding and, I looked at them and thought, ‘I would really like to try this.’" Like it was painting, quilting or yoga.
• On how it continued: "[One of her horses] would nuzzle against me. And so I remember thinking when looking at her this way ‘Oh, I want another one of those!’ Like I was placing an order rather than a bet." Yeah, an order for a pair of shoes or trousers. Placing an order for a sentient being, though?
• On early success: "Lo and behold the little foal was born and he looked just like that stallion in the catalog. He was the same color, the same shape and he was a very sweet little boy. I’m thinking: ‘This is easy! You pick one then you pick the other one and you say This is what I want‘ and that’s what you get."
• On reality setting in: "I bought more mares and I bred them to more stallions and now I have bred about fifteen. Then of course I entered into the real world, because in the real world of breeding horses, you don’t always get what you want. Even if you do, there can be an accident, there can be a genetic problem, a congenital problem, there can be illness and that’s where I embarked upon my experience of chaos. That’s what horses teach you, to endure, and maybe tolerate, and eventually possibly come to believe in chaos." Is that what horses teach you, or is that what breeding anyone teaches you?
• On her current situation: "Well, this year I said, ‘No more, I’m getting rid of all the mares,’ because I began to look at a mare and think: ‘Who would that go with?’ I don’t want to do it anymore. Everybody will think they might be breeding the next Kentucky Derby winner and eventually you have to say, ‘No, odds are against it, stop now.’ So this year I decided I was going to sell the mares so I wouldn’t be tempted anymore to breed them, but that doesn’t mean I’m selling all the horses. I’m still keeping the ones that I have very close relationships with and feel some type of connection to." So their fate is contingent upon whether she feels connected to them.
• Yet she inexplicably doesn’t think they’re "fungible assets." Instead they’re like children. "[T]hat’s very much the way with children — you think they’re your children. I’ve got three children and two step-children, and the lesson of children is that you think your children are going to be ‘this, this and this,’ and they aren’t. They turn out to be ‘That, that, and that.’ Would she "get rid of" her children as quickly as she’d sell her mares for not being what she wanted or because she’d learned her lessons and doesn’t feel like continuing anymore?

The quote that I found most unfathomable was: "If you breed your own horses and you are committed to them, you have an opportunity to scratch your head and ask ‘Hmm…I wonder what would work in this circumstance?’ It’s a broadening thing." How about broadening to: What’s the right thing to do for horses? Is it right to have them be  (almost always) forcefully inseminated (um, raped. I’ve seen it and it’s shocking and violent) so that you can have your hobby of creating and collecting creatures you hope will connect with you or win you some cash? Or is it maybe best to leave them alone and find a hobby that doesn’t involve dominance, control, and the good chance of sending someone to "home" after "home" (or petting zoo or roadside zoo) eventually to be slaughtered, humanely or otherwise, when some person decides it’s time?