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Mae ([info]sadisticferret) wrote in [info]otf_wank,
@ 2010-02-23 00:09:00


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Fugly Wank of the Day
One fine day in February, every angry equestrian's favorite blog, Fugly Horse of the Day, had an anonymous guest blogger post about the many irritations of being a horse trainer, particularly when beginning riders are involved. Said post is very, very angry indeed, earning a figurative "you go, girl!" from Fugly herself. Opinions in the comments, however, are divided on whether she's 100% correct, right on several points but kind of snotty and condescending about it, or right on a few points but mainly just a wannabe know-it-all with a god complex. And they all lived angrily (but very happy about it) ever after.

I'll expose my bias and admit that I think that most of the wank is coming from the article itself, but there are a few gems to be found in the comments as well. But enough of that, have some quotes.

From the article:
I hate all of your tack. I swear every time I go to a new job I find the exact same crappy tack, tack that I wouldn’t put on my horses even with a gun to my head. It is the tack that your “friends” gave you because surprise they realized that it sucked so they gave it to you. The saddles you have are dry rotted and synthetic (I don’t care what you paid for them, a saddle that is $300 or lower new is crap), they nose dive on the withers and swim all over the back, so you have to cut the horse in half to get them to sort of stay on and then you have to balance the saddle on the horse while trying to ride, because it slides all over the place. A good western saddle new is $800 up, and tolerable one will be $500- $800.
---
Your way wasn’t working, that is why you called me, so just shut up and listen. I love it when I get a new client who regardless to what I say or accomplish with their horse still thinks that they know what they are doing or their way is better. You don’t. That is why you called me in the first place.

From the comments:
I used to burst screaming into The Vapors song, “I Think I’m Turning Japanese”, grab my hair and stomp around when I finally snapped.
I was mildly famous for it.

---
Well, I’m glad some people are keeping horse ownership to be something only the rich can afford. I’m so glad that the multitude of reasons I have a synthetic (including health reasons that preclude me from having a heavy and expensive “real” saddle) cause someone who has nothing to do with me or my horse so much grief.
---
Newsflash to people who use the “life happens” excuse: Unless your job involves riding horses, NONE of us have time to ride our horses! We do it anyway. I’d rather function on 4 hrs of sleep than function in a state of bitchiness because I didn’t get to ride my horse.

Edited to make it a little clearer which quotes come from which section. Sorry for the confusion!


(Post a new comment)


[info]darksumomo
2010-02-23 07:46 am UTC (link)
I'm glad my riding days were all before anyone outside of academia and defense knew about the internet. I'm also glad my daughter never caught her aunts' desires to ride (and one of my sisters still rides).

Sparkling pony icons in five, four, three...

(Reply to this)


[info]the__ivorytower
2010-02-23 08:53 am UTC (link)
I confess, I found that painful to read. Speaking people doing their homework, checking their article for spelling and grammar.

I'm nitpicky.

I was very, very lucky I got to spend a year and a half or thereabouts horseback riding. We traded in pretty much everything that my mother had from her horseback riding days (mostly jumps, and after that, hay) so that I could learn, and it was *fun*. I just wish things hadn't turned out the way they did, and now I wouldn't have the skill or the practice to take it up again.

Shame, horses are lovely.

/onlyslightlyofftopicrambling

(Reply to this)


[info]solle
2010-02-23 10:19 am UTC (link)
I used to burst screaming into The Vapors song, “I Think I’m Turning Japanese”, grab my hair and stomp around when I finally snapped.
I was mildly famous for it.


Yeah... what?

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]librarianmouse
2010-02-23 01:11 pm UTC (link)
Yeah. Me too. I think it works better if you swap out "mildly famous" for "widely feared."

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]missdaisy, 2010-02-23 02:44 pm UTC

[info]eleutheria
2010-02-23 10:52 am UTC (link)
Not to be nitpicky, but did you have to quote in bold instead of in italics? It's kind of painful to read.

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]sadisticferret
2010-02-23 04:01 pm UTC (link)
Ah, sorry. I'll fix that now.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]eleutheria, 2010-02-23 10:25 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]sadisticferret, 2010-02-24 02:38 am UTC

[info]phosfate
2010-02-23 01:55 pm UTC (link)
Well, who wouldn't want a trainer known for spontaneously grabbing her hair and screaming a song about male masturbation?

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]white_tean
2010-02-23 06:10 pm UTC (link)
I know, that's totally what I thought!
I could imagine singing something like Monty Python's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life when driven to hysterics, but that as a song choice would just drive me to hysterics if I had to work with them.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]solle
2010-02-23 08:03 pm UTC (link)
Your icon. It makes me happy.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]phosfate, 2010-02-23 08:08 pm UTC

[info]akiha
2010-02-23 02:42 pm UTC (link)
I thought the second-last quote was from the article writer and was scratching my head at "HOW DARE YOU USE SYNTHETIC SADDLES! By the way, I use a synthetic saddle."

Also, the image of that one commenter "snapping" made me cringe. Yeah, that's a good thing to be famous for.

(Reply to this)


[info]lady_ganesh
2010-02-23 02:51 pm UTC (link)
Well, I’m glad some people are keeping horse ownership to be something only the rich can afford.

Maybe I'm gonna sound like a bitch here, but it's a fucking horse. You have to feed, board, and train them. There is no $99 Horse Ownership kit you can buy at Wal-Mart. You know why? Because horses are fucking expensive and take a lot of work. Get a fucking cat if you can't afford to keep a horse.

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]frau_eva
2010-02-23 03:08 pm UTC (link)
No, you don't sound like a bitch. While I'm certain there's a degree of unnecessary snobbery in this line of work, you can't get past the fact that you're caring for an animal that is bigger and eats more than you, and certainly craps more than you do too.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]lady_ganesh, 2010-02-23 03:09 pm UTC

[info]beccastareyes
2010-02-23 04:20 pm UTC (link)
Not to mention, I'd bet there are services that allow you to ride regularly if you can't afford a horse.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]jackandahat, 2010-02-23 04:27 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]white_tean, 2010-02-23 06:30 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]catchester, 2010-02-26 12:12 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]beccastareyes, 2010-02-26 12:32 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]catchester, 2010-02-26 01:10 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]beccastareyes, 2010-02-26 01:14 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]catchester, 2010-02-26 01:22 am UTC

[info]frequentmouse
2010-02-23 06:25 pm UTC (link)
Given the price of hay, just keeping a horse alive through the winter isn't something for the poor anymore. Which is also why the burden of FHotD has been about neglected horses, horses sent to meat auction, and scam "horse rescue" operations.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]lady_ganesh, 2010-02-23 06:31 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]frequentmouse, 2010-02-23 06:47 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]sgaana, 2010-02-23 08:52 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]lady_ganesh, 2010-02-23 08:54 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]frequentmouse, 2010-02-26 10:37 pm UTC

[info]sarracenia
2010-02-23 08:11 pm UTC (link)
Seriously. It sucks for the people who can't afford to own one and love horses, but unless they want to harm their horse through simply not having the capability to care for it properly, it's not like there's a better option.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]lady_ganesh, 2010-02-23 08:55 pm UTC

[info]sgaana
2010-02-23 08:49 pm UTC (link)
Word.

It's like that's a commenter who reads NOTHING else on the Fugly blog, because if you read the Fugly blog at all you get buried up to your eyeballs in stories about people who cannot afford to keep horses, do so anyway, *breed more that they can't afford to keep*, annnnnnd... end up starving and abusing their horses. Not a week goes by without a big story about that on the blog, with heart-rending pictorial evidence.

Keeping. A. Horse. Is. Expensive. If you are doing it correctly and taking good care of the animal. If it's multiple horses, it's even MORE expensive.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]altoidsaddict
2010-02-23 11:05 pm UTC (link)
I don't even know where to begin with that. Maybe informing you of the many ranchers who use horses as well-treated, well-respected working animals and can buy and keep them for next to nothing?

Show barns are such a different reality, I swear. How sad that the show horse industry is so utterly divorced from the origins of the horse as an inexpensive working animal. It's like they think we shoot them for getting a cough or something...

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]mary_mac, 2010-02-24 12:04 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]lady_ganesh, 2010-02-24 01:41 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]ravenscanary, 2010-02-24 03:40 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]altoidsaddict, 2010-02-24 02:23 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]ekaterinv, 2010-02-24 01:50 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]dragonfangirl, 2010-02-25 07:20 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]cmdr_zoom, 2010-02-25 10:22 pm UTC

[info]sadisticferret
2010-02-24 02:30 am UTC (link)
Yeah, I thought that comment was at least as wanky as anything else there, if not moreso. I'm playing the world's tiniest violin for her.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]lady_ganesh, 2010-02-24 02:32 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]sadisticferret, 2010-02-24 02:46 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]lady_ganesh, 2010-02-24 02:52 am UTC

sceach
2010-03-02 09:01 pm UTC (link)
When I used to ride my friends and I called horses debts with hooves. For a reason.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]jackandahat
2010-02-23 04:23 pm UTC (link)
What baffles me is the "OMG, she's so rude to her clients!!!" from some of the commenters there. She's ranting, anonymously, on the internet. The closest we have to identifying information in terms of which trainer is that they're working in the US.

Are we supposed to believe that none of these people have ever blown off steam? Never waited until the boss is out of the room and gone "If he asks me about that report one more time I'm going to strangle him, I've told him it's next week", never had a drink with another parent and grumbled about how annoying it is when kids think tidying is a foreign concept?

If the trainer was doing this on her blog, then I'd worry about her attitude with clients. But this is anonymous, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't rant sometimes.

The whole thing about "You're being elitist saying horses are for the rich"... no, she's saying horses are expensive. This is an unarguable fact. They're something you have to either be born very rich to have, or sacrifice a lot to keep, they're not a right.

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]white_tean
2010-02-23 06:47 pm UTC (link)
Gosh, if she's even like that in person it's kid gloves compared to some draconian instructors. Not that mine is like that, I just get quite German unimpressed looks if I try and make an excuse.

The harsh truths this trainer is making aren't even that bad - my favourite dressage trainer Philippe Karl when he did a clinic here told a demonstrator rider in front of a stadium of people that the way she was riding her horse was ruining him (his back was being hollowed out), that she should never have been allowed to compete at Grand Prix level, let alone win anything for it.

Also, I love horse-wank.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]jackandahat, 2010-02-23 06:55 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]white_tean, 2010-02-23 07:20 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]kookaburra, 2010-02-24 01:52 am UTC

[info]mcity
2010-02-23 05:51 pm UTC (link)
>Newsflash to people who use the “life happens” excuse: Unless your job involves riding horses, NONE of us have time to ride our horses! We do it anyway. I’d rather function on 4 hrs of sleep than function in a state of bitchiness because I didn’t get to ride my horse.

I'd like to make a joke about how the commenter appears to be doing the latter anyway, but I'd feel uncomfortable about it.

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]mary_mac
2010-02-23 07:52 pm UTC (link)
I'm thinking that if you're functioning on four hours of sleep you might not be fit to be in charge of a horse.

Or at least not one that's any way energetic.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]sarracenia
2010-02-23 08:12 pm UTC (link)
...Is it even safe to ride a horse in the dark?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]caffeine_fairy, 2010-02-23 08:19 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]piasharn, 2010-02-24 02:04 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]ravenscanary, 2010-02-24 03:32 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]mary_mac, 2010-02-24 03:56 pm UTC

[info]sgaana
2010-02-23 09:08 pm UTC (link)
Said post is very, very angry indeed...

This made me blink. Have I just been desensitized by reading the Fugly blog, or by reading various JF comms? That post struck me as a garden-variety rant (not as well-written as Fugly usually is). I wouldn't even have described it as "angry", let alone "very, very" angry. (I would have described it as "frustrated, snarky, and blowing off steam".) YMMV, and obviously does.

Also, um... it would be a lot clearer in your write-up if you indicated that the FIRST section is a quote from the post, but all the REST are quotes from the comments.

I see commenters above who think that the OP included the "Turning Japanese" line in her post... which she didn't, that's from a commenter. (Which I thought to look up because I read the OP last night and said, "I sure don't remember that line".)

(Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]kalypsi_cat, 2010-02-24 12:47 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]sgaana, 2010-02-24 12:50 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]kookaburra, 2010-02-24 01:54 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]sgaana, 2010-02-24 05:09 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]sadisticferret, 2010-02-24 02:37 am UTC

 
   
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