SANDY NATHAN Award Winning Author
My Amazon Bestseller Best seller Book Party was December 9 2008. Things were just getting rolling when it was time to stop––so we’ve extended the event though December 10th. Click here to go to the party!Â
Click here to see one of the prizes, an amazing slide show from the Gathering, the Native American spiritual retreat which inspired Stepping Off the Edge.
I’m doing one of those “bust into the Amazon bestseller ranks by providing incentives (bribes) to buyers to if they buy on a certain day.” These parties have been around for a while and have been lauded and condemned by many.
I’m doing mine for a bunch of reasons, one of which is the possibility of moving into the Amazon bestsellers with my book Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice.Â
Stepping Off the Edge is a spiritual companion and guidebook for the modern age. Its a perfect holiday gift and something you can give to people of all faiths. It contains everything worth remembering that I learned earning my two graduate degrees and lifelong personal spiritual practice. These are the self-help nuggets that I grab onto when my life threatens to take a negative turn.
Sharing my book with you is as important to me as any sales rating. I finished the book’s manuscript on December 22, three days before Christmas. At that time, my soul turned toward the birth of the holy on this flawed planet.
What happened on that day still blows my mind. It’s all there, at the end of Stepping and throughout the book. This book is a mind bending, true, spiritual journey. I invite you to come with me and step off the edge.
I really invite you to do it on December 9th 2008. That’s my party day, and you won’t believe what my friends will be giving you if you buy my book on Amazon through the special invitation I’ll send you. (Go to my website and sign up for my mailing list NOW. You’ll be sent an invitation automatically.)
If you buy my book through Amazon’s site, the first great prize you will receive is my book! Stepping Off the Edge has won six national awards and rave reviews. It’s well worth buying and reading in itself.
You’ll get more. When you buy the book through Amazon, use your receipt number to log into a special web page. That will allow you to download all the prizes my friends and I are offering. What are they?
The first gift is from me. I’ve written an e book for you. Tecolote Finds a Friend: A Baby Horse Learns the Ways of the World. Tecolote was born prematurely on a freezing night. He battled to survive from his first breath and overcame the worst thing that can happen to any youngster. Will he learn to be a member of the herd or stay an outsider forever?
This is the first of the amazing true stories of Rancho Vilasa, our horse ranch, that I’ve made public. The e book features photographs of the horses taken while the story was unfolding. This incredible tale is available only at my Amazon Bestseller Party. We may make it available for sale later, but for now––this is it.
ARE YOU A WRITER, AUTHOR, OR PUBLISHER? Here are some prizes for you. I’m sharing my secrets with you. What a truly professional presentation? Check out these people:
- Ghislain Viau of Creative Publishing Book Design has offered a discount on the interior design of a book. The discount will be awarded by lottery at the end of my “Amazon day” and is good for three months. If you are a publisher, owner of a small press, or considering self publishing your book, a beautifully designed interior is absolutely necessary to stand up in the marketplace. Ghislain did the interior of my book Numenon, which you can see by clicking on the book’s Amazon page and searching the “look inside” images. You can also see examples of his work on his web page, linked above. I found Ghislain a delight to work with. He was always on time, has superb technical skills, and can manage your project, submitting it to the printer and keeping track of it.
- Laren Bright, three time Emmy-nominated screen writer and multi-talented, award winning writer, has offered a one-hour telephone consultation on a book title and subtitle. If your book is judged by its cover, it really is judged by its title. The wrong title and subtitle can destroy your book’s chances of success. Professional copy sings and presents your book in its best light. Laren wrote the cover copy––that’s the back and end flaps––for both of my books. He has an amazing capacity for grasping the essence of a book and expressing it in a few compelling words. See sandynathan.com about the books for examples, or check my books on Amazon.
- Lewis Agrell of the Agrell Group, has offered what I consider a pathbreaking article on book cover design. Lewis drew the map that appears on the end papers of my Numenon. (Unfortunately, Amazon’s search inside feature doesn’t show it. You’ll have to buy the book to see it.) He also designed brochures for both my books, as well as other sales materials for Numenon. And––he designed the e-book which you’ll download when you buy Stepping Off the Edge on my Amazon day. He’s a joy to work with and totally professional.
- Penny Sansevieri, The Author Marketing Expert TM, is donating some of her writings, possibly chapters from her new, best-selling Red Hot Internet Publicity: An Insider’s Guide to Promoting your Book on the Internet! When you’ve got your book edited, its interior designed, the copy written and the cover ready to go, you need to publicize it. Penny helped me with Stepping Off the Edge. She’s supremely professional and knows her stuff.
- Jeniffer Thompson, monkey + C + media = designhaus, will offer several chapters of her writing. Want a spectacular website that expresses you perfectly and optimizes your place on the net? That’s what Jeniffer and monkey C media do. You’re looking at an example of her work: Jeniffer and her associates created this blog and my matching website at sandynathan.com  Jeniffer worked tirelessly to create a site I loved. She does that for all her clients.
- Melanie Rigney, Editor for You, has more than thirty experience as an editor, writer and reporter. Her company, Editor for You, has provided services to more than 200 authors, publishers, and agents. Melanie spent five years as the editor of Writer’s Digest, the leading magazine for writers, and was editorial director for Writer’s Digest Books. She’s worked for the major publishers and is a well known leader of writers’ conferences. Melanie worked on the editing of my book Numenon and she’s edited, copy edited and proofed everything I’ve done since. Melanie has offered some of her writing on editing and writing, and maybe a Kindle download if the conversion can happen soon enough.
WRITING NOT YOUR THING? HOW ABOUT READING?
When you buy my book on Amazon, you’ll be able to download some red hot reading not available anywhere else. Check back. I’ll post what’s coming as details evolve.
WANT A BETTER LIFE? LOOKING FOR SOLUTIONS IN TODAY’S FINANCIAL MESS?
A couple of experts are working on answers to those questions for my party day. I’ll post when I have details.
THE GATHERING: THE SPIRITUAL RETREAT WHERE STEPPING OFF THE EDGE was born.
Stepping Off the Edge is a book that I did not intend to write. I was doing important work––writing my series of novels––and was plenty busy. Little did I know that the universe had other plans. A force I could not resist dragged me across the United States to a Native American spiritual treat held way out in the Cherokee National Forest of Tennessee.
Bill Miller, the multi-Grammy winning, NAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award winning, Native American musician, artist, and speaker, is the Gathering’s spiritual leader.
That weekend was a soul awakening for me, a turning point in my life. I ended up writing Steppping Off the Edge. Stepping Off the Edge tells the story of my experience at the Gathering, which takes place on old Cherokee ground, the home of the original Cherokee people. The book tells you how I got there and gives you tools to handle the hard times of your life. And the good times.
We’ve got special gifts coming from the Gathering and the people of the Gathering that I’ll post when I get all the details.
That’s it for now!
Happy trails! Sandy Nathan
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Sandy Nathan, National Award Winning Author
A friend and I were catching up. She had been through some dramatic personal trials. I was surprised when she said, “I kept thinking about that horse show you wrote about where you worked really hard preparing, and you kept losing and losing and losing …”
That could be almost any of them, I thought.
“And then finally, at the end––you won the prize for the best barn in the show!”
Oh, yeah. That one.
I wrote about the show on my Rancho Vilasa web site and forgot about it.
A revisit to the article revealed that I wrote it ten years ago. My ten year old write-up gave her strength in facing the hurdles before her. Hmm.
This realization prompted musing about shelf life. What is the shelf life of our work? Our lives? Does shelf life matter? Those questions led to contemplation, and sparked an insight leading to a great surprise, which is coming …
I’m going to talk about winning in this article; in a coming article, I’ll talk about shelf life and the surprise. What’s below is not your standard 900word blog-blast of wisdom. It’s more like a chapter of a book. The book my agent wanted me to write. (Our first wisdom nugget: If you’ve got an agent do what she/he wants. Nuff said.)
       
Gabriela de Amanecer (Twiggy) & Rey de Corazones (Eddie)
Magnificent Peruvian Paso Horses. Can you tell that Twiggy is Eddie’s mom? We bred Eddie at Rancho Vilasa. Twiggy was a rescue horse. She came to us half starved. Part of her story appears in my book, Stepping Off the Edge.
We humans come here, into existence––”Hi, I’m here!”––to win. Which means to master the trials before us and turn into human beings that resemble our essential selves. We either do this, crack up, or end up bitter people we wouldn’t go on a second date with.
The larger kind of winning, becoming people we’d like to know can only come from having mastered trials and followed the good road. There’s a smaller kind of winning defined by prizes. This is a story about both.
You writers and associated book folk may read and say, “That’s very interesting, but what does it have to do with me? I’d never ride a horse in a show.” (Good for you, you’re growing already.) What you read here shows up in writers as beyond verging-on-the-insane, addicted behavior clustered around a single word: publication.
“When I get published …” The eyes of perfectly intelligent scribblers go glassy as they say those words. “By a real publisher …” (What are Dan Poynter and his self-publishing empire if not real?) I want those of you in the book trade to use some of your vaunted smarts and figure out: How does this apply to me?
In the service of human development, I present the following epic of angst and horseflesh. Many of my blog readers don’t know anything about the horsey part of me. They don’t know anything other than the carefully homogenized bio that got past my publicist.
WE LIVE ON A RANCH! YES, A REAL HORSE RANCH WITH HORSES AND LIFE AND DEATH AND SNAKES AND SKUNKS AND OTHER FEROCIOUS CREATURES!
We Live Among Them!
Ground squirrel in attack mode.
LOSE UNTIL YOU WIN: WHAT YOU REALLY WIN AT HORSE SHOWS
This is the story my friend remembered:
We loved the annual show put on by the La Bahia Peruvian Horse Club at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds at Watsonville. In 1998, it was a show crammed with surprises and learning experiences.
Vistoso & I in Front of our Barn, Getting Ready to Go to the Show
This photo shows how we used to treat our ribbons: Hang ’em in front of the tack room to rot. They did.
As the show date approached, my husband and our horse trainer were eager to get to the show and compete. They had schooled and conditioned their horses to perfection and spent hours discussing which horse to put in which class.
I was my usual ambivalent self. I’d been writing rather than riding, so my favored horse and I were … I won’t say flabby. That’s so judgmental. We were not completely fit. Nevertheless, I figured that we’d hold together for a class or two.
My show demon returned: Maybe I’d break the Championship barrier this time. I’ve been eligible for the Championship round of classes by getting first or second in my qualifying class many times. I always fluffed in the more intense Championship competition.
I’ve won a Reserve Championship or two, but never a Championship title. I’ve never gotten to ride around the arena carrying a hefty trophy, much less continue on to the Champion of Champions class, where I could ride out with a small monument.
Maybe this would be the show. My horse was certainly good enough.
 
Barry & I in a Matched Pairs Class, Watsonville, 1997
He’s riding Vistoso, the horse I ride in the story below. I’m riding Azteca, Vistoso’s full brother (same mom and pop). Vistoso is in an earlier stage of his training here: Note that he doesn’t have a bit in his mouth. He’s in bosal. White jeans and shirts are the traditional garb worn by riders of bosal horses.
We won this class.
We drove up Highway 101 in our crew cab dually. Someone once asked me, “What’s a dually?†I couldn’t imagine such cultural deprivation. A dually is a truck that has double wheels on the back axle, for a total of six wheels, two in front, four in back. The extra wheels add stability. A crew cab dually has a passenger compartment, making it a sedan in front of a truck bed.
We knew we were close to the show grounds when we saw the trees. Dark cypresses with craggy branches thrust themselves into the soft air of the coastal community. Rows of huge eucalyptus trees stood along the roadsides, an attempt at taming sea breezes planted a half a century before.
Watsonville has one of the most beautiful fairgrounds I’ve seen, not so much for the facilities, which are a little down in the heels, let’s be honest. Rather, the grounds themselves draw attention. They are exquisitely carpeted with brilliant green lawns and shaded by massive cypresses.
Slightly rundown or not, everything’s nice at Watsonville. The stalls, the wash racks, the warm up arenas. The main show arena. Even the concrete bleachers rimmed by grass are nice. The people are nice. Those who lose in the show’s classes don’t howl too loudly and I’ve never seen a fistfight or screaming match. In fact, I’ve only seen one person drunk out of his/her mind.
Excitement filled the truck as we neared the show. We bounced along the access road, turned into the fairgrounds and jolted to the show office. (Having dual rear wheels does not make a truck any less a truck.)
  
 
 
Scenes from a Peruvian Paso Horse Show
This is not official garb: These photos are from a costume class in Santa Rosa years ago. The horse on the right in the elephant costume is a National Champion ridden by the very well known trainer, Shawna Valenzuela. Do enlarge these photos––they’re hysterical.
When I think of Peruvian horse shows, I think, “Medieval pageantry.” The bigger barns have wildly colorful stall decorations: banners, swags, pennants. Tables of their trophies mark the ends of the stall rows. These also sport video set ups continuously playing reruns of other shows and wins. They’re stacked with shiny brochures and advertising stuff.
Horses are all over the place. Being ridden, led, washed, caught. In every show, at least one horse will get loose and run wildly through the showgrounds. People run and jump out of the way most of the time. Someone always gets bucked off. Trainers and helpers are longeing (See The Training Series) horses to warm them up.
The whole thing moves, the riders, horses, banners, videos, show staff, trucks with and without trailers. The big barns have semis and small utility vehicles, all painted to match the barns’ logos and colors. People of every shade wander around, including real Peruvians! Yes, they are very much a presence. (You must go to a Peruvian show. Here’s the NAPHA, the breed’s organization, web site. Find a show near you and go. Buy a horse!)
The tack (saddle and so on) is similar to what the conquistadores used in 16th century Peru. The correct riding attire is not the classic and tasteful hunt seat kit, which looks (to this rider’s eyes) like what you would wear to a job interview.
Azteca de Oro BSN Ridden by Patti Sexton in Reno NV
This is the same Azteca mentioned earlier. Horses have fancy registered names and not so fancy barn names. (Rey de Corazones BSN to “Eddie.”) Patti is a figure in our story, as you will see below. The photo shows the magnificence of Peruvian show gear.
Back to Watsonville: The friendly show management told us where our stalls were, and we proceeded to the next phase of horse show participation. Getting ready. That means bedding the stalls with the straw provided, setting up the tack room and storing our stuff. Also putting up nylon strap barriers over the top halves of stalls inhabited by horses likely to jump out. That’s right, jump out.
They do that––yes, indeed. Not all of those that try to escape clear the lower half of the stall door. They “hang up with their rear ends,” which is one of the reasons that shows have a veterinarian on the grounds.
After setting up, the savvy exhibitor rides his or her horse in the arena and around the fairgrounds. This is to make sure that the horse has its nervous breakdown before the show, instead of in front of the judge the next day.
Participating in a show is like running a marathon without the aerobic benefits.
When your horse is calmed down, washed off, put away and fed, you can take care of yourself. This means finding the official hotel, typically the local Motel 6, having a sumptuous meal of fast food and retiring to listen to your neighbors fight. (The glamor of the horse show world is greatly overstated.)
This phase of the horse show is equivalent to setting up a military campaign while inside a pressure cooker. The horses are not the only ones to suffer from horse show nerves. I have the worst horse show nerves of anyone I know, despite having showed horses since I was fifteen years old. One of the great things about horse shows is the fact that all my friends are there. I’ve found that talking nonstop reduces my tension. I often talk to everyone for three days straight.
I’m Riding Azteca at the Monterey Show
Don’t have a photo of me on Vistoso. This is close enough: They’re full brothers.
Let’s jump to the show results. In my first class, I finished last. Okay? Do you have a problem with that? I might be the slightest bit testy about it, so don’t say anything.
I don’t come in last.
Okay, I did once before, but that was a fluke. I really thought I had that class nailed. I thought I was going to win it. It was at Reno, in that enormous concrete indoor arena with the air conditioning. After finishing last, I rode out of the arena into the 105-degree heat so shocked that I couldn’t scream or pass out.
I don’t come in last. I always win something––third or fifth. Anything. I learned how to win when I was a teenager. I win. I don’t come in last.
Except that time in Reno. Fortunately for me in that instance, a bunch of my friends poured out of the grandstand and said, “Sandy! We can’t believe what happened! We thought you were going to win the class! You were perfect!â€
With their support, I realized the truth of the yogic maxim prohibiting attachment to results. It can be paraphrased as, “Easy come, easy go.†I got over it.
But it happened again in Watsonville! I rode my stunningly beautiful gelding, Vistoso (which means gorgeous in Spanish), in a pleasure horse class. We maneuvered around the arena under the milky blue sky with cypresses poking up all around and tasteful Spanish music being broadcast over the arena and stands. The announcer’s voice was modulated and classy. The fifteen or so of us in the class were groomed and tacked up exactly as the rules would have us. The horses moved out with their four beat Spanish gait.
“Circle your horses, please. Two circles to the left.†The announcer and her helpers sat above the arena in a raised booth. The judge and ring steward were in the arena, better able to see the action. “Stop your horses, please. And stand.â€
A pleasure horse class is for animals that are a pleasure to ride. A pleasure horse is one that you would take out for a lovely afternoon ride, assuming you would ever venture from a show arena in your full Peruvian regalia.
In a pleasure horse class, the rider and horse are required to do whatever the judge thinks up to kick out a horse’s true pleasurable nature.
The announcer said, “Two circles to the right, please, at your best gait.†The problem was that Vistoso was under-ridden and not well-schooled. He bucked every time I asked him to do anything.
Generally, bucking is frowned upon in a pleasure horse, especially in a horse show.
The judge finished and told us to hang out at the far end of the arena until the announcer told us who won. I had to keep Vistoso moving lest he buck me off right there.
Still, I thought we had a chance. Maybe the judge didn’t notice.
That is the beauty of denial.
In Peruvian Paso shows under most judges, the first person excused from the class is the last place horse and rider. That was me; the announcer called my number before anyone else’s. I rode out of the arena burning.
Where did my yogic, “Be content no matter what happens” stuff go? I was not content. I’ve had a bug about winning my whole life and coming in last was not part of it.
This outcome prompted hours of intense introspection moving toward anguish. My angst ratcheted up immediately after the class when I asked my friend, farrier, and sometime horse trainer, Patti Sexton to get on Vistoso and see why he was being such a jerk.
Patti rode him in the warm-up arena, a smaller arena close to the main show arena. She skillfully piloted the horse, giving a show-stopping performance. He was flawless. Watching her ride, my jaw dropped. I’d never seen Vistoso look so good. He could have won anything.
I knew exactly what the matter was: me. The horse was scared and acting out. Patti’s riding ability and fearlessness absorbed his distress. Plus, she could ride him no matter what he did. He knew it with that magic equine intuition, so he didn’t bother to try anything.
As she flashed past, Patti shook her head and said, “Oh, yeah. He really is being a jerk.†Oh? I couldn’t see it. Nothing showed with her expert riding.
The lesson sank in: The problem was me, not the horse. Boy, did I feel rotten. I was about to feel worse.
Charlotte Dicke, an old hand in the Peruvian world (now Charlotte Dicke Becerra, wife of Ramon Becerra and owner of Conquistador Magazine and the Peruvian Horse Quarterly––check out the links. They’ll knock your eyeballs out.), wanted to try out a sidesaddle Patti had for sale.
Charlotte plopped the saddle on Vistoso, who had never been ridden sidesaddle. Accepting a sidesaddle is something that requires training. The rider’s balance is different than astride; the saddle sits differently on the horse’s back. Then there’s that missing leg on the right side, and the unexpected foot sticking out at the horse’s eye level on the left. Some horses object to this.
Charlotte piled on Vistoso and rode him sidesaddle all over the fairgrounds, neck-reining and dodging traffic and baby carriages and people opening umbrellas and other things that make horses crazy. He never flinched.
This was hard to take. Fortunately, I’d had a personal breakthrough earlier when I saw Patti slide Vistoso to a stop and back him across the arena by wiggling a finger.
In that breakthrough moment, I realized that I am old––and he is not. He is bursting with life and muscle and youth. He does not worry about knee replacements and arthritis. Or herniated discs. Nor does he use a cane. I do.
I realized that I need a more sedate horse. Or a sedated horse. Maybe a dead horse.
Everything was made worse by the fact that my husband could not lose. He was having the sort of show that horse people dream about that never happens. But it was happening.
Barry & Eddie “Do the Cones” in Santa Barbara.
They won there, too. Look at how close those cones are.
We took our newly finished gelding, Rey de Corazones BSN, (“Eddie”––after my cousin, Ed Shomber) to the show as a schooling exercise. We didn’t expect him to win anything; he’d just completed his training and had been ridden in a bit for maybe a month. He won his two classes, Novice Horse and Performance Gelding, 4–6! That was just for starters, and we still had the Championship classes the next day.
I will not talk about the interpersonal dynamics of highly competitive people who happen to be married. I didn’t talk about it then, and I won’t now.
I thrashed half the night in an orgy of self-recrimination. Finally falling asleep, I had nightmares in which I came in last again and again.
Exhausted and almost insane when I returned to the show the next morning, I sat in the stands and watched the two remaining classes that I could have entered to redeem myself. Ladies to Ride and Amateur Owner to Ride came and went.
I felt only one thing––relief. The last place I wanted to be was in that ring on that bucking maniac, Vistoso. I had finally accepted my placement of the day before. At last, I was content. My suffering evaporated.
Then it happened: The show committee asked Barry and I to stand by the gate after lunch. We did, with no clue as to what was going on.
A few minutes later, they called us into the arena and gave us the Benni Barto Memorial Trophy. The trophy was awarded to the ranch which best epitomized the spirit of the show. This included the quality of their horses, their presentation and the effort put into showing. It was also based on improvement, sportsmanship, and conduct.
Barry & Sandy Nathan win the Benni Barto Trophy
I are in the center, flanked by the La Bahia Club Show Committee.
The award is given in memory of a dear friend, Benni Barto. I remember Benni so vividly. Doing horse business with her. All the barbecues at her place. The horse camp she ran for children.
I burst into tears as we accepted the trophy. The minute I truly accepted losing, our ranch won the award that meant most to us.
Benni Barto Winning Mares Gait on our Twiggy
An amazing show when the foundling mare beat the best the big barns could produce. Monterey 1992
This is the learning that can come from horse shows. It has everything to do with moving through the impasses in front of you. It’s not really about winning and losing, except when it is.
Barry’s Riding Cappy “Through the Cones,” Making a Serpintine through Closely Spaced Cones.
They won Champion of Champions Performance Stallion at
Watsonville in 1997 & 1998.
After that, Barry went on to ride our stallion, Capoeira BSN, to his second Champion of Champions Performance Stallion title. Watching Cappy serpentine through the close-set poles to win was a stirring sight. He looked like a snake with a mane and tail.
I didn’t mind being out of the limelight. I didn’t mind that I lost. I felt absolutely content.
Though I did talk to the judge after the show, asking her if she remembered me and why I’d come in last in my class.
She looked at me, perplexed. “You didn’t come in last. I only give the ring steward my placings of first through fifth.â€
The announcer called people out of the ring randomly; the fact that she called me before anyone else simply meant that I hadn’t placed.
My mind spun. I didn’t come in last … My previous two days of semi-hysterical internal ranting, angst, suffering, and general insanity were over nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
At many shows, the announcers call the last-place person first, but it’s not a rule. I’d jumped from a convention to an absolute reality.
The truth dawned: The sleepless night, the emotional pain––I did it to myself.
But don’t we always do it to ourselves?
That’s it: Lose until you win.
At the end of the day, what does winning mean?
What was the real value of my experience to the Peruvian Paso show world? Nothing. The show folded, I don’t think the club exists any more. We got no photos in national magazines, very little recognition beyond the people there that year. The award wasn’t a national championship, not even a regional or Watsonville-wide event. We got a cool big trophy for a year, a loaner which we had to turn in the next year for a mini-size.
Where’s the winning? It lives in my soul, in the personal, intangible movement I made over that weekend. Everyone there, if they were awake at the wheel of life, had their own experience. Whether it joined the other examples of “I’ve been screwed,” or “I’m the best because I won Champion of Champions,” depends on the brain of the person having it.
We stopped showing horses years ago. Does anyone in the horse world remember how much we won? It’s piled all over the house. Useless baubles with memories.
I stopped showing because my body fell apart. I can’t do it any more––though if I could, I’d be riding reined stock horses at the Cow Palace the way I did as a kid.
But about the long term impact? After I stopped showing a few years, I’d go to a show and very few people recognized me. Some old friends, yes. But the currency in the horse show world is winning.
Do we need to win in the small way? The ribbons way? The “I’m a published author” way? Yes, to get to where we’re meant to be. Awake at the wheel, asking, “What am I winning? What is the shelf life of those wins? How deep are the relationships? Do I even like the people my glorious career brings to me?”
I encourage you to set your sights higher, to win gloriously in fields that have a shelf life greater than horse show ribbons or pulp fiction.
My very best wishes,
Sandy Nathan
 
See the light.
THE RANCHO VILASA HORSE SHOW CREDO: (This is from out ranch website, developed over years of showing horses. We’ve done all the objectionable things ourselves, so we speak with authority. How does this relate to your life?)
A long time ago, Barry and I realized that showing horses is really fun– if you win. If you don’t, it’s expensive, hot, dirty and painful. Our goal at Rancho Vilasa is to be content whatever we do, win or lose. It’s a goal we’re still working on.
Consider our point of view: First, after showing Peruvian Paso horses for over ten years, we’ve realized that character is what you really win. Class placements and Championship titles have little to do with the value of mastering personal and horsey phobias, and everything else that goes on in the show world. Mastery in horse shows involves personal learning and enlightenment. Those are as important as ribbons.
Second, we like games where everyone playing has a good time. This lets out activities like duck hunting, where the duck does not have a good time. Regarding horse shows, has your horse ever banged on your bedroom door at five in the morning begging to be hauled eight hours so he can work his buns off in a strange and scary place? What’s in it for him?
Most important of all– what does showing horses prove? If you won every class in every horse show in the universe, would it cure cancer? Would it feed starving children? Would your winning do anything that anyone would remember in one hundred years? Ten years? One?
And which is the better horse? A National Champion that is so hot that only his trainer can ride him? Who’s so valuable you can’t take him on the trails? Or a good old boy with a veterinary problem who can only pack handicapped kids around– and give them a reason to live?
Until we figure the show thing out, we’ve set up a few rules.
- “Don’t haul your horse any longer than you’d haul yourself.”
- “Don’t show horses that don’t want to be there.”
- “Don’t go if you’re broke and exhausted or have more important things to do.
You will NEVER, NEVER hear us advertising ourselves as the best show barn or the biggest winners, but we do show our horses. We love horse shows. We love the beauty of the animals, the energy of competition. The music. The people. And we love to win––as long as it’s fair and square. No cheating. Cheating puts you back on square one.
copyright 1998 Sandy Nathan All rights reserved.
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