The Groom

I was a groom/stablehand for a large dressage academy for many years. I also lived in the groom/working student house for three years. I earned my keep by, well, being a groom and a stablehand.

I was young, strong and could swing a hay bale over my head.

After I graduated from college, I would fill in when they needed me. That farm was home to me.

Then years later as a college graduate with a job in my field, I would volunteer and groom some of my old charges as they advanced in age. They taught many how to ride and they still deserved their very own personal groom. I was happy to do the job for free.

Once a groom, always a groom...Those horses were always on my mind. They were my old friends.

I made close friends with my fellow workers and roommates, and I still keep in touch with a lot of them today. The three "J's" are horse trainers on the west coast. "G" is a head trainer at an Arabian/Warmblood training and breeding facility, and "N" is a successful rider, trainer and dressage events coordinator. She was recently hand-picked by her vet to train as a Vet Tech for Sport Horses, her dream job.

All of us shared the life of loving the horse, and it is what still drives us today.

Working with horses is hard work. It requires getting up just as the sun is peeking over the horizon and working until after the sun has gone down. Or, in my case, getting up before the sun to muck 12 box stalls before my 8am class at the nearby college...

It is not for the faint of heart, this work.

We knew our charges like they were our children. Ginger liked to poop in one corner of her stall. Ursus looked grumpy, but was actually a very sweet horse once he got to know you. Sonntag had a yucca supplement for his joints and he was absolutely obsessed with treats. Rooster (aka Sound the Bugle) got anxious when the farrier came. Pewter was scared to death of anything that sprayed: fly spray, hoses. We wiped on his fly spray with a cloth.

Hay in our hair, under our fingernails (ouch) in our shirts. Dust in our eyes and noses. Sweat, dirt, horse hair, manure, mud: it was the life. Mucking, feeding, tacking up, cooling down, wraps, boots, blankets, fly masks. We kept a tight schedule. No time to sit and gab. Horses needed to be fed and turned out. There were four lessons at 3pm, and all needed to be tacked up. There were bridles that needed cleaning. The aisle needed sweeping. The muck bucket needed emptying. A horse needed hand-walking. Feed needed to be mixed ahead of time. Beet pulp needed soaking. Muddy horses from turnout needed to be groomed. Hay for three barns needed to be dropped from the loft. Water buckets needed scrubbing. And it goes on...

Every day we would watch over our horses and make sure they were healthy and happy. No matter the weather, no matter how we were feeling. We lived in service of the horse.

We ate mid-morning snacks in the tack room. And boy, could we eat a lot. We ate whatever we wanted and never gained an ounce because we worked so hard. We shared the load. We were broke, but we weren't poor. We shared the life, and its spirit never left us.

The life of groom seeps into your soul and never leaves. Grooms stick together, even if we no longer work together; even if we are technically no longer grooms. We will always have the heart of a groom.

And if we all lived together under the same roof? None of us complained about the horse hair and hay in the carpets and on the couches. We would help each other if one of us was sick. We bonded over our mutual love of the horse. We never complained about the hard work.

If the dishes went unwashed, it was no big deal. We'd get to it eventually. We'd come home from work completely exhausted. Dishes could wait.

So, here we are. Still horse crazy. Still working hard. Still getting hay in our hair. Still picking hooves, still finding a way to get in the saddle... We still found a way to keep horses in our lives.

Here's to the grooms of the world: it's a dirty job and it's a tough job-- but we wouldn't trade it for the world.

Dear grooms: thanks for taking care of the horses. I tip my hat.

(above: me and Sound the Bugle, aka "Rooster" 1991. Roo was one of my charges and he stole my heart completely...)