Glossary of equine industry definitions

Auction: A popular social gathering where you can change a horse from a financial liability into a liquid asset.

Big name trainer: (Cult leader)  Horse owners follow behind them blindly, will gladly sell their homes, spend their children’s college funds and their SUV’s to support them, as they have a link to “The Most High Ones” (judges).

Equitation: The ability to keep a smile on your face and proper posture while your horse tries to crowhop, shy and buck his/her way around show ring.

Girth sores: Painful swelling and abrasion made at the point of mid-section by fashionable large western belt buckles.

Feed: Expensive substance utilized in the manufacture of large quantities of manure.

Fences: Decorative perimeter structures built to give a horse something to chew on, scratch against and jump over.

Flies: The excuse of choice a horse uses so he can kick you, buck you off or knock you over-he cannot be punished.

Gates: Wooden or metal structures built to amuse horses.

Green broke: The color of the face of the person who has just gotten the Training Bill from the “Big Name Trainer”.

Hock: The financial condition that a horse owner goes into. (see “Green Broke)

Longeing:  A training method a horse uses on its owner with the purpose of making the owner spin in circles, rendering the owner dizzy and light-headed, so that they get sick and pass out, therefore allowing the horse to go back to grazing.

Pony: The true size of the stallion that you bred your mare to via transported semen. (advertised as 15. hands tall)

Proud flesh: The external reproductive organs flaunted by a stallion when a horse of any gender is present.  Often displayed in halter classes.

Overreaching: A descriptive term used to explain the condition your credit card(s) are in by the end of show season.

Quitter: A term trainers have commonly used to refer to their clients who have pulled their horses out of their barns.

Reins: Break-away leather device used to tie horses with.

Saddle: An expensive leather contraption manufactured to give the rider a false sense of security. Comes in many styles.  All feature built-in ejector seats.

Withers: The reason you’ll seldom see a man riding bareback.

(The above definitions were part of a keynote speech delivered by Peter Fraser, Horse industry specialist and sent to Exposure +, Inc. by Brad and Kathy Heinige of Mild Mild West Minis )