#77 Unpacking the female fascination of horses with author Karin Winegar

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In this episode we are talking with Karin Winegar, author of her latest book, Horse Lovers, unpacking the female fascination.

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Many of us have a self-sufficiency that is powerful. We are determined, despite pain or expense, we are determined to be with our horses.

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Welcome to the Equestrian Connection podcast from WeHorse. My name is Danielle Crowell, and I'm your host. If you are a woman who loves horses, if you love a woman who loves horses, if you are the parent of a girl or the child of a woman who loves horses, this book is for you. Author Karin Winegar does the deepest dive yet into the nature of horse craziness, that incurable attraction and joy so many of us feel in the presence of horses. Karen's latest book, Horse Lovers, Unpacking the Female Fascination, asks the question, why are girls and women so very often horse lovers? Karen Winogert was born horse crazy in Albert Lee, Minnesota, and never got over that stage. She even took her horse to college with her. She graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, and attended graduate school in English Literature at the University of Minnesota. publications ranging from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to Practical Horseman, Cowboys and Indians, Condé Nast Traveler, and Sailing Magazine. Karin's work has won Lowell Thomas Awards for both investigative reporting and for maritime journalism, and she has won numerous awards in the equestrian industry, including two AQHA Steel Dust Awards and the U.S. Equestrian Award. In this episode, we're, of course, chatting about her latest book, Horse Lovers, unpacking the female fascination. I loved reading this book and I'm excited to discuss it with her. So let's dive in. Karin, welcome to the Wee Horse podcast. I loved your book so much, and I'm really excited to chat with you about it. So, welcome.

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Thank you. Thank you. I had a wonderful, wonderful time of adventure and research over many years doing this book, and I love talking horses and horses. Let's go.

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Awesome. It really shows through in your writing, I have to say that. I always love going back to the beginning and finding out the early years of people's horse experience. So can you tell us how horses came to be in your life? What were those first few years like for you?

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Like many girls, I was born this way, and I absolutely pestered my parents from the time I could speak for a horse. And we had two farms, our grandparents' farms in Iowa. And when we'd drive there from Minnesota, I would look out the car windows at the horses in the fields and pretend they were mine. And I actually relentlessly lobbied my parents for a horse. And they gave me a pony when I was about eight or nine. I recently asked my mother why I didn't get one sooner. And she said, because we didn't want to see you get killed. She's a fearful person, and I am not. And I wanted a horse. regardless of the risk, the cost, the anything. So I had a Welsh, a great Welsh pony, Pinto, named Molly. When I was about eight or nine, I grew up in a small town, and farms were all around us, so I could ride my bike out to the pasture we rented from Molly.

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I have to say, it is so interesting hearing that, and reading... like reading all of the history of the book and the reflections of your experiences, because it resonated so deeply with me. I also had my first pony was also a Welsh Pinto, but his name was Freckles. And there was so many things that I thought, oh, yes, like I love the reflection back on my on those early experiences. And we're going to go so much deeper into that. But before we do, what was the inspiration of starting this book, of deciding to write this book? What inspired you to ask the question, what is it about women and horses?

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Well, I hadn't been asking that all my life. I'm just pathologically curious. And one of my favorite subjects, of course, as with all horsewomen, is horses. So I noticed, as I'm a professional journalist and I travel the world, I noticed this phenomenon, and I thought, my God, there's something happening here. What it is isn't exactly clear, to quote the song, but I wanted to dive deeper, farther, and longer than anybody had, and not only talk to horsewomen, but talk to scientists, veterinarians, poets, cowgirls, I wanted every possible point of view on this phenomenon, which is, by the way, as you know, dismissed by a lot of people. Oh, that's silly, or she'll get over it, or it's a substitute for boys. I didn't believe that for a minute intrinsically. So I asked the question over and over again. And I didn't really see it as a book at first. I just thought as interviews and information. But it came together intuitively.

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As I was just saying as well about this reflection of going back, I'd love to know what it felt like for you to reflect back into your past and to go back to those experiences and those early years. What was that like?

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You know, I do it all the time anyway. I think about how it felt getting stepped on and kicked and fucked off and run away with and bitten and how I And I got back on. Or if the pony had bucked me off, I walked home or walked back to the barn. I think about that all the time anyway. I revisit that. So it was no effort at all. I think about what it felt like to jump on my pony's little filly, who was half Shetland and a vicious beast as they are. I jumped on her without a saddle or a bridle or a halter just to see what that felt like. And she ran me close to a barbed wire fence. And I swung my leg to get off and cut my calf half off. And how I was only about 9 or 10. But I knew that that meant stitches. And I knew that I didn't want that. So I went into the barn and used horse bandage and bandaged up my bleeding leg and hid it from my mother. You know, it's a constant adventure. And one thing I've noticed about us horse girls, especially in the past when we didn't have teachers or mothers hovering over it, If we get injured all the time, we never told anybody. We just got on. You know, you wipe the dirt and the manure off and you get back on. So I do think about this all the time. I revisit it vividly. And I might as well write it down. So I did.

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Yeah. The interesting thing for me when... Reading your book and going through not only the past, you know, reflecting on what it was like as that young girl that was just so obsessed with horses or the young girl that had a horse or had a pony and wanted to spend every waking hour in the barn with the horse. And then also... The adult woman that, you know, was getting back into horses after building a career or a family or anything like that. Like, there was so many different phases that I resonated with. And it really brought something out in me that I have found over the past few years. I've kind of gotten in this... Routine, I guess, is the best word to describe it, where it's I have my horses here at home. I'm very fortunate that way. And it's like, hey, you get up, you go and you feed and then you come back in and I work from home. So I'm doing all that. And then, oh, it's now dark outside. I have to go feed. I didn't get to do anything with my horses. I'll try again tomorrow. You know, and you just kind of get stuck in that. And it really brought back this feeling of. Remember how much you were obsessed with it. Remember how much you loved it. How can we bring in a little bit more of the joy, the innocence, the you just get on and go. You're not overthinking the biomechanics. You're not overthinking, you know, all of the different things that I tend to get psyched on. And it really, really it filled me with a joy and an inspiration. And I have to thank you for that. I've been really, really excited since reading your book. So thank you.

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Oh, my gosh, thank you. You got it. In other words, you got it. And I think the fundamental joy that we have with horses sometimes gets distorted in the urge to become perfect and to compete in a better tack and a, quote, better horse and all of that. And for me, what I do today is what I did when I was 8, 9, 10, 15 years old. I trail ride. I get out in nature, preferably, and I live to my senses. I live the smells. I live the seasons. I live the texture of the ground and the smell of the trees and whether I can see deer or birds or what I hear. Horses bring us into life and calm us down from a frenetic, frantic urban existence that I think kind of eats your soul. Horses ground us, at least in my experience. And in talking with women all over the world, That's what we yearn for, that wholeness.

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Absolutely.

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I used to cry riding the carousel at the county fair because it gave me a touch of the wind in my face and the rising and falling of the colored horses before me and behind me. It's a form of ecstasy. And I think if you're not born this way, you can't understand it. and you may be threatened by it or you may diminish it, but there's millions of us born this way, and it nourishes us. Our horses nourish us whether we ride them or we're just, as you say, in the ritual of care. The way the hay smells. I used to eat the grain as a kid just to taste it, you know, and I had molasses in it. The way the horse sounds, breathing, and breathing, Eating grass on a summer day when you're sitting there just quietly and you hear the breathing and you feel the lungs contracting and expanding underneath you. And it's a wholeness that we lose as we grow up sometimes. But horses bring us back.

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Absolutely. Absolutely. The really interesting thing about this, and of course, you went really in depth with it in your book, is that we have seen this time and time and time again throughout decades is this like innate obsession with horses that women have or some women have. And so based on your experiences and those that you've interviewed and the entire process of creating your book, what cultural or psychological factors do you believe contribute to this connection between women and horses?

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Thank you for asking that. There's some odd things that intrigue me about us. I have asked literally thousands of women over decades about things like their ethnic background, and their birth order, and the age of the onset of the symptoms, you know, because it is a sort of joyous infection. You know, it's weird, but many of us are first born, only children, first girl, or first girl after a gap of three years or more. It's odd. It's statistically a significant number of us fall into that birth order pattern. Many, many of us We're smitten at age three, four, five, you know, when we're almost pre-verbal. Many of us come from Scots, Irish, English, Norwegian, German, sort of what I call North Sea people, North Sea being Northern Europe. Many of us have a higher pain threshold, I think, than a lot of other people. We get injured. We don't care. I mean, we care. We go right back to doing what we love, the horses. Many of us have a self-sufficiency that is powerful. We are determined despite pain or expense. We are determined to be with our horses despite the cost. And we fix things ourselves. We hitch the trailer to the truck. We lift the hay bales. We haul the feed sacks. We do what's necessary. We fix the fences. We drive the T-post. There's a set of skills that we bring to it or learn in the course of owning horses that are very satisfying, I think. We used to be called tomboys, among other things, back in the day, but I think that's a diminishing adjective. I think we have a certain physical self-confidence and daring. I remember jumping my Arabian, my true heart horse, Dumping him, and I had no lessons, and I was bareback. And I jumped him over oil barrels, and I jumped him over tree logs, and I slammed him in rivers. You know, there's garing. It's one of our qualities, too. Yeah.

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Absolutely. It's funny. Of course, being a human being, we relate things back to ourselves. So as you're speaking, I'm going, yep, yep, yep, yep. All the different things that you're saying that it and also comparing it to those that I know as well. It very much has that, like you said, high pain tolerance, work ethic. Yeah, there's so many common things that horsewomen do seem to have.

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We really do. We're a can-do bunch of people. Yeah. There was a woman at a clinic in Virginia. I discovered that Virginia, the state, was so horse-dense that it just was like a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Jews. You get out there and there's every discipline, and there's horse farms, and there's stables. The worship of horses is very evident there. But anyway, it was in the clinic for a woman who had worked there a long time, I think in marketing, just described us as people who are problem-solvers. You know, because with animals, you have problems almost on a daily basis. And with horses, the problems can be very serious indeed. You know, and we face the mortality of things pretty well because we learn that the thing we love most is so vulnerable and delicate. And we have to be with them and observe them acutely. And we have to be with them right to the end and make the call to the vet if necessary. So it's a kind of fierceness that we have, not in a bad way, but in a sort of joyful way that we bring to caring and loving for our horses.

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Absolutely. Fierceness. I like that. You mentioned earlier about interviewing scientists, psychologists, lifelong equestrians, veterinarians. I could go on and on with the different industries and types of people that you've interviewed for your book. Were there any particular stories or interviews that profoundly impacted you during your research?

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You know, I tried to make this book like a chocolate truffle. No waste, all dark and tense and rich. So what I have distilled from 30-some years of writing and researching and interviewing and traveling is the most intense instances and encounters with women who know and love horses. I'm very impressed by everything in the book. For example, my friend Carol Federighi, who is an endurance competitor, She lives in Maryland now. She did the Mongol Derby twice. The Mongol Derby is the toughest race, horse race on earth. It's 620 miles. She rode 20-some horses at full gallop for, you know, the better part of a week. And then she went back and did it again and came in tied for 11th place. You know, people get killed in these things and injured and give up and go home. But the toughness of This quiet, all-thoughtful person who was a maternity, you know, toughness is very, very impressive that I found. I interviewed Juliet Sir, who also was a multiple-time winner of the Tethys Cup in California, which is only 100 miles, but it is rugged as hell. The toughness and persistence and the willingness to become a team with your horse, whether you're one Arabian doing the Tethys Cup or 27 Mongol horses trying to have a partnership at full speed is very impressive to me. I interviewed the Poet Laureate of the United States from the past, Maxine Kuhman in Vermont, and how even though she broke her neck in an accident with a horse, she still was driven to love them, be with them, enjoy them. I absolutely am in awe of the women I was able to talk to. Let me think. Oh, my gosh. Lynn Lloyd, a cowgirl who has the Red Rock Ranch, or did, out in California near Lake Tahoe. At about 21 or 22, Lynn, on the East Coast, got on her horse with her dog and rode to California. One horse gave up on the way, but then she got one that was more suitable. You know, the freedom that she craved and that I craved was part of her desire to do that. She said that her true nightmare was having to be married and live in a townhouse in the city, and it made her absolutely terrified. Because she needs the outdoors and she needs animals. Well, so do I. I feel the same way. Even though I live in St. Paul, Minnesota, my horses are about 30 minutes away and I get there many times a week. The theme that came to many of the women I talked to is the freedom they need and how horses give that to them or give that to us.

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Absolutely. Absolutely. Speaking of the horses themselves, are there any life lessons that you've learned specifically from horses over the years?

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I learn every time I'm with my horses, and I think you would agree that we all learn every time. If we're willing to pay attention, I think I'm a fast-moving person, and you don't want to see me on coffee or dark chocolate because I just rev up even faster. Right. The horses require us to calm down and to be quiet and to shut down distractions and to be present. The slower I go, the better my horse likes me. The more time I take, I have a rescue morab right now out of a chill pen in Louisiana that I write about in the book, and he's marvelous and smart and funny. And if I go slower and if I'm softer and if I'm lighter and if I ask nicely and if I wait for the response, those are things that he requires of me or he wants of me. So that's a lesson to me. And in the modern world, when we're assaulted by digital everything and multiple media 24 hours a day, it's such a respite to be with horses and to remember that we're animals. And we need to be with other animals in nature. And I think that's one of the biggest lessons that I've been able to articulate in my book. I've known it all my life. I've craved it all my life. I've pursued it all my life. But this gave me a chance to set it down in book form.

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Yeah. I love that so much. Thank you so much. How did you find the right balance between sharing your own experiences as well as talking about the bigger cultural story around women and horses?

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A lot of my writing is simply in my assembling of this book was simply intuitive. I simply did. I have a friend who's written many, many books, and she sits down and does outlines and plans. I have never done an outline. I have never planned. I do it out of emotion and feel and instinct, just like writing, actually. How can I do this? I'm a journalist, and I don't like writing about myself. For years, I had written about and interviewed people. in all sorts of subjects and all sorts of places, and I do not like writing or talking about myself. For one thing, I don't find myself interesting, but I have a strong feeling that in order to write this book truthfully, I had to represent how a woman who loves horses and a girl who is attracted to horses, how you feel. So I sort of instinctively, again, alternated adventures, first-person adventures, whether it's Scotland or California or Virginia or the Prior Mountains with the Mustang, I alternated those chapters so that people can see how I feel and how I saw with interviews with the experts. And the experts are not dry, let me tell you, not boring, and they're full of good detail. And I learned so many things from this as well. There's a new major called Anthrozoology, and it was created, I believe, by a woman, a professor of animal-human bond science out in Montana. And I think the manifestation of a literal degree you can get in the relationship of humans to animals shows us where we're headed. And by the way, 90%, 95% of the people, the students enrolled at Carroll College to major in something that chooses are women. We are really, as I did with this book, articulating that need to be with animals, and in particular with horses.

[SPEAKER 2]
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Okay. There were some times in the book that there was one night I was reading and my husband looked over at me and he was like, are you good? Because I had tears rolling down my face reading about when you buried your saddle. And of course, there's also the chapter about the horse rescue and all of that. And so, you know, I'm sure some of those topics were quite challenging to write about and Were they? Did you face any particular challenges while writing, especially with the personal or emotional topics?

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You know, I am compelled to write and describe at all times. So they're not challenging to write. They're challenging to shut up and know when the chapter is finished. I could talk about these subjects forever. And thank you for fueling the emotions. about losing a horse and deciding never to have one again because the pain is so great. And you can hear in my voice that even, let's see, I buried him 32 years ago. And I could cry now. What is the power of that? And in fact, burying Gabe, my heart horse, really propelled me into ask the question, what is this? What is this emotion you feel that is so powerful that I would literally not only, bury my horse, but then say I'll never have another one. And I buried my saddle. So Gabe was the appellant into the quest. What is the nature of the female attraction to horses? And I don't have any trouble writing about it. And yes, I do cry myself when I hear people's stories. And they cry and What else touches us like this? I know we love our dogs and cats deeply, too, and horsewomen are always, always animal people. So what is that connection that moves us more than anything else? And that's what I've tried to articulate in the book.

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You have done a fantastic job of it, I must say. Thank you. It was one of those books that I just couldn't put down. I just, every chapter... was so visually appealing to read. I felt like I was there. I felt like I was on the horse, too, while I was reading it. And it was an absolute pleasure to read your book and to read your words.

[SPEAKER 1]
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Thank you. You're very empathic, which is good. And I hope billions of readers feel the same way because every time I sell a book, it can pay for no bag of horse feed. And I can tell you The airfare back to New Zealand, where I have to tell you, I went five times because it's such a good farm culture and the horse culture there. And because like many horsewomen, I'm a bit of a daredevil. And in New Zealand, you know what they do cross country? They jump wire.

[SPEAKER 2]
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Oh, my gosh.

[SPEAKER 1]
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Oh, my gosh. They jump wire. And I thought, I have to do this. I'm just a maniac. And I was compelled to go. And I was put on excellent station bred horse that was part Irish draft and part thoroughbred. I don't know what she was, named Etta James. And I had the times of my life running cross country with a whole lot of Kiwis and some hounds. And I kid you not, jumping wire fences. Little kids, little girls, 10 years old on their ponies, jumping wire fences. Men in their 70s and 80s, jumping wire fences. And the joy of being out in... unruined land and going fast across the terrain. By the way, yes, some of the riders had been extras in Lord of the Rings. I didn't even write about this chapter in my book, but some of the horses had been in Lord of the Rings, which, you know, there are stampede or battle scenes there that give you the same thrill of, when you gallop with horses and riders, you will feel more alive, in my experience, than you ever feel any other time. So I went there, I did that, and I can't wait to get back to it. And if the book does well, I'll be right back there.

[SPEAKER 2]
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I love it. Karen, I always ask our podcast guests to share a little bit of wisdom and give guidance to our listeners as well, because I always want our listeners to be able to take something away from each podcast episode. And so Karen, From my experience reading your book and also in speaking with you right now, I not only hear the passion in your voice, but I read the passion in your words. I could feel that passion as I was reading. And so I'd love to ask, what guidance would you offer to other writers who wish to explore personal passions within their work?

[SPEAKER 1]
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Wow. And I would like to speak to women in particular here, but men as well. I think you absolutely have to give yourself guidance. The time and the space to sit down and do it. Because it's there and you can feel it. But our lives eat us up. Especially if you're expected to take care of other people. It will eat your life and you'll never get that written down. So if you prioritize your time, shut the door to your office and sit down. Give yourself the time and space to do it. There's a German expression called Witzfleisch. you know, sitting neat. You have to get your butt in the chair in front of a computer or with a notepad or whatever it takes. Give yourself the time to do it. You will be corroded internally by regret if you don't. And I'm enough that I make a living doing this, sort of. And I literally sit down in the morning and I write. and take breaks and then go riding. Riding is my reward for writing.

[SPEAKER 2]
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I love that. I'm going to use that.

[SPEAKER 1]
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Seriously, it's like giving a horse a carrot for a trick or a treat. I get to go riding if I sit down and do X number of hours. The vacuuming and the dishes, right, right, right, and then go riding. It fills up your spirit like nothing else.

[SPEAKER 2]
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A question that I've been asking a lot of our guests, just, I mean, as I'm sure you know, a lot of things going on at the equestrian industry, some good, some not so good. And so I'd love to ask, what is your hope for the future of the equestrian industry?

[SPEAKER 1]
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I absolutely am relentless about sticking the issue of horse slaughter in people's faces. We have, We do the universe a disservice and the horses a terrible cruelty if we don't face it and stop it. Overbreeding horses, throwing away racehorses, throwing away workhorses. I did several cover stories on what would happen to the mares who were on the PMU lines. when the nurses study came out 20 years ago at least showing the bad effects of synthetic estrogen for women and my immediate concern was would they be slaughtered you know we owe it to horses and our dogs and cats to our dependent animals to take care of them to the last minute I have always kept mine for life with one or two exceptions and I have buried them um I realize that's not possible for everybody, but certainly euthanasia is preferable as an end to being on a truck to Mexico for 18 hours and then having a knife in your neck. I'm passionate about letting people know what's really happening to their horses and to stop it, to make free or very inexpensive vet care available, especially for castration. We need fewer horses and we need them better taken care of.

[SPEAKER 2]
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Absolutely. Absolutely. Like you said, the issues of overbreeding, racehorses, workhorses, the list goes on. Absolutely. I'm right there with you.

[SPEAKER 1]
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Could I mention a particular instance that's in my book?

[SPEAKER 2]
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Yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
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Susan Payne, the founder of the Unbridled Progress Foundation, which is a magnificent organization. heartfelt operation based in New York Susan and I were talking I was interviewing her for my book and we found out that my thoroughbred gelbing which was given to me by a previous book client and her thoroughbred mare are siblings now here's the difference my gelbing at three was given to me because he just wasn't fast enough for the track so his owner very kindly hid hundreds of horses gave him to me. Her beautiful mare sold for $2.1 million at Keena as a two-year-old, I think. A few years later, he sold for $200 for meat at the Kill Buyers auction. And fortunately, Susan saved her. And they look alike. They're gorgeous. They're intelligent. They're useful. They're both still thriving. I just wanted to mention that Even horses that are the placings of the very wealthy get thrown away. And I object to that on moral grounds. And I hope people will, I don't know, buff up their consciences maybe and take better care of the creatures that serve them and love them. And we should be as loyal to them as they are loyal to us, in my view. I just wanted to bring up Susan Payne.

[SPEAKER 2]
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I couldn't agree with you more. And I thank you so much for bringing that up. Um, it really brings up the, the idea of worth. Um, one of my horses, my mayor, um, she suffered a pelvis injury years ago and I was told that she wasn't going to do much again. You know, I may as well just like, I couldn't sell her, may as well give her away, you know, like things like that, like her quote worth was diminished. And, um, The unfairness in that. You can hear the shakiness in my voice as I say it. It cracked something open in me that. I just I couldn't unsee. So this quote, worthless mayor. lives her best life in my backyard here with me. She not only is recovered, not fully, but at the best of her ability. If she never did a single thing again under saddle in her entire life, she would still be worth just as much as, you know, not in my opinion, beyond the day that I bought her because she is without a doubt, my hard horse. And the cruelty that we see in the industry to people, assume an animal's worth is based on what they do for us as humans, their career, their resume, all of those different things. Um, it really says a lot about the way that we also look at humans and the way that we also look at women. Um, I think there's a lot of comparisons there within the patriarchy and the equestrian industry. And, um, and I thank you for bringing that up because, um, I think that that story is unfortunately, um, all too common and, um, and it, it really needs to start being retold.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:37:14-00:39:14]
I'm so glad you said that because I didn't feel I could because it might alienate some listeners. Uh, we live in a society where if you're not young and pretty, your worth is diminished. Yeah. Uh, and especially for women. Yeah. Um, We agree on this. The industry is a bit like the Amish. The workhorses, and I've had draft horses, and they're the biggest, sweetest, most comfortable, wonderful creatures. The industries that use horses up and throw them away are without heart. And I know that not all people in those industries are like that. But I want to keep it in people's, right in their faces until we do something about it. Things have gotten better. There used to be over 100 and some thousand horses from America a year. And this includes donkeys, which is another story altogether about the Chinese medicine that was sent to slaughter in Canada or Mexico. And now it's down to more like 20,000. That's still too many. And the whole fate of the wild horses penned up at the cost to the public of millions and millions of dollars a year because of the beef cattle industry. using our public lands and scraping the wild horses, who are so few compared to the cattle, off the land and into holding pen for life. So there are serious moral issues for me in the way we treat animals. And horses, as I can see with you and the way you feel about your mare, horses touch us in the way if we're open to it, that nothing else can. And they call us to be higher moral beings. And that sounds like a, and I didn't mean it to, but my horses, like my dogs and cats require a kind of better behavior of me.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:39:15-00:39:42]
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I have not only enjoyed reading your book immensely, but I've also really enjoyed speaking with you. We have four sort of rapid-fire questions that we ask every podcast guest, and it's just the first things that pop into your mind. So the first one is, Karen, do you have a motto or a favorite saying?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:39:42-00:40:38]
Hmm. I have probably several. Feel the fear and do it anyway is one of them. Shut up and get back on. Slow down and breathe. Let me think. You know, someone I have taped here in front of my computer is a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, who is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. And surprisingly enough, he was also a poet, although people were better educated then in many ways and poetry was not so obscure. And he said many, the words love, hope, and dreams are synonymous with horses. That's true for me. And it's right here next to my computer.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:40:39-00:40:46]
I love that. Second question, who has been the most influential person in your equestrian journey?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:40:50-00:42:04]
To a surprising extent, I'm going to say my genetics. I'm not sure of the person, but I think we are no more than we're animals on the complicated one. And I would say I feel across the centuries and across between, you know, worlds here, I feel the sensibilities of my grandfather, Reniger, who was a horseman in Iowa. He farmed with draft horses. And my father rode as a boy there. And I would say I feel the presence in my very mitochondria of my dad and my grandfather for whom animals were part of their bloodstream. They loved them. They were kind to them. They emphasized with them. They noticed them. And the case of my grandfather, Winninger, like me, I built my life around him. So I'm not sure there's a living person so much as I just feel my ancestors.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:42:04-00:42:25]
Nobody has ever answered that question in that way. And as soon as you said it, I just thought, oh, wow. That's such a good answer. It's so true that, you know, for many of us, it's like, I don't know why I am this way. I just am. I love that. I love that so much.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:42:26-00:42:33]
Well, let's look at you. What's your ethnic background? Where did your people come from?

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:42:33-00:42:36]
On my father's side, Scotland, and on my mother's side, Norway.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:42:36-00:43:13]
Same thing. We're probably distant, distant, distant cousins. It is absolutely there. My mother, we think she has berserker genes from Norway, via the Isle of Man, and Scotland, Ireland, those places. And my dad is of German descent. And I just think it's genetic somehow. I think it's genetic, whether it's the ability to play the piano and to hear music more fully than other people, or the call we feel. absolutely in our bodies, the horses.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:43:17-00:43:33]
I love it. I have, I recently had done more of like a deep dive into my Norwegian roots and I've been using Duolingo to study the Norwegian language. And so this, it just gives me those little spinal tingles. It's yeah, it's exciting and it makes me really happy.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:43:34-00:44:23]
Just knowing that I, I have more of that, that, connection that i can draw upon to my roots yeah well look at how we breed horses we breed if we're doing it thoughtfully as in pilgrims and ravians etc we breed for certain traits people are no different yeah we have strengths that we can accentuate or that are accidentally accentuated and by the way did you like the chapter called galloping scotland i had so much fun It was women galloping, galloping in Scotland on the finest, sturdiest horses. Not one of us fell off, and it was hard riding, hours and hours a day. It was just delightful. We all said it was the worst fun we've ever had with our clothes on. So, great fun.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:44:24-00:44:35]
Yeah, yeah. No, I loved that chapter, and I thought it was really interesting that then you went to Norway as well, that once again it kind of did a little bit of a, like a ping sort of a thing for me. So I thought that was interesting.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:44:35-00:44:38]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's no precedent.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:44:38-00:44:39]
Yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:44:40-00:44:43]
Thank you for appreciating your work.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:44:43-00:44:49]
Thank you. And the third question, if you could give equestrians one piece of advice, what would it be?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:44:51-00:45:19]
Wow. I can use a conjunction. I will say, stay fit and don't stop riding. Stay fit. I do yoga. I lift weights. I walk. None of them as much as I'd like to. But stay fit for your lifetime. And don't stop riding. It will continue to prolong your life and it will deepen your happiness.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:45:23-00:45:28]
The last one. Please complete this sentence. For me, horses are...

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:45:28-00:46:35]
Well... Almost too hard. I had to write a whole book to sum it up. I can't really complete the sentence. I had to write an entire book about the phenomenon to sum it up. There's one single thing. It's too cliche to say they're the meaning of life, but I am so infused with the attraction to horses and the curiosity about horses. and the love of adventure with horses, that I can't separate horses from myself. You know how when you're a little kid and your horse, little girls anyway, boys pretend they're dinosaurs, but we run around whinnying and pawing and jumping things, you know? Yeah. There's something to that. And we all do it. And we all collect the little holy statues of the briar horses or the china horses, you know? It's a kind of worship. It's a kind of spiritual, pagan spirituality.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:46:37-00:46:52]
You're so right. It absolutely is. Karen, where can people find more about you, find your book and be able to order your book? What are the links? What are the places for them to go?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:46:52-00:47:58]
Oh, thank you. You can find under Horse Feed Press. Horse Feed Press. That's one of my pages. Information about my books and about me. You can find more samples of my work at my page, KarenLeniger.com. And that's Karen with an I, like some Nordic spelling, dot com. KarenLeniger.com. You can order Horse Lovers through your favorite bookstore or through Amazon, but there's a wonderful service that supports independent bookstores called bookshop.org, and they secure books for clients from independent stores. That's about it. I've told about as much of myself as I've been willing to tell in Horse Lovers, unpacking the female fascination. And as a journalist, I like to get back to doing stories about other people and other phenomena. Okay.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:48:00-00:48:50]
We're going to put everything in the show notes so that it makes it nice and easy for people that they can just scroll down and click directly on the links for Horse Feed Press and for your personal website as well. And then from there, if I remember correctly, they can click on the links to purchase like from Amazon or from bookshop.org. Well, we'll put all of those links in the show notes. So if you're listening, then just scroll down and you can find more about the book and where to purchase it. And Karen, I can't thank you enough for this interview. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you. It was a pleasure reading your book. It will be one that I pick up and refer back to. It awoken something in me. And I'm just very, very grateful that I had the opportunity to read it. So thank you.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:48:51-00:49:21]
Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm so glad you get it. And you get it so thoroughly. I appreciate it very much. And, of course, it is the perfect gift for all your horse-crazy girlfriends. Absolutely. I mean, it's the perfect gift for people who have, oh, I don't know, spouses or girlfriends who are horse-crazy. And it's the perfect gift for men who want to understand better the woman in their lives if she is one of us. And there are some pretty... that is in there about how men see us as well.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:49:22-00:49:59]
Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Equestrian Connection Podcast by WeHorse. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a rating and review, as well as share us on social media. You can find us on Instagram at WeHorse underscore USA and check out our free seven-day trial on WeHorse.com where you can access over 175 courses with top trainers from around the world in a variety of topics and disciplines. Until next time, be kind to yourself, your horses, and others.

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