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COMMENTARY - September 2006
The first time, she noticed my silver horse ring as I nervously folded my hands across my belly. Her father runs a local boarding stable, she said, so she had grown up around horses. I told her that I had grown up in Kentucky, in the Bluegrass. Not in a “horse family,” but horse crazy, nonetheless. I prattled about going to Kentucky horse shows, race tracks and the Kentucky Horse Park. Our talk took my mind off illness, needles and hospitals. Time pertaining to horses has always been healing for me. Even when I can’t be with them. The next month, Deb told me that it was her dream to retire to a farm in horse country. After a brief discussion of farms and property costs, she asked me to download some pertinent real estate info from the Internet. I’m sure she thought I would forget. The next month, I took her an envelope full of printouts. I included ads for farms elsewhere for comparison, including middle Tennessee, because I follow the Tennessee Walking Horse show circuit. Deb was quick to inform me that she was only interested in Kentucky. With apologies to my fellow walking horse enthusiasts in middle Tennessee, I was quick to swell with pride. Because you can take the girl out of Kentucky, but you can’t take the Kentucky out of the girl. Especially one that’s still horse crazy after all these years. There’s nothing like a health scare to distill one’s true interests in life. I was the only member of my family fascinated with horses. My interests had been discouraged, so I had dutifully complied. For decades, I had created a life that, except for the first Saturday in May – and sometimes even for Derby Day itself – was horse-free. And then I got sick. My kidney disorder, a form of vasculitis, is under control but requires monitoring. Hence all the blood work. I occasionally slip into Kentucky once or twice a year to enjoy equine activities. My health may have improved, but I’m still too weak to ride. Instead, I tour farms that welcome visitors, attend horse shows, watch live racing and sales at Keeneland and pet the horses at the Horse Park. Each time before I leave, Deb asks me to bring her some real estate listings. While in Kentucky, I gather booklets from convenience stores and ads ripped from newspapers. Back home, I stuff them into a manila envelope that she can tuck into the corner of her pushcart loaded with vials and tubes. After this most recent trip, I included the magazine from the Kentucky Horse Park and some info about Old Friends, the retirement center for Thoroughbreds. That envelope ended up about two inches thick. If you have ever wondered what image out-of-state people have of Kentucky, my story with Deb is an example. When she asked about horse country, she did not think of Ocala, Fla. Nor California, with its 698,000 horses, according to the American Horse Council. Not even Saratoga Springs, which is only a two-hour drive away from us. When Deb or other horse-loving Yankees think “horse country,” they tend to think “Kentucky.” I know because they tell me, especially when I tell them where I went on vacation. I would rather be standing by the rail at a horse show or a race or a farm instead of lying on a beach. Apparently, I’m not alone. After all, some of the $8.8 billion that the Kentucky Equine Education Project says comes from horse tourism comes from me. My doctors can tell a lot about my condition from a vial of blood that Deb draws from my veins. But they can’t see my love of Kentucky’s horses, even though it’s been in my blood for decades. I suspect that Deb will realize that it’s in hers, too.
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Copyright 1996-2006, by Kentucky Business Online. All rights reserved. Editorial content
is copyright 2006, Lane Communications Group The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. |
I am a Kentuckian living in exile in Connecticut. I go to a hospital once a month to have my blood drawn to monitor a kidney condition. Because I have a port in my chest, a nurse who specializes in setting up IVs comes down from the in-patient floors to the outpatient lab to draw my blood. Usually, it’s Deb.