For most of the last year I’ve frequently considered not watching the TV news shows or listening to the radio or even reading weekly newsmagazines like Time or The Economist. Because, first, the astronomical gas prices hogged the headlines and then the crashing housing and stock markets took over. Although I’m old enough to remember that we’ve weathered dark economic times before, the darkness this time has often been distinctly depressing.

Historically the horse world has been immune to or only slightly impressed by a flagging economy, but not entirely this time. Selling horses has been a tricky business, entries are down in almost all competitions (especially the A-rated winter hunter/jumper circuits), and trainers and barn owners are getting stuck with horses because their owners have stopped paying their bills.

One place, though, where the entry numbers haven’t diminished is at horse trials here in California. Since last September I’ve competed in nine events from just south of San Francisco to just north of San Diego (eight of which were recognized by the U.S. Equestrian Federation and U.S. Eventing Association), and only two (at the same location, in October and April) haven’t started their maximum number of horses. In fact, I know that at least two of the seven full events even had a waiting list.

On the first weekend in March (during the depth of our economic gloom), I rode two horses at the Twin Rivers Horse Trials in Paso Robles, which sits basically at the halfway point of California. And it felt kind of like I’d driven to an isolated island. There were almost 350 horses, I never heard the economy mentioned, and I never turned on the TV or the radio in our RV. I didn’t realize what a blessed break I’d had until I turned on the TV news again on Monday morning.

California eventing’s immunity to economic pressures has been a bit puzzling. You would think that the new frugality that Time magazine has declared this week would mortally wound our competitions, because competing in them is a steep financial and time commitment. Yes, the entry and stabling fees for eventing ($320 to $350 per horse) are lower than for hunter/jumper or dressage, but a California horse trial takes place from Thursday afternoon through Sunday afternoon, which means three nights of lodging and three-plus days of food and more. Plus, almost all of the competitors come from 100 to 1,000 miles away—all of which can double or triple the entry/stabling fee.

So you’d think people would be keen to save $600 to $1,000 a shot by skipping events. But we think that it is just that commitment, that devotion to their sport or hobby, that causes West Coast eventers to massage their budgets to compete. They go to Twin Rivers instead of on vacation.

Speaking of budgeting: For this month’s Horse Journal, I wrote a column called “You Can Tighten Your Belt, But Still Keep Training,” in which I suggested five ways you can expand you and your horse’s education while saving on competition expenses. However, when our magazine changed its format to add color to its pages, it also brought an editorial change that emphasizes tighter, focused stories. This trend has hit many newspapers and magazines nationally, with the belief that a shorter article will better fit our busy readers. Maybe so. But the downside to that is some of my clever suggestions of things you can do to keep taking lessons got left on the proverbial cutting-room floor. It seemed this would be a good place to present them to you, because I think that completely curtailing your lessons (unless you’ve been laid off or your house foreclosed) is usually a case of being penny-wise and pound-foolish.        

Instead, try just cutting back. If you’ve been taking two lessons a week, reduce it to one lesson a week. Or if you’ve been taking one lesson a week, try two lessons (or even one) a month.

A better option is to offer to trade services, goods or just plain work for lessons, and most trainers are willing to consider this. Some ideas: If you’re a hairdresser, trade one or two lessons for full cut and color. You could repair or paint jumps or paddock fencing. If you (or your spouse) are a carpenter or other contractor, offer to build or remodel a tack room or a wash rack. Or you could construct pipe corrals or run-in sheds.

Not a handy type? Can you do the bookkeeping and billing? That’s a job worth trading lessons for.

If you’re a farmer or butcher, you could provide a side of beef, butchered chickens or turkeys in exchange for lessons or training. If you’re a dog trainer, you could train your trainer’s dog(s) so he or she can train your horse.

Of course, you could always cut the grass or bush-hog the pastures. And there’s always the old standby—mucking stalls, feeding and turning out, and cleaning tack.

Two weeks ago in this blog, I wrote with regret that we would be curtailing our horse-breeding business because it wasn’t economically viable. Well, since then life has conspired to both muddle and clarify that conviction.

This morning as I write, it’s been a week since our Thoroughbred broodmare Lizzie colicked and died. We spent two-plus hours walking and medicating her in the early morning dark and chill before a commercial shipper arrived to take her more than 150 miles to Pioneer Equine Clinic in the Central Valley. Unfortunately, his trailer didn’t have a stud wall to protect Lizzie’s 11-day-old foal, Bella, if she went down, so we had to rely on our friend for whom we keep two broodmares to drive her trailer and follow her about an hour later with Bella. We had to do it this way as I was leaving that morning for the Ram Tap Horse Trials in Fresno with four horses. Heather and another friend headed to Pioneer in a third car. By 8:45 a.m. we were all on the road.

The Pioneer staff confirmed our veterinarian’s diagnosis that Lizzie had suffered what’s often called “broodmare colic,” when the colon twists to fill the cavity the foal leaves behind, and she went into surgery. Heather watched from the gallery for most of the seven hours, calling me to update me periodically. By early evening Lizzie and Bella had been reunited, and everyone was cautiously optimistic.

But at 12:30 a.m. my cell phone rang, and I knew Heather must have bad news. “They just called to say Lizzie’s crashing,” she said as she headed for the clinic. And shortly after 7, Heather called to confirm my fear, that our wonderful mare was gone and that beautiful baby Bella was now an orphan.

As is often the case in times of tragedy, we’ve been buttressed by the kindness of the people around us and even by strangers. The Pioneer staff was competent and caring, and a woman who lived just down the road offered to care for Lizzie at her farm if we couldn’t take her all the way home after surgery. Chris, who owns the two other broodmares, and her friend Roxanne drove Bella back and forth. Our friend Lee ferried Heather to Pioneer and has since dutifully cared for and fed Bella. Our groom Sam (Samantha) was with me at Ram Tap and has eagerly jumped in to help feed Bella ever since. Our farrier, Mike Piro called a client with a Lipizzaner broodmare still nursing a 10-month-old foal and asked her if we could borrow the mare, named Daniella, as a nurse mare. She brought the mare, who has an udder like a Holstein cow, the next day. And dozens of the friends and acquaintances have expressed their condolences.

Just three days after losing Lizzie, about 9 at night, the second broodmare, Phaedra, finally decided it was time to deliver, a moment she’d been suggesting was imminent for nine days. Heather, Sam, Lee, Chris, Roxanne and I all assembled ASAP, and for a few minutes we feared disaster was about to befall us once more. Phaedra, a lovely warmblood, was  a maiden, and all that was protruding was one huge foot, upside down. Heather got the on-call veterinarian, who lives about 45 minutes away, on the phone, and he described to Heather how to reach in and pull the other foot out as Sam and I walked Phaedra around the stall to help the foal rotate. That was successful, and then Heather reached in farther to ease his head into place.

And then, as Phaedra laid down and underwent contractions, Heather gently started to pull down. Phaedra then stood up, tearing the placenta, and Chris and I replaced her as this giant started to slowly emerge from the birth canal, hoping to feel signs of life. Yes, I could feel his heart pounding in my hands and see the nostrils flare. “He’s alive!” I shouted as he slid into our arms and we gently placed him on the floor, removing the film covering his face.

Phaedra looked tired and confused for a moment, but then she turned to see what was behind her. And then that amazing equine instinct kicked in as she spun, oblivious to the crowd in her stall, to lick the newborn colt. We all smiled, hugged and cried, again.

We named the chestnut giant Piper, because he has long legs like a sandpiper.

Oh, there’s one more thing. While Heather was watching Lizzie’s surgery, she got a phone call we’d been awaiting. We’d discovered six weeks earlier that Heather too had become pregnant, an event that wasn’t supposed to happen and for which we were completely unprepared. Ten days before she’d undergone a procedure called CVS (don’t ask me what it stands for), which determines if markers for more about half a dozen birth defects are present and also reveals the sex of the fetus. The doctor was calling to say all the markers were normal and that Heather is carrying a son.

I feel as if I’ve been riding an emotional roller coaster for the last week. And I know the ride isn’t over. Heather will give birth in early October, but next month we have another mare to foal and five Nigerian dwarf goats will produce somewhere between 10 and 15 adorable kids. It’s a baby-palooza here at Phoenix Farm, and I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed.

Last December, I flew to New Orleans for the U.S. Eventing Association’s annual meeting, primarily because I was to conduct a forum for the Equestrian Land Conservation Resource (www.elcr.org), of which I’m a member of the Executive Committee.

(Don’t worry: There will be numerous times along this journey when I’ll write about preserving land for horses, but this isn’t one of them.)

At the USEA convention, I was fascinated to hear the keynote address by Lucinda Green, the legendary British event rider who’s become quite a popular clinician in this country. I did an interview with Lucinda in September 1982, about six weeks after she’d won the individual World Three-Day Event Championship on Regal Realm, moving up from almost last place after dressage to victory by adding nothing to their dressage score. Regal Realm was a tremendous jumper who could gallop all day (and tomorrow, too), but he was decidedly not a dressage horse—and it’s a horrible, horrible shame that he’d be laughed out of the sport today.

But I digress. Lucinda’s speech (which you can listen to on the USEA website, www.useventing.com) was wonderful—all about kicking on and letting the horse jump and the unabashed joy of cross-country riding. Still, what really caught my attention was her discussion of team chasing, a primarily British sport that derives from her country’s love of foxhunting and of any kind of cross-country riding. Listening to her, I thought, “Perhaps we could use team chasing as a way to teach American riders to confidently and comfortably ride across country?”

So, what’s team chasing? Teams of four riders gallop a cross-country course together, as if they were hunting or riding to a destination.  They follow one after another, separated by anywhere between a couple of lengths to 25 or 50 meters, depending on their comfort level and what’s happened during their round. The jumps are, obviously, less technically demanding than a usual cross-country course, but there are still combinations (banks, drops to another fence, water, even turning questions).

I believe that in England the competition is decided exclusively by the fastest time. There, several thousand horses and riders (often on teams sponsored by businesses or communities) compete for serious prizes during the winter and spring. But the winners could also be determined by being closest to an optimum time.

I lived in and around Middleburg, Va., for 24 years before my wife, Heather, and I moved to Sonoma County, Calif., three years ago. And more than half a dozen times I rode in one of the few team-chasing events held in this country (it may even by the only one), hosted by the Orange County Hunt near Middleburg. It was started in the mid-’80s by a good friend of mine, the late Eve Fout, whose daughter Nina Fout was on the 2000 Olympic three-day team.

The Orange County Hunt event offered four divisions—the equivalent of a beginner novice division for inexperienced riders and horses, a three-foot division and a 3’6” division for optimum time, and a 3’6” division for fastest time. And they had prizes for the best turned-out team and the most stylish team (judged on how evenly they kept their pace, how well they kept their spacing between horses, and how well they jumped the last fence four abreast).

I had a blast every time I rode in the Orange County event. It was so fabulous for the horses, especially the young ones, and so great to teach kids or adults to become comfortable and adept at riding cross-country, largely because you’re doing it with other horses and people.

Another competition in which I often rode in Virginia was the hunter pace—teams of two riding a course of basic hunting fences (coops, stone walls, logs) that could be anywhere from about 1 ½ miles to 4 or 5 miles long. Hunter paces can also be optimum time or fast time.  These, too, provide fabulous experience for young horses or inexperienced riders. Many of the hunts around the country offer a hunter pace or a series of them. (To find a hunt near you, go to the Masters of Foxhounds Association website, www.mfha.org. About three-quarters of the member hunts also have their own websites.)

As I was listening to Lucinda Green’s speech, these two types of competitions seemed something that the USEA’s leaders should get behind, as a way to address our sport’s basic problem—lack of opportunities for its participants to ride across country, to ride somewhere other than in a ring or on a flagged cross-country course. I grew up foxhunting and have done it ever since, and I wish that everyone could have the experience at least once.

But any kind of experience that involves going across the countryside is, honestly, great for almost any kind of rider or horse. Every horse and every rider can benefit, physically and mentally, from being comfortable crossing hills, dales, streams, little ditches and more.

Thank you for joining me for my first blog, a journey that I hope is going to last a long time here in this corner of the worldwide web. Over time we’ll explore a wide range of subjects, from training and competing our horses, to caring for (and about) our horses, to just plain living with horses, and much, much more.

We decided to call this blog “The Equine Things That Matter Most” because it parallels the title I gave to my book. Over the last quarter-century, I’ve gained a reputation for speaking my mind and writing about my passions, primarily because of my weekly Commentaries while editor of The Chronicle of the Horse. My book is a collection of 75 of my favorites, and they’re my favorites because they’re about the subjects I usually feel most passionately about. In many ways, they define me.

Well, this blog gives me the opportunity to continue doing that, even more than I’ve been able to do in writing about training and performance for the Horse Journal for the last two years. Cindy Foley, my good friend who’s the editor of the Horse Journal, and I hope that, before too long, we’ll be able to increase the frequency of this blog so that you and I can carry on conversations about its subjects via the marvels of the Internet.

One of the things that I’ve long felt passionately about is the breeding of sporthorses here in the United States. I know that U.S. breeders are producing sporthorses with as much quality and athleticism as the ones they’re producing in Europe. But the problem is that the riders and trainers who want to start and train those young U.S.-bred horses are few and far between. And that’s why three years ago my wife, Heather Bailey, and I decided to start our farm based on producing and developing young horses. It remains our goal, because it’s the thing we like to do best, but, I’ll tell you, it’s damn hard to pay the bills doing that, so we’ve had to alter our business model.

From our perspective, there are two drawbacks to producing and developing young horses, both of them financial. First, sporthorse breeding means that you put a lot of money in the front end and hope that you get a little bit out the back end, several years later. The second problem is that precious few people are willing (or, right now, able) to pay someone else to start and train the babies they’ve bred. So, often, those babies stand around doing nothing for five or six years (or until they die), or the owners find some kid or some bozo who’ll “break” them for nothing. And, usually, if they’re not ruined, they’ve got serious baggage. We’ve had several of those to reclaim.

That’s why we’ve made the tough decision that, after this year, we’re not going to continue breeding our own horses. We have only one broodmare right now, who foaled a fabulous pinto warmblood/Thoroughbred-cross filly on March 29. But we’ve also bred (and are watching grow) a yearling Thoroughbred-cross gelding, his full sister who’s 2, and another fabulous Irish-bred/Thoroughbred-cross filly who’s also 2.

The bottom line is that it’s extremely expensive for us to produce foals. Besides the cost of buying and keeping the broodmares (we had two, but one died), you have the stud fee ($500 to $5,000) and container shipping fee(s), the veterinarian fee(s) for getting the mare in foal, feeding and caring for the mare in foal, and whatever costs you incur during or after foaling (which can be staggering if the little tyke is sickly). So, by the time the foal is weaned, you can have easily put $5,000 to $10,000 into him. And if it takes you three to four years to sell him—well, you don’t have to be a financial genius to see that the math isn’t working. Unless, that is, you’ve produced the next Rox Dene or the next Brentina and someone recognizes that when they’re 2 or 3.

That’s why we’ve entered an arrangement with a nearby sporthorse breeder. She stands two lovely warmblood stallions and has half a dozen broodmares, so she doesn’t have the stud fees and vet fees. Consequently, it’s relatively inexpensive annually for her to produce foals. But what she can’t do is ride or train the babies—and she can’t afford to pay anyone to do it either. So she pays us to train the stallions and start the babies she hasn’t sold as weanlings or unstarted horses by letting us foal out two mares a year and sell those babies. That seemed like a good deal for both of us.

But the unfortunate truth is that our farm’s financial bottom line would do much better if the three stalls the broodmares are using were filled by three horses in training. Those horses’ training fees would be about 50 percent more than we could get if we could sell those three foals as weanlings later this year. We’d even be better off to spend $2,000 or less for one of the hundreds of horses we see for sale in Northern California and spend six or eight months retraining and competing him to sell.

Those are the cold, hard financial facts. But then I look at Bella, the brand-new filly. Or at the yearling and the 2-year-olds. And I dream . . .