The Psychology of Inclusion

The clock is ticking. It’s almost time to bring horses back on campus. There is so much to do still: dragging the paddocks, fixing the fences, cleaning up the barn, writing grants, planning open houses and events, development and marketing campaigns, renewing old contacts, making new ones, and always, looking at horses.

I love it when the horses come back, for that is, after all, why the MMSC exists. But when they arrive, I lose my freedom. I am “grounded” on my 22 acre campus, taking all day to get through the day. Ideas, hunches, and wild hairs for helping more horses are, if not halted, harshly reined in. Creative thinking gets directed towards solving practical problems: a flooded barn, a broken tractor, a lame horse, a bounced check, a mountain of emails and phone calls.

So while I can, I do reconnaissance, which is why when I heard that Tim Capps, director of the Equine Industry Program at the University of  Louisville’s College of Business was giving a lecture on marketing in the horse business, I decided I should go. I knew it would be entertaining, for as I said in an earlier blog, Tim is “wry funny.” I also knew it would be time well spent because Tim knows his stuff.

And it was. Tim talked first about the shape of the horse industry, meaning, the industry at large: all horses, all breeds, all sports, not just the racing industry. It’s “a mile wide and an inch deep” he told us. Horses are every where. It’s mostly a

recreational/entertainment/female dominated/ “one horse at a time,” sort of industry. As a result, marketing efforts are often limited, disparate, and amateur.

Horse racing is an exception because of gaming, the rules of which are legalized and regulated state by state. Racing is big business, and therefore its marketing efforts are better organized, presented and studied. However each state sets and regulates its own gaming policies which are heavily influenced by the stakeholders--tracks, owners, trainers, breeders--who protect and promote their own interests, rather than those of their audience. As a result their customer base is shrinking.

Tim concluded his lecture with “Marketing 101” fundamentals. How to build and attract a customer base, something which I mused over as I drove back to Lexington.

I also found myself guilty of black and white thinking: recriminating the racing industry for self promoting exclusionary behaviors. Oh-uh. Time to get the log out of my own eye! Horse people are notoriously self interested and cliquish. Dressage queens turn up their noses at hunter princesses and vice versa. Event riders scorn them both. Western riders think they are all foolish. Arab people, Paso people, Mini people, Fresian people. Saddlebreds. Walking Horses. Paints. Drafts. We are all so immersed in our breeds, our disciplines, our ways of thinking and doing, which of course, in our minds, are the only and the best ways. We all practice The Psychology of Exclusion.  

Why? Because it is human nature. We’ve been doing it since grade school when we wanted to fit in, and when we did fit in, we didn’t want to lose our place which gave us status and security. So we follow group thinking. We mimic group behaviors.  We stay within the box. We look askance at those outside the box or those who chose to leave it. We belittle those we finding threatening. We resist change. We are all about preserving the status quo, and our individual status quo specifically.

Rescue/rehab/reschooling groups of which the MMSC is one, are no different. We might be even more guilty of the Psychology of Exclusion. We are a passionate bunch and passion begets emotional thinking. We are predominately women and women are fiercely protective of their “babies." And we are all scrambling for the same dollars. How easy is it, therefore, and how comforting to criticize the mission, the mores, the horses, the horsemanship, the decisions, the actions of another organization?! Cattiness makes us feel better about ourselves, more secure, more self righteous. Naysaying might win allies. Their loss is our gain. But who in the end suffers?

The horses, of course.

When will we learn that we are only as strong as the weakest link in our chain? There are so many efforts right now both in the industry itself and beyond to find solutions for the challenges of Thoroughbred aftercare. What if we all decided to practice the Psychology of Inclusion? Could we not find a way to join voices and forces in spite of different opinions and approaches to create a tapestry of change? How about starting one thought at a time (Thoughts become things, choose the good ones), finding the good that each organization and individual is trying to do. Applauding it. Reaching out. Building bridges. Sharing thoughts, efforts, yes, even money towards the common goal of speaking out for and improving the lives of racehorses coming off the track, one horse at a time. There is power in numbers.  And the clock is ticking......

Let's join hands to bring our individual efforts to help off track Thoroughbreds together and use the power of numbers!

Cheery bye,

Susanna

FELIX

Felix is my 2006 Chevy Equinox. You met him briefly in my last post. Like all volunteers at the MMSC, he gets down and dirty (sometimes smelly, too, thank you, Sam!) and literally and figuratively, “totes that bale” for the good of the horses. He’s the strong, silent type who does yeoman work for the Center with nary a complaint other than a sporadic flash of the “check engine” light.

“Go-fer,” chauffeur, feed ferry, cowboy, Felix wears many hats: He runs errands-- postoffice, feed store, tack shop. He travels through the Bluegrass so I can look at horses and takes me to meetings. He squires visitors when needed and acts as the MMSC shuttle during prominent shows. He ferries interns to field trips. He lugs grain and hay across the paddocks. He will recharge batteries and offer assistance from his first aid kit. His emergency tool chest is stocked with everything from duck tape, to Fix-A-Flat, wrench to baling twine. He’s a library (God forbid one should ever be without reading material!), and carries a blanket and a candle for warmth if in arctic temps his engine fails, which it won’t because he’ s Felix. He’s a closet packed with vests, fleeces, raincoats and parkas, boots, hats, caps, socks, gloves, bandanas, shades and sunscreen. There’s food, too, some of it packaged and some of it, well....hidden relics.

His name is Felix for two reasons: 

1. He succeeded Xenia Louise Thomas, my Ford Explorer XLT and she faithfully gave me 10 years and 200K+ miles without major complaints. I thought it auspicious to work X into his name. Besides, he’ s an Equinox. 
2. Felix means “happy” in Latin, and if you could have seen Xenia in her final days, you would understand how I felt about Felix when he came into my life.

It may seem odd to name an inanimate object. But follow the Merriam Webster dictionary definition #2 of the word inanimate: lacking consciousness or power of motion, and then reread Felix’s job description above. The self evident conclusion is that Felix is all about the power of motion. If that argument is not good enough, look at it from a quantum perspective: On nano levels, all matter (which includes Felix) is in motion. 

And, to get even more Clintonian (as in Bill)  in argument, let us consider Merriam Webster dictionary definition #1: lacking in life or in spirit. I’ll admit claiming that Felix has “life” is, well, insane, but perhaps we could embrace a “spirit” of broadmindedness and go “waaaay out” on the woo-woo limb for the mind-stretching fun of it? Take a look at The Hidden Messages in Water by Dr. Masaru Emoto. Using high speed photography, Dr. Emoto did a series of experiments and found that crystal formations where influenced by concentrated thoughts--positive or negative--directed towards them as they went from a liquid to a frozen state. 

Huh?

Yup. Water exposed to loving thoughts or beautiful music (i.e. Mozart) formed exquisitely complex and beautiful crystals. Water that was maligned and subjected to violent music formed distorted incomplete crystals. Get the book. Look at the pictures. It’s food for thought. No, better said:  WATER for thought. Thoughts literally change matter. Wow!  What extraordinary influences on the world we might have!

I am starting one tiny influence at a time. I have given Felix a name and I direct my gratitude towards him fairly regularly. Maybe by doing so I am influencing his quantum particles for the good?! Goodness knows, I can’t afford for him to break down, so I just imagine him in perfect working order and I marvel daily at his good and unfailing service. And so far, so good. Thoughts become things, choose the good ones. 

But then this is nothing new: Jesus tells us to be mindful of our thoughts. Keep your thoughts positive, focus on desired outcomes: “Seek and you shall find.” “Ask and you shall receive.” So does Lao-Tzu in the Tao Te Ching some 500 years 

earlier, and Buddha, and Confucius, as do all motivational speakers these days. And now neuroscientists are backing up this “woo-woo” talk with proof. “The way your neurons fire determine the way they wire.”

Which leads me to my next point: Not-for-profit leaders often wear out their volunteers with too many demands. Felix with 150K+ on his odometer, a leaky sunroof (thank goodness for duck tape and, in downpours, that umbrella I carry so I can stay dry while driving!), along with a few other signs of wear and tear, is bound to say “Enough!” to his MMSC volunteerism at some point.

When Felix retires, a new small 5 passenger SUV company  vehicle with front or all wheel drive emlazoned with the MMSC logo would be an extraordinary replacement.

I wonder!?

The power of positive thinking? “Seek and you shall find?” “Ask and you shall receive?” 

It’s worth a try. What if we were to combine our collective thoughts on the thought of Felix's successor being donated to the MMSC????? 

Cheery bye,

Susanna

P.S. Thank you, Felix!

Cat people and the 3Gs

Botticelli's 3G(race)s

I am not a cat person. Yes, cats are graceful and agile; their ability to land on their feet enviable; their independence exemplary when not infuriating; and their predilection for catching mice utterly pragmatic for barn owners. But I am allergic to them. Not life-threateningly so, just eyes itching and nose lighting up like Rudolph’s upon close encounters. 

The MMSC has had a series of cats over my 5 year tenure. They come, they go. For quite sometime the MMSC had been in a “go” phase, courtesy of Swoop, the hawk, a self appointed rodent controller. But then one day Swoop went too. Enter the kittens: Jasper, the tuxedo with a Daniel Boone hunting instinct, and Sam, the cream tabby, a Don Juan. 

At the MMSC, we advocate responsible animal ownership, which, of course, applies to cats, as well as horses. Spaying and neutering is a must. So when I got back after the New Year and saw that the two boys had come of age, an appointment was made at the Woodford Equine Hospital which so generously tends to our veterinary needs. On the day of this rite of passage, I incarcerated Sam and Jasper in the feed room (I didn’t want them to go MIA at the time of departure), and found a cardboard box large enough for both. Stabbing madly like the killer in the chilling shower scene in Psycho, I perforated the sides with a pair of red handled scissors. I am not a cat hater, after all. I didn’t want them to suffocate. 

“Here, kitty kitties,” I crooned, cracking the feed room door. Smelling a “rat,” the two streaked through my legs. It took a while (during which the sky was darkening, the rain clouds were thickening and my language was getting increasingly colorful) before I caught them. I stuffed them (as gently as I could for you PETA people out there) into the Psycho box, and flipped down the cardboard sections of the top. But I wasn’t quick enough with the duck tape. One head popped out on the right, another on the left. Both tails ended up in my hands. I let go of Sam (the heftier of the two), clasped Jasper, shoved him down and sealed him in. It took a while longer to find another box as well as to lure Sam back into my good graces, but in time he, too, was in lock down.

The ride to the clinic was symphonic. Rain drummed on the windshield. The cats launched into arias of desperation as if they were being gutted alive for violin strings and I chimed apologies and reassurances in a taut falsetto. Not only that, but like the 1812 Overture that always finishes with cannon fire, our journey’s finale was marked by a powerful emission of a different kind, the distinctive odor of which hit my nostrils as I pulled up to the clinic’s door. “Thank the Lord,” I smugly thought, “I was smart enough to incarcerate them!”

Dr. True Blue Baker and the three Gs, from left: Greta, Ginger Snap, and Gazelle

Not being a cat person, however, I underestimated a feline's ability to get out of sticky situations. (I think that is called the “9 lives Phenomenon?") When I lifted the back gate, that sly Sam was hunkered down behind the Psycho box, atop a large urine stain, purring. To add insult to injury, as I lifted him up to my chest, he showered me with an “encore.”  Bam! Direct hit. Mid frontal section. Nice.

Reeking I entered the clinic seeking one of the three Gs. No, not the three Gs of Antiquity--Splendor, Mirth, and Cheer-- but the three Gs of the Woodford Equine Hospital: “Gazelle” (veterinary assistant Marguerite Kissel with the long, leggy stride), “Greta,” (Dr. Julia Bentley, with the Garbo eyebrows), and “Ginger Snap,” (Dr. Jennifer Jordan, of the autumn eyes and hair and spicy personality), any of whom could have relieved me. In the Xray room with Dr. True Baker (Dr. True Blue because he is a totally classy gent inside and out and has beautiful blue eyes), these fair damsels curled up their noses upon Sam’s and my entrance--except for True, who smiled politely and shook his head in kind commiseration. Despite my tales of tribulations, none offered to take my stinking bundle, although, they did find another box in which to place him so I could fetch the Psycho box. 

As I carried it in to the 3 Gs, I grew increasingly uneasy. It was quiet, disturbingly quiet.  I tilted the box to one side:  Slide...THUD!  Then to the other:  Slide....Thud! 

“Oh NO! Ladies! I’ve killed him!,” I cried. “I knew I should have poked more holes!!!”  I ripped open the top, dreading what I would see.

Jasper looked up at me, yawning. How impossibly arrogant and cat-like of him while I (not to mention Felix, my Chevy Equinox, who spent the next day in the barn, doors and windows open, heavily Fabreezed, replacing one pungent smell for another) was such a reeking wreck!!!

Cat-erine,  Sam and Jasper

The following morning beloved intern Catherine Flowers spared me a repeat of this harrowing journey. Amazingly,  Sam and Jasper arrived back at the MMSC dozing on the seats of her car in liberty. No Psycho box for her! But then again, I should have known.  She is definitely a cat person. In fact, I think I am going to call her CAT-erine from now on.

                                            Cheery bye,

                                                Susanna