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The Registry Problem
It’s a fact: in general, a registered horse is worth more than a non-registered horse. The paperwork makes it so.
I can only hope–never having owned a registered horse before–that the paperwork is very fancy with lots of charts, numbers, and acronyms.
And for those of us who can’t afford a fancy, registered horse, may I propose we start a TAHAR registry? Any horse with four legs will qualify, because “that’s a horse, all right.” We can make super-fancy papers with lots of italic and bold font, underlined statements, advanced mathematical calculations, and secret acronyms so we can talk in code to each other. We’ll have the best paperwork in the world!
Plus, to catch up with all those folks importing their horses, we’ll change the requirements for an “imported” vs. home-born horse. For example, while the people in my city are pretty normal, the people in the town forty-five minutes away are pretty foreign. They go on about “fresh air” all the time; I don’t think they really like the scent of gasoline that sort of hangs over the city in winter. Can you imagine?
Clearly, buying a horse from someone in the town is almost like buying a horse from a foreign country. I think it’s safe to say that such a horse was “imported.” Don’t you?
I’ll be honest, though–I don’t own a horse right now anyway. Although I’m sympathetic to the owner of Bitsy Lou, the knock-kneed, pigeon-toed daughter of Wild Jack, that sway-backed, one-eyed stallion that likes to “visit” all the mares in the neighborhood, and I do think Bitsy Lou deserves just as much paperwork as the fancy-schmancy warmblood, at the moment I’d love any horse at all, papers or no papers. I’d even take Wild Jack’s reject son, the one that will never amount to much.
In this country of “Hello? Why does she get that?! I want one of those! Excuse me, Congressman, I’m being discriminated against! Change the laws! Get me one of those!”, I am, well, feeling discriminated against. I don’t see why my lack of a horse to own should preclude me from a registry.
So I propose a second new registry: for Shanks Ponies. There could be smalls, mediums, and larges. I would probably be a large small or a small medium. But I’m pretty short. And there could be “typey” classes, for the long-limbed, lean girls and women, and “stock” classes, for those of us with, well, draft-type “bones” and “muscle.” The registry will even come complete with drama: if one person’s Shanks’ Pony is prone to getting Charley Horses, are they are a “true” pony, or are the Charley Horses evidence of a major fault? Should they be penalized? Do we create separate classes for them so that they won’t be discriminated against and can win their own ribbons? And so on. I’m sure it will take years to iron out all the minor details.
In the meantime, for just $99.99 plus shipping and handling, I’d be happy to create a fancy-schmancy certificate for your TAHAR horse or your personal Shanks’ Pony. For only $49.99 more, I’ll include an Import Certificate of Authenticity on your TAHAR (pending proof that you trailered the horse more than thirty minutes after buying it). And for just $5,000, you’ll receive a free round-trip ticket to the nearest foreign country so that your Shanks’ Pony can be certified as Internationally Competitive.
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