Fat From the Neck Up

I read a huge stack of consumer equine magazines each month and enjoy most of them. I'm always amazed at the people who write letters to these magazines who don't bother to become informed on an issue first.

Take Micaela Frudden of Madison, Wis. She wrote a letter published in the June edition of "Practical Horsmanship" that made by blood boil. Back in March, the magazine had featured a line of plus-sized tops for riders from Toklat. The accompanying photo was not that of a big fat blob of a lady, but also not a stripling size 0 that we tend to see in English riding clothes so often.

So along comes "Mindless from Madison" to tell the magazine that it shouldn't be encouraging fat old women to participate in horse sports and the magazine would do better publishing diet tips than giving "free advertising" to a company that's obviously so far off the mark.

"Fat people should not be riding and need not be accommodated," she writes. If they are serious about riding, they should go on a diet, exercise, etc." She claims that allowing these women to ride is animal abuse.

Of course, she makes no allowance whatsoever for women who are proportioned differently -- but not fat -- or who are very tall -- but not fat. Tall women have a heckuva time finding clothing of any kind that covers their arms completely or comes down far enough at the waist to be comfortable and modest. Obviously, the letter writer has never met anyone in either class.

Obviously, she's not heard that the promotion of the "tiny" culture in English riding circles is a serious health issue and getting worse.

Granted, there are some women I occasionally see at horse shows who would be better of in another sport and would make life easier for their horses. But if a rider is fairly well balanced, he or she can be of larger build and still ride successfully. Ms. Frudden seems to think that all larger people are just tubs of lard. A great many of them are simply larger than average and probably have body mass index readings in the normal category.

Kudos to Toklat for stepping up to the plate to fill a need on the products side of our industry. And a large rhubarb pie for the face of this uninformed letter-writer.

If you want to read it in its entirety, it's on Page 18 of June edition. Right below it is the address you can use to send your response to Practical Horseman. I suggest you do so.