It seems as if I’ve talked about this somewhere recently. I’ll tone down my response here so as to not upset anyone’s delicate senses.
As a heterosexual male under the age of 50 that is not being paid to be involved, I notice quite a bit that I am in the minority at small equine events. There are very few strait young men involved in this life style unless they’ve made a job of it. There are even fewer that I would consider to be “masculine”. (Do keep in mind that I am a large, gruesome ogre and am only the 3rd generation in my family to not drag my knuckles as I walk.)
Guys tend to be a little rough on each other. I used to catch a lot of pooh from my coworkers about the little horses. It’s just not a manly thing. For some guys, that razzing is a deterrent. As an overly aggressive Alpha-Male, I just verbally attack and belittle any man that questions me. Nobody makes fun of me about it anymore (to my face).
As Kaykay pointed out, there is a real shortage of teenage boys. This (I believe) is due to the fact that showing little horses has a negative coolness factor. There are plenty of things for teen boys to do that are cool. “Primpin’ Ponies” ain’t one of ‘em. There are things that we could do to make it cooler, but few people have much interest in these things because it would be a bit of a shake up.
I’ve told many others this same thing: We do well with the little ones, but we lose all appeal for most teenage boys because we fail miserably to make the shows cool and fun for them. One of my favorite examples is Liberty music. Folks, have you ever heard what most teens listen to? I’m young enough that most of the Liberty music I hear makes me want to jam hoof picks through my ear drums. On the other side of that, I have seen the faces and heard the comments from several individuals in their 60’s or so when a youth has made the ill-advised decision to play some of the Devil’s Rock-n-Roll. (Just as I had been thinking to myself “It’s about time someone picked something that wasn’t over 20 years old and sang by a redneck in wranglers so tight that a real man could never move around in them.”) Here’s the rule I follow: If it was cool when I was young, it is NOT COOL NOW.
I could pontificate endlessly with a variable cornucopia of further examples, but my whole point is that we can’t expect teen boys to show up if we have nothing to offer that interests them. The main point I try to sell them: There’s a wonderful ratio of Chicks there. One of the best things about horse shows for me is getting attention from so many ladies. If I were a single man, I’d be at a horse show every weekend checking conformation on 2 legged fillies. Of course, I’d be lonely too because there wouldn’t be anyone else like me to hang out with.
Halter obstacle? Showomanship? Note that these are the things that big time trainers seldom do. Since many of the guys you see showing are trainers...it makes sense that there are fewer men in these classes. Other guys tend to stick to classes that are simpler. These 2 examples seem a bit complicated to me, Mongo.
Some of us are going to have to be willing to make fools of ourselves and have a good time doing it before certain things will be acceptable. I’ll stop now before I slip into insulting anyone further.
OH!
