Looking back to April 2010
A LIFETIME WITH HORSES, by Sheila Varian
A Lifetime W ith Ar Just Call Me Litt
abians
le Orphan Annie
by Sh eil a Va ria n
Like everyone, I hav e had my stellar mo ments and my disasters. Usual ly, at least, my disast ers turn into funny stories. I go into thi ngs think ing “this can’t be that hard,” and then find out I was wrong: It wa s that hard. In the 1970s, the trainers— mostly guys—were stepping up to big trucks and tra ilers to haul more horses, and if I wa going to compete, s I decided that I wo uld step up as well. The guys all had shi ny new trucks and trailers. Let me tel l you about mine. I knew a Peterbilt was the best truck, but I didn’t have much money to spe nd, so I looked for a truck that hadn’t worked too hard. I found one with 40 0,0 00 miles that had been pullin g boats (so we were told). It was a “cabover,” the snu b-nose model where you sit right over the engine, and sin ce it was the least expensive truck I could find, it had no power brakes, no power steering , no
Peterbilt ad courtesy
sound-proof ing— act ual ly, it had not hing but 40 0,0 00 logged miles, and it must have been 15 years old at the time. It was a huge, grey Peterbilt truck that had a great, blasting air horn and a rattling constit uti on.
At that time, Varia n Arabians had app rentices because we couldn’t afford hir ed help. The three of us lived on the ranch, so there wa s always one of us here. It was pretty much hand-to-mout h; we did our ow n cooking, ate threeday-old bread, ma de a pot roast every day, and were hap about it. Some of py those apprentices stayed for years. On was a young man e I wil l cal l Dan. He had driven trucks lot before he came a to the ranch, and like every other gu who has driven a y truck, he loved it— his relationship wit trucks was like a ma h rriage. He became ver y possessive of that Peterbilt. The only trouble was, it was mine and I intended to learn to drive it.
of Tim Alborn
184 | AR AB IAN HO RSE TIM ES
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