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So I asked Jane Smiley about Waterwheel

Off Course
#21

I can’t really comment much about this specific situation, but I can say that Ms. Smiley was a professor at Iowa State when I was a student there in the early '90s, and I am grateful that I never took any of her classes. From all accounts by my friends who were fellow English majors who DID take her classes, she is as arrogant and as b**chy in person as she apparently sounded from her response to this question today. And it isn’t as though these were people who did poorly in her classes and had a vendetta against her.

Apparently, several faculty members were not overly fond of her either. My advisor at the time actually advised me NOT to take any classes with her. It was as though she thought just because she won a Pulitzer, that it gave her free license to act like a raging cow towards everyone around her. (Although the people who acted like she was God’s gift to the writing world didn’t help matters any.) Heck, I used to work for Michael Gartner, who is also a Pulitzer Prize winner, and HE didn’t didn’t act like an asshat to everyone. When the whole issue happened with Dateline NBC, he held himself accountable for it and didn’t blunder his way through some lame response in some lame attempt to save face.

I’ll sometimes see her horse books at the bookstore when I’m shopping, and I’ve thought, “Well, I’ve heard good things…maybe I’ll read it…”, but I never can bring myself to do it. Now, I’m even more glad that I haven’t.

1 Like
#22

[QUOTE=PhoenixFarm;3165310]
Interesting how there ca be different views of the same thing. i heard your call and would have characterized her response completely differently. Surprised yes, but hardly arrogant. You also dont mention some additional points she made, namely that she knew that the new owner adored her and that she sold her because she felt that overbreeding is a problem and that she wanted to no longer contribute to it so she was removing the temptation.

Since i dont know her from a hole in the wall i wouldnt pretend to know her motivation or situation, but i do think its a tad disingenuous for folks here to act like homes for small, hot, unsound mares are lying thick upon the ground. Anyone who claims otherwise isnt spending time out here in the real world.[/QUOTE]

I’d have to agree - especially in light of the information provided about said auction (no, not a low-end kill auction but one specifically for TBs, albeit not very expensive ones).

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#23

I have never, ever taken a university-level English course from someone devoid of arrogance. My favorite was particularly egotistical. He was a big fool. We all adored him.

Anyway, I have a hard time hating on Jane Smiley. It seems to be the popular thing to do, and I’m just not finding the anger to get me behind this cause. There are so many people who think that horses shouldn’t be sold at all if their owners no longer “need them”, and those who believe that auctions of any sort are somehow unacceptable… it all becomes so absurd to me. In the meantime, I like her books, I like her voice. I’ll continue to buy her books, and I’ll enjoy reading them.

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#24

I HIGHLY DOUBT she was desperate for the money. How vile.

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#25

Just FYI…a mare sold for $55,000, one for $120,000 and a yearling for $70,000 at this “low end auction”.

Overall broodmares averaged about $6000 apiece.

http://www.barretts.com/SalesResults/results/rs2jan08.asp

#26

Why does this remind me of the 18 year old barren mare that Monty Roberts sold at the same sale some years ago? You would think that if the horses provided you with your “daily bread” you would have the class and conscience to let them live out their remaining days and provide for them but I have been accused of not “understanding” the industry. :frowning:

4 Likes
#27

[QUOTE=Pronzini;3165353]
Just FYI…a mare sold for $55,000, one for $120,000 and a yearling for $70,000 at this “low end auction”.

Overall broodmares averaged about $6000 apiece.

http://www.barretts.com/SalesResults/results/rs2jan08.asp[/QUOTE]

Sigh. I don’t think anyone disputes that horses can and do sell for decent prices at the Barrett’s winter sale, but this mare did not, nor did many others, and Smiley knew that she wouldn’t. By the same logic, it would seem that because The Green Monkey sold for $16-mil-plus, no other young TB was at risk of slaughter? I think his price kinda drove up the average when he was sold. :wink:

For the record, I am not against TB sales or all-breed auctions; I’ve bought and sold horses through Barretts, as I said earlier, and have also bought some very nice, cheap TBs at the really crappy kill buyer sales. The TB sales are a normal venue for selling; unfortunately, the Winter Sale has an abundance of cheap horses. My point is that it’s a fallacy to think that the KBs aren’t there, or that horses don’t get shipped to slaughter from California just because there’s a law against it … they can and have been ever since the law was passed.

I still think Smiley’s a hypocritical liar, and one who merrily shoved a horse she no longer wanted onto someone else – who, fortunately for the mare – appears to be a better fit. I can take some comfort in that she took a bath on the sale, given that the stallion the mare was in foal to stands for $5,000. :wink:

3 Likes
#28

[QUOTE=vali;3165059]
She said Waterwheel was small and unsound, and that she was a broodmare. She said no one in the horse community would have wanted her, and that she thought she would get more money at the auction, but that the economy was poor this year. She said that if I knew anything about the TB racing world I would know that this was how things worked.[/QUOTE]

This saddens me. When the story first came out on FHOTD, I did not comment and thought to give her the benefit of the doubt. But to hear in her own words that it was about what last bit of money she could squeeze out of this poor mare, it makes me sick. As her breeder, owner, and the person who raced her, does she have no responsibility to find the best home for her. In her own words, it was about that last little bit of money, not about a good home. It is clear to me that if her new owner had not bid the minimum amount, she likely would have found herself on a trailer heading across the border.

I am offended for the good people that I do know in the racing industry who work tirelessly to place their retired racers in loving homes, often for nominal amounts. :no:

3 Likes
#29

This is perhaps the biggest crock of sh!t I have ever heard. Removing the temptation? Like, there’s a mare in my barn and I just can’t help myself from breeding it? So I sold it at an auction where most of the people shopping are looking for broodmares? AAARRRGHH, I have never been tempted to breed the useless mares I own, and one of the reasons I keep them is I’m afraid they will be bred if I were to sell them.

Oh, and as one of the regular folks who struggles to support my retirees and “useless” horses, this situation is particularly poignant because someone like Jane Smiley can certainly afford to care for the horses she bred that don’t make it.

ETA: Maybe instead of throwing her money away on a ridiculous horse psychic for Waterwheel, she should have saved it for the mare’s retirement instead :rolleyes:

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#30

Oh my! Sister I couldn’t have said it better. :eek:

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#31

Why would someone breed a horse that had broken down as a 2yo anyway? I could see it if maybe it was a freak accident and the horse was superlatively bred, but that doesn’t sound like the case here.

I enjoyed the first horse book, but not A Year At the Races. Too self-absorbed. Too flaky with the animal communicators. Didn’t finish half of it. :no:

#32

[QUOTE=see u at x;3165315]
I can’t really comment much about this specific situation, but I can say that Ms. Smiley was a professor at Iowa State when I was a student there in the early '90s, and I am grateful that I never took any of her classes. From all accounts by my friends who were fellow English majors who DID take her classes, she is as arrogant and as b**chy in person as she apparently sounded from her response to this question today. And it isn’t as though these were people who did poorly in her classes and had a vendetta against her.

Apparently, several faculty members were not overly fond of her either. My advisor at the time actually advised me NOT to take any classes with her. It was as though she thought just because she won a Pulitzer, that it gave her free license to act like a raging cow towards everyone around her. (Although the people who acted like she was God’s gift to the writing world didn’t help matters any.) [/QUOTE]

And yet there is a whole thread over in hunter/jumper lionizing George Morris for his arrogance and the “charm” with which he dispenses demeaning comments to people who pay for his clinics… :confused:

I don’t really care about Smiley one way or the other but it might be worth considering before you all condemn one person for arrogance and find it charming and deserved in another. Just my opinion.

Edited to add: I think with her resources she could have kept the mare and guaranteed her a safe retirement. But OTOH I don’t think all auctions are bad either - there, am I having my cake and eating it too or what? lol

#33

[QUOTE=Vandy;3165410]
This is perhaps the biggest crock of sh!t I have ever heard. Removing the temptation? Like, there’s a mare in my barn and I just can’t help myself from breeding it? So I sold it at an auction where most of the people shopping are looking for broodmares? AAARRRGHH, I have never been tempted to breed the useless mares I own, and one of the reasons I keep them is I’m afraid they will be bred if I were to sell them.

Oh, and as one of the regular folks who struggles to support my retirees and “useless” horses, this situation is particularly poignant because someone like Jane Smiley can certainly afford to care for the horses she bred that don’t make it.

ETA: Maybe instead of throwing her money away on a ridiculous horse psychic for Waterwheel, she should have saved it for the mare’s retirement instead :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]

:yes::yes::yes::yes::yes:

I couldn’t have said it better, either.

I guess for all her intellectual posing, she comes off as a crass bonehead in the end.

#34

You typed exactly what I was thinking. She bred the mare, the mare broke down while still in her care and control, and now the only way she is going to stop herself from breeding the mare and contributing to overpopulation is to sell her at a broodmare sale . . . whatever. :rolleyes:

3 Likes
#35

It certainly sounds classless if I"m hearing this right.

She bred her mare, the foal was a dud filly, so she… put the filly into foal???
And then macked on about how much she lurved her and was working to do the right thing… using that story to sell books… and sells her at an auction knowing she may go anywhere, to anyone?
And goes on to preach how she sold her so she wouldn’t (inevitably) breed her again?
Let’s not even mention the $$ comment.

So what would I have done if I were in her situation? Spay the mare. Gift her to a loving home as a companion horse (which doesn’t always turn out well, but I"d do the best I could).

BTW, I have Horse Heaven and just can’t get through it. Nothing rings sincere in it, for me. I guess I now know why!!!

2 Likes
#36

[QUOTE=Aimee Thanatogenus;3165539]

I guess for all her intellectual posing, she comes off as a crass bonehead in the end.[/QUOTE]

Yes, :yes:.

I just wanted to add one thing. Horsepeople are supposedly a large portion of her reader population… but horsepeople are also notorious for voting with our visas. I for one will not touch another Jane Smiley book, not because she sold her mare… but for acting like an arrogant, holier-than-thou, jerk.

#37

I hated 1000 Acres and never understood the acclaim. I loved reading Horse Heaven and enjoyed A Day At the Races , it is so disappointing to find out that people often do live down to our lowest expectations. Obviously Jane was only interested in the bottom line of doing business. :frowning:

Thanks to the OP for asking the pointed question publicly.:slight_smile:

#38

Well, the “arrogant” description was actually provided by another person who also heard the call, although I do think it was accurate. The strong impression I got from the call is that she didn’t think I was part of the horse community, and that I just didn’t understand how things are done in the TB racing world. I do, and I think she does as well, as evidenced by her examples of horses that come to a bad end in Horse Heaven. It’s true that I didn’t mention that she said at the end of the call that she thought the mare had gone to a nice person, but that was just pure luck. If you look at the Barrett’s records the buyer picks up a lot of cheap horses, so let’s hope it works out well. Ms. Smiley didn’t even bother to put a reserve on her, and she went for a price that is not much higher than what the killer buyers pay. I sincerely hope this will not happen, but it’s very likely that someone would buy her for a cheap price and keep the foal, then turn around and sell her for a few hundred afterwards. There’s not much room to go down if a mare’s price is $1000 in foal. It’s true that there’s a glut of poorly bred unsound horses, but we live in California, and there are plenty of wealthy horse owners who would be happy to have the equine star of a book featured in a Pulitzer prize-winning author’s book adorning their farm. Do you really think that it would have been that difficult to place her if even the folks on the COTH website knew she needed a home?

3 Likes
#39

It’s really a shame, because I really enjoyed Horse Heaven (although A Day at the Races was a bit too self-indulgent for my taste…); I have recommended it to a lot of people, and actually gave copies as Christmas gifts a few years back. Reading about this (her comments rubbed me wrong even more than the reports of selling the mare) was kind of like when I found out that Jude Law was screwing his nanny…major disappointment, totally knocked off that pedestal HARD.

#40

Huh. High-end auction, low end auction, I’m still surprised. I’m surprised that someone with her resources wouldn’t opt to just give the horse to a hand-selected home. With ALL of the people out there who read the book, I don’t believe for a second that someone wouldn’t be thrilled to have her in their pasture (hot, lame, short, whatever). And I don’t believe that she wouldn’t have the time to hand select a home for this horse that she wrote so fondly about. Hell, she could have made publicity points by donating her to a preselected farm/home. At an auction, anyone can buy the horse. That person might breed her to have a Waterwheel baby. That person might sell her to slaughter. That person might put her 14 year old on her and let the girl run her in circles for an hour. Leaving the fate of a horse that figured so prominently in your own book to the fate of an auction is…weird. In my opinion. Especially since CLEARLY, people weren’t beating the doors down to bid on her…

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