So I asked Jane Smiley about Waterwheel

[Ambrey]

Clearly loving a horse means different things to different people. On one hand we have people considering euthanasia rather than risk a horse going to a bad home and suffering, and on the other hand there’s the “ship it to auction so you’re not tempted to breed it” crowd.

If she saw it as just a business thing, why write a book about it? And if she did love the horse and the book wasn’t a bunch of hooey, why send it to auction where you have no idea who is going to buy it (high end or low end, you have zero control over the buyer)?

I wonder whether she had overestimated the worth of the mare? But in that case, you would think she would have put a reserve up.

[JAGold]

It’s been several years, but when I was in college, Jane Smiley kept horses with my trainer. I was a working student and the regular rider for two of the horses, plus helped with the training of a small pony she had with us. I met Jane several times and gave her regular phone updates on the horses. She seemed genuinely fond of her horses in a slightly detached way. I don’t think she was any better or worse than a lot of people for whom horses are part business, part pleasure. She certainly did right by the pony she bought for her son, who turned out not to be interested in riding. She was also patient with the progress of the other horses we brought along for her. For what it’s worth, she was also kind and encouraging to me and others around the barn.

But I also don’t think the “real” Jane Smiley is who she appears to be in her books. By which, I don’t see her as some particularly sage horsewoman whose every word is to be taken to heart. I see her as a very clever wordsmith, some of whose work I enjoy reading. When I buy one of her books, I’m buying it for what’s inside the covers, not for who I believe her to be. If people don’t want to purchase her books because they don’t want to support someone who sells horses to auction, well, that’s certainly a valid choice. But not wanting to purchase the books because their image of the author turns out to be different from reality doesn’t make as much sense to me. I don’t know much about the personal business dealings or ethics of most of the authors I enjoy. The writing can be separated from the individual, and it’s the writing that is for sale. I just don’t see selling the mare at an auction as a personal betrayal or some great act of hypocracy. I see it as a business decision on the farm side, just like what goes into the books is a business decision on the writing side.

[Haalter]

Yeah, well, I read Mein Kampf, but I wouldn’t have bought a copy if the money had gone to Hitler.

[chukkerchild]

[QUOTE=JAGold;3165700]

But I also don’t think the “real” Jane Smiley is who she appears to be in her books. By which, I don’t see her as some particularly sage horsewoman whose every word is to be taken to heart. I see her as a very clever wordsmith, some of whose work I enjoy reading. When I buy one of her books, I’m buying it for what’s inside the covers, not for who I believe her to be. If people don’t want to purchase her books because they don’t want to support someone who sells horses to auction, well, that’s certainly a valid choice. But not wanting to purchase the books because their image of the author turns out to be different from reality doesn’t make as much sense to me. I don’t know much about the personal business dealings or ethics of most of the authors I enjoy. The writing can be separated from the individual, and it’s the writing that is for sale. I just don’t see selling the mare at an auction as a personal betrayal or some great act of hypocracy. I see it as a business decision on the farm side, just like what goes into the books is a business decision on the writing side.[/QUOTE]

:yes:
Honestly, I don’t really see what she did as that bad. It would have been NICE if she had kept the horse munching away in a pasture for the next twenty years, but selling the horse at a reputable auction seems fine to me. We have bought horses at auctions, we have sold horses at auctions. Many people have done far, far worse to their horses. She just gets the attention because she’s famous.

But I haven’t read A Year at the Races, so maybe it’s the hypocrisy that’s bothering most people, which I could understand.

[JAGold]

[QUOTE=Haalter;3165726]
Yeah, well, I read Mein Kampf, but I wouldn’t have bought a copy if the money had gone to Hitler.[/QUOTE]
Glad to see Godwin’s law kicking in on schedule

[Haalter]

[QUOTE=JAGold;3165737]
Glad to see Godwin’s law kicking in on schedule ;)[/QUOTE] Oops, I suck…I haven’t ever pulled one of those til tonight, I swear…but too late to delete now, as you’ve quoted me, so my somewhat ridiculous statement is here to stay.

I think maybe this whole debate hit me the wrong way today, as I’m still thinking about my “useless” (and expensive) retiree I had to euthanize last week. I’m probably just bitter, as if I’d had Smiley’s resources, I might have been able to save him

[vali]

I think it is the hypocrisy that gets most of us, and I suspect you would have had to read A Year at the Races and Horse Heaven to fully get the scope of her hypocrisy. She has never entertained the notion that breeding and racing horses is a profit making venture, which she freely admits. She writes about her beloved Waterwheel with great affection in the book, and after publication of the book is asked about her and says that Waterwheel “is redeemed”, and has a “happy ending.” In a Year at the Races she writes about some of the things she’s learned, and one of them is that after racing Waterwheel she says she probably would not race another 2 year old, or race her horses anywhere but with her favorite trainer who can assure that they are well shod and cared for. Yet, Waterwheel’s first foal is apparently racing as a two year old, and in Mexico of all places. She knows that her fans care about the fates of the horses whose personalities she has described so vividly, and she cultivates an image of a person who cares deeply about her animals. If anything, she writes about how she oversentimentalizes her relations with her horses, but that seems almost calculating now. There’s a dichotomy between treating her horses as almost human pets and her response to my question in the radio interview, in which she retreated to in an analysis of the poor economy affecting the prices of brood mares and how it’s not economical to breed racehorses. Economical? I don’t think anyone ever thought it was financially lucrative to be a small scale breeder, and she’s written many times about what sheer financial folly it is. I’m glad she’s gotten out of breeding, since she seems like a colossal failure at it, but I think she is dishonest, and I can’t respect her either as a writer or a horseperson.

[Lori_B]

Wow, very disheartening. I have to agree w/ Vali. I thought I wasn’t naive about admiring writers, but to hear that Ms. Smiley is guilty of this particular rank hypocrisy is saddening.

[egontoast]

What will happen to the mare when she is too old to be a broodmare?

Sorry, but if she wanted a ‘forever home’ for this horse she bred, raced, broke down , gushed about in books, bred again and allegedly adored, she would not have sent her to auction in foal as a broodmare.

Have to laugh at her rationalization for sending her BRED to a broodmare auction. Vandy said it well.

[BeastieSlave]

@Vandy;3165410

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.

I’m also one of those regular folks who is supporting ‘someone else’s’ older broken down OTTB broodmare. It’s a shame that the people who bred/raced/bred foals from my mare didn’t care for her enough to support her in her retirement. It’s REALLY a shame that Jane Smiley, who brought Waterwheel into the world, chose the career path that led to her breakdown, decided to breed her, and profited from the telling of her story, didn’t feel the need to support her when she was through with her! :mad:

I’m also glad that I’m not the only one who went “huh, WTF?” when I heard that she was selling the broodmare in foal at auction because she didn’t want to contribulte to overbreeding. Yeah, if she was serious about that, she would have found a home where Waterwheel wouldn’t be bred or she would have had the mare spayed. Oh wait, the mare’s broken down - what else can she do but have babies? Who would want to keep a horse that couldn’t be used for anything? I guess that would be regular saps like me and not famous authors who profit from those horses…

[Texarkana]

While it’s a little disheartening that Jane Smiley’s publicly portrayed persona in her writings doesn’t seem to match her private business management techniques, I think this has been blown way out of proportion.

Smiley sold a horse with a job in the usual manner these horses are sold.

Her motives for selling the horse aren’t anyone’s business but her own.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever sold a horse. Does that mean you didn’t ever care about said horse? Probably not.

[vineyridge]

Did I not read on FHOTD that Waterwheel had gone through a couple of auctions before she found safe haven?

Seems to me that Smiley was hoping for a better result than she got when the mare went to Barrett’s. Maybe she was hoping that someone silly who had read about the mare would pay more for her as one of the “heroines” of a book. Obviously that didn’t happen since the kind of people who frequent Barrett’s would not be so sentimental.

So mare gets knocked down to someone for 1k, goes somewhere, has her foal, and is auctioned again at a lower end, non-TB auction. Which finally ends up in safety for her with a loving owner.

I’m with those who think that Smiley could have put some time into finding a home for the mare with someone who would have liked own a media star. There was no love at all for the horse or her foal in the way this mess was handled by Ms. Smiley.

[Cherry]

Vali, thank you for asking that question! :eek: :yes: :winkgrin:

I’ve been wondering about this whole thing ever since I read the post over on Fugly Horse on April 1st… :yes: :winkgrin: When I went back a couple days later with the intention of linking it to this board I couldn’t find it…

I have one of those small, unsound TB mares and I would take another if the horse needed the home badly enough…

I have to say that this certainly changes my perspective of the author… :yes:

[vineyridge]

@Cherry;3166364

Vali, thank you for asking that question! :eek: :yes: :winkgrin:

I’ve been wondering about this whole thing ever since I read the post over on Fugly Horse on April 1st… :yes: :winkgrin: When I went back a couple days later with the intention of linking it to this board I couldn’t find it…

I have one of those small, unsound TB mares and I would take another if the horse needed the home badly enough…

I have to say that this certainly changes my perspective of the author… :yes:

Here you go.
http://fuglyhorseoftheday.blogspot.com/2008/04/happy-ending-my-ass-you-phony-bitch.html

Barrett’s is a perfectly reputable TB sale, and all the TB sales now have a minimum sale price of 1k to keep the meat buyers away.

If the mare went directly into her safe haven, then that’s great. If she went elsewhere and moved down the chain, then that’s what can be expected when any horse is sold without strings.

I’d feel a lot better about Ms. Smiley if she had used the mare’s fame to find her a home with a sentimental publicity hound–with chains attached.

[lizathenag]

the stars are aligning

I watch Homicide:Life on the Streets in bed at night. A recent episode was written by Jane Smiley.

and I am off to see her tonight at the Commonweatlth Club.

What do you think I should ask her?

[Cherry]

If the mare went directly into her safe haven, then that’s great. If she went elsewhere and moved down the chain, then that’s what can be expected when any horse is sold without strings.

I’d feel a lot better about Ms. Smiley if she had used the mare’s fame to find her a home with a sentimental publicity hound–with chains attached.

Amen, sistah!!! :yes:

I’ve got a copy of Horse Heaven that I haven’t cracked open yet–somehow I don’t think I’ll be able to get into it after this little episode. I’ll probably end up donating it to some group so they can make some money off it… Thank God I didn’t buy A Year At The Races!!! :yes: :winkgrin:

I have to say though–it’s not about not understanding the way the horseracing business is–it’s about doing the right thing for the TBs that are injured and can no longer pay their own way!!! :yes: What’s it cost to send your TB to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation now???

[mp]

[QUOTE=Texarkana;3166334]
While it’s a little disheartening that Jane Smiley’s publicly portrayed persona in her writings doesn’t seem to match her private business management techniques, I think this has been blown way out of proportion.

Smiley sold a horse with a job in the usual manner these horses are sold.

Her motives for selling the horse aren’t anyone’s business but her own.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever sold a horse. Does that mean you didn’t ever care about said horse? Probably not.[/QUOTE]

Raising my hand. :winkgrin:Although I’m trying to sell a mare now. She’s not old or lame. She’s just a riding horse in a discipline I don’t do anymore. And if she doesn’t sell or I can’t find the right home for her, I’ll keep her. I’m not rich, but I have that luxury because we have acreage.

But … that’s immaterial really. I don’t find it horrid that Ms Smiley sold the horse at auction or that she sold her in foal. Selling her open would imply to some folks that the mare had fertility problems. So that makes sense.

However, I do have problems that the “tie it all up in a nice package” happy ending of the book conflicts with reality. Haven’t we all seen enough books and movies about racing that romanticized it? And that’s just what she did.

From a review in the Washington Post when the book was published

[i]“I was exhibiting signs of owneritis, the disease of loving your worthy, but, let’s admit it, mediocre horse too much,” she says.

Does it matter that her horses rarely win? Not a bit. If anything, it only heightens the romanticism that is always at the heart of the matter. “And so, the reward for me,” she writes, “and sometimes it is a bittersweet reward, is still in seeing how it all turns out – how character and events add up to the appropriate, always appropriate, denouement.”[/i]

She loved the horse, but not enough to do much of anything to ensure her long-term welfare, even though she was in a position to do so. Where’s the vomit icon when you need it?

[Mozart]

@lizathenag;3166404

I watch Homicide:Life on the Streets in bed at night. A recent episode was written by Jane Smiley.

and I am off to see her tonight at the Commonweatlth Club.

What do you think I should ask her?

lizathenag I was waiting to see if you would post; I know you are a fan of her books as am I. I read all of them, horsey and non-horsey.

Perhaps the question might be “do you feel it is incongruous to write about a horse in a manner that suggests it’s fate is very important to you and then put the horse in an auction, albeit a reputable one, where you cannot control as much as the next owner? Would it not have been possible to retain ownership and place the horse in an appropriate situation given the way you wrote about her in your book”?

While I don’t expect the authors of books I read to be saints, this disappoints me.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=mp;3166422]
Raising my hand. :winkgrin:Although I’m trying to sell a mare now. She’s not old or lame. She’s just a riding horse in a discipline I don’t do anymore. And if she doesn’t sell or I can’t find the right home for her, I’ll keep her. I’m not rich, but I have that luxury because we have acreage.

But … that’s immaterial really. I don’t find it horrid that Ms Smiley sold the horse at auction or that she sold her in foal. Selling her open would imply to some folks that the mare had fertility problems. So that makes sense.

However, I do have problems that the “tie it all up in a nice package” happy ending of the book conflicts with reality. Haven’t we all seen enough books and movies about racing that romanticized it? And that’s just what she did.

From a review in the Washington Post when the book was published

[i]“I was exhibiting signs of owneritis, the disease of loving your worthy, but, let’s admit it, mediocre horse too much,” she says.

Does it matter that her horses rarely win? Not a bit. If anything, it only heightens the romanticism that is always at the heart of the matter. “And so, the reward for me,” she writes, “and sometimes it is a bittersweet reward, is still in seeing how it all turns out – how character and events add up to the appropriate, always appropriate, denouement.”[/i]

She loved the horse, but not enough to do much of anything to ensure her long-term welfare, even though she was in a position to do so. Where’s the vomit icon when you need it?[/QUOTE]

I think that COTHs overuse of it was part of the reason of the demise of that icon you so miss.

I have known some very good fiction writers in real life and their works were not exactly autobiographical, or expected to be.
I didn’t know readers expected fiction to be any other than…fiction.

[lizathenag]

Thank you Mozart. I will let you know how our exchange goes. I am going early for the wine and cheese reception. . .I will definately get my $12 worth