Some time ago, I asked two of the endurance community’s most skilled riders and avid storytellers if they’d be interested in featuring in one of my blog posts. I love to tell my own story, but one of its important points is that I am learning. It occurred to me a few months back that my readers might enjoy hearing from some of the many riders who have far more experience than I do (not that difficult!) I will be asking many more riders to appear on this blog, but we will start with an interview with Bruce Weary.
Jump to:
Why Bruce?
A bit of background
On why Bruce chronicles his experiences on Facebook
On rescuing horses
Two Bits
On Chiropractic
See my interviews focused on Cowboy Dressage:
An interview with Cowboy Dressage founder Eitan Beth-Halachmy.
What was I thinking? (An interview with Debbie Beth-Halachmy).
Taking Cowboy Dressage to Europe: An interview with Lesley Deutsch.
Interview with Dr. Jenni Grimmett, coauthor of Dressage the Cowboy Way.
Dr. Robert Miller & his wife Debby share their take on Cowboy Dressage.
My one endurance-focused interview was really about a mule, but her owner and breeder were kind enough to talk with me:
Why Bruce?
I’ve been following Bruce’s posts on Facebook for the last six or seven years. When I started reading them, I was still living in Oklahoma, and had barely got started with endurance. At the time, Bruce was mainly telling the story of Trooper, a grey Standardbred gelding. I found his posts fun and informative reading. Because he told us about his mistakes as well as his successes, his stories were useful as well as entertaining. As the years passed, and I began riding seriously in endurance and–more importantly–maintaining this blog, my appreciation for his sharing grew.
Above: Trooper’s AERC record. I was fascinated by his story as told by Bruce. It made me want to get a Standardbred. You can read about Trooper on Facebook. Here is one of Bruce’s early posts about him.
It’s not easy to tell your story to an amorphous, mostly unknown audience whose horsepersonship varies from truly expert to zero. The worst is that the experts whose feedback you would LOVE rarely say anything, whereas the people who know the least tend to opine the most. Posting regularly enough that your audience can follow your story is always time consuming and can be emotionally exhausting. I know this because I too am a chronicler. Mostly I love doing it, though I couldn’t tell you why. (Bruce does tell us.)
I love it, but I get tired of telling my own story. Face it, we’re all boring to ourselves most of the time! (At least I am.) It is time to tell others’ stories, as I did a few years ago. I asked Bruce and one other person to do interviews at the same time. Bruce was able to start answering my questions earlier!
My interview with Bruce Weary
Warning: I’ve had to condense a lot of fun conversation into a blog-sized portion here!
I started by sending Bruce a Word document with a list of questions that he could answer or not as he saw fit. I’ve done that with most previous interviews, because it allows my interviewees some control over their wording and because I don’t have to remember everything. When I wrote about Ticket the mule, I did two phone interviews that I truly enjoyed, but I had to sit down immediately and write them up. My current time constraints meant I needed to have things written down… or recorded!
Bruce started by answering some of my questions in writing. Because he is a writer, he gave such detailed answers to the first few questions that he soon ran out of time. He sent me those, and I decided we’d be better off talking. Bruce agreed to a video call that I could record, and we were set. After some technological challenges, we proceeded to talk for nearly two hours. We bounced from topic to topic, and it was really fun. But no, I am not going to include it all here! Below I’ve tried to condense it to the essential bits. If you have more questions, don’t hesitate to put them in the comments. We can always do another interview!
A bit of background
One of the reasons it was such a pleasure to talk with Bruce Weary is that he considers himself lucky, and his happiness with his life is so evident it made me feel happier with mine! Bruce shares his love of endurance with his wife, Dayna. It became a family passion, as their daughters also rode.
Above: Dayna rides her Arabian gelding Romeo while Bruce leads his Mustang Buckles. Bruce has over 15,000 AERC miles. You can look up his record on the AERC rider history page, but I wanted some personal details.
Bruce has started the Tevis Cup nine times. While we were talking about how tricky it can be to convey our intended meaning in writing online, I mentioned how several people had claimed I was “in a hurry” to complete Tevis. I always reply that my “Road to the Tevis Cup” blog posts make no claims about the length of the road. Bruce responded that it can be a long long road indeed. “It took me six tries before I ever finished.” That completion was extra-special because it came with the gaited gelding John Henry.
Gaited horses are by all accounts much more difficult to manage than Arabians or Arab-crosses, but Bruce gives John Henry all the credit. “He’s a freak. He’s a gifted and talented horse, ” Bruce said. (Read more about John Henry in Dr. Susan Garlinghouse’s words here.)
Q: Tell us a little bit about you, as much as you think relevant. For example, how did you get into horses? Have you ridden your entire life? What about endurance specifically? When and how did you get involved with the endurance community?
Answer:
I first sat on a horse at age three on a small merry-go-round pony ride in my father’s grocery store parking lot. When they tried to take me off the pony, I cried. I was hooked! I grew up idolizing Roy Rogers. My favorite stuffed toy was a palomino stuffed horse. I rode my first real pony at age five on my grandfather’s farm, and later rode larger horses on that same farm, never really knowing what I was doing, but managed to never fall off as I fed my newfound addiction.
Later in life, I bought my first horse at age 25 after graduating chiropractic college and have owned horses ever since, initially just for pleasure riding. Somehow I came across a newsprint issue of Endurance News around 1984, read it, and was intrigued by the idea of endurance riding. I began conditioning my golden palomino half-Arab gelding with the intention of entering a ride in the next few months. Of course I worked him too hard and fast, and he was having leg issues that eventually resolved, but I sold him and later purchased a half-Arab paint mare, named Banjo.
I started over with her and managed to condition her without harming her. We entered our first 25-mile ride in Blue Diamond Nevada, a ride that was managed by Claire Toomey. Like many ignorant beginners, having no idea what I was doing, I won the ride and took BC, having lost a shoe, and not knowing to carry water and food for myself. At the awards dinner afterward, I could barely stand to shuffle up to accept my award. I was hooked and began wondering when the next ride was. That was 40 years, 15,000 miles, and many horses ago.
Bruce wrote the above weeks ago, and what I love about it is how it tied into our subsequent talk. Bruce had to learn from experience how important it was to go slow at first. He knows how important it is for new riders to find mentors. Now he does his best to convey that, as he mentions in the video below.
Above: Bruce talks about how essential it is for new riders to find someone who can teach them the ropes of endurance and help them learn how to manage their horses.
On why Bruce chronicles his experiences on Facebook
As a writer myself, I get why some people are driven to write things down. I understand the impulse to share (for better and worse) one’s experiences and thoughts with others. But I was curious about why Bruce wrote what he wrote, and why he used Facebook as a vehicle.
Q: Why did you decide to share your stories on Facebook?
Answer:
Above: Bruce describes why he started sharing on Facebook. I had asked him before why didn’t maintain a blog–he said it would be too much work to maintain a website! (I can attest to this myself. On the one hand, a website facilitates keeping everything in one place, but on the other, a lot of time I could dedicate to writing is eaten up by blog maintenance.)
Bruce has told the story of many of his horses over the years. (along with a bit about his wife Dayna’s horses too!) The first horse Bruce wrote about was Major. Here is an example of his Major posts, one that addresses the complicated issue of ulcers in horses. I missed Major’s story, but I learned a lot about endurance while reading Bruce’s posts about Trooper, Butler, Buckles, and Two Bits. (Hope I haven’t forgotten anyone!)
Bruce’s main goal seems to be education: he wants to share his experience with others, particularly would-be or beginning endurance riders. After listening to him talk, I even asked him if he was a teacher. I was (kind of) joking, but Bruce immediately replied that yes, of course, it’s part of being a chiropractor!
On rescuing horses
Q: Many of your posts deal with rehabilitating horses that come to you in bad shape. I’ve really enjoyed reading about your process and the stories of the individual horses. How did you get started doing this? What was your first “rescue” and how did that horse convince you to keep going?
Answer:
Our first rescue was a mare we saw standing in a pasture on the Navajo reservation as we were driving home from an endurance ride over 20 years ago. She looked like a skeleton with hide stretched over her bones. My 11-year-old daughter threatened to never speak to me again if we didn’t stop and try to feed her. We knocked on a few doors, found out who owned her, and purchased her for $200. We already had three horses in our three-horse trailer, but we took them all out, put her in the front compartment, and shoved the other three back in and headed home.
She was so thin that her rump muscles were concave. When it rained, there was standing water in her pelvis. Our vet drew blood and found that miraculously she had no kidney or liver damage, and she survived. A neighbor woman, recovering from cancer, heard about her and begged us to give the mare to her so they could recover together. Which, they did. It’s where I got the idea to recover with Two Bits.
Above: Bruce and Navajo Lady, their first rescue.
Of course, not all of the horses Bruce has acquired were “rescues”. Many of his readers on Facebook have expressed an interest in how he ends up with his horses, so I asked him about it.
Above: Two Bits, before (first two pictures) and after. The change is remarkable.
Bruce’s latest find is a gaited mare called Serenity. She is showing lots of promise!
Above: Bruce’s latest project is Serenity, a gaited mare with showy coloring!
Q: How do you find your horses? Could you tell us about Two Bits specifically?
Answer:
Above: Bruce tells us a little bit about how he finds his horses, starting by telling us about Two Bits. Before the recording begins, Bruce noted that a lot of the horses are back east or in Canada. He goes on to say that he has never gone to see a horse, he’s just bought them online.
Two Bits
Anyone who follows Bruce’s posts on Facebook will know how important Two Bits is to him. In fact, Bruce has just recently made the difficult decision to rehome Two Bits. (You can see him at his new home in this Facebook post.) So I could guess the answer to my next question, but I still had to ask…
Q: I dislike the term “heart horse” (not least because how would I decide??) … but is there a horse that you’ve formed a particularly strong bond with that you’d like to talk about here?
Answer:
Probably Two Bits. Because he’s pretty bonded. And, at some level, I think he knows what was done for him. And he returned that by keeping me safe. You know, he never put me in any kind of danger. And I didn’t know that about him. I didn’t know what his ability was on the trail. But that’s a horse that will go anywhere. You point him and he goes wherever you want to, and he comes to you when you call him. He’s just he’s a wonderful, wonderful boy.
The decision to place Two Bits with another family was tough…
I debated about keeping him. You know, I could keep him. But he would just sit here and soak up feed, and I just wouldn’t use him the way he would need to be used. And I’d probably be tempted to try to. I would probably try to put him back on the endurance trail from time to time, but I think we just need to preserve what soundness that he has and let him have a good, comfortable retirement.
Two Bits is only 16, and you should see him now. He’s just all sleek and muscled, and he just looks really great. But I just don’t think he can take the pounding anymore that endurance comes with. And he would just sit here because we only have a couple of acres, and I don’t have the time to put him in rotation. He would just be getting ridden lightly or probably set aside because I got two other horses to work, you know.
But he’s going to a good place
I’m placing him with some friends that have a ranch nearby, and they’re just going to use him for trail riding, and they might move a few cows with him or something like that. They’re just in love with him, and I’ll know exactly where he’s at and how he’s being used. And these people are really fine. I told them and my wife told them when they were here the other day, “If it doesn’t work out, you know, if there’s something you don’t like or you just don’t think you want to keep him, then you just bring him back and we’ll keep him.”
He’ll get spoiled down there. I know it’s the right thing to do, but it’s bittersweet.
Above: Two Bits during his endurance career. Bruce credits Two Bits for helping him get back in the saddle after a traumatic injury. Two Bits developed an enormous following on Facebook. Bruce has had people from all over the world contact him to ask about this amazing gelding.
Two Bits is even featured in a LubriSynHA advertising video. There are some gorgeous shots of him in the clip below.
Above: Dr. Bruce Weary and Two Bits feature in a LubriSyn promotional video. Thanks to Bruce’s connection with LubriSyn, the company is now a Tevis Cup sponsor.
On Chiropractic
Bruce is a chiropractic doctor based in Prescott, Arizona. (Weary Chiropractic.) I wondered how his education and work as a chiropractic doctor might have influenced his endurance hobby.
Q: You are a chiropractor, correct? Has that informed your approach to horses and riding? If so, how?
Answer (Bruce started with reference to horses):
I do on my own horses. I know 6 or 8 moves that I can do pretty fluently. I’ve never hired myself out to do horses for other people. There is a chiropractic veterinary program you can go through. You have to be either a vet or a chiropractor, and you can go through and get a degree. And then you could go out and start, you know, selling services and things like that. I think I’m safer doing what I do because people don’t kick, you know? People don’t step on me. I think if you go out treating strange horses, sooner or later you’re going to you’re going to get hurt somewhere.
But my horses, I know them, and they’re not going to hurt me. And I haven’t had to do much. I’ve done quite a bit of work on Two Bits because he had a sore shoulder and a knee problem, and he’s had some foot issues that we had to clear up that he was compensating for. And he’s been a real Rubik’s Cube. We’ve got him sound and squared away now and ready to go again.
I do my own because it’s hard to find a good horse chiropractor.
I think there’s people hacking away at it that you’re not sure if they really know what they’re doing, or if there’s really going to be a change. You’ve got to be pretty darn strong, you know, you can use mallets and things like that, especially on the spine. But you got to be able to pick up a shoulder and pick up a hock and move a hip and things like that, because those are the main architectural joints in locomotion. Those are the ones that are in trouble a lot. If it’s just a bunch of touchy-feely stuff, I’m not sure they’re getting a lot done, you know?
Answer (with reference to riders):
Yes. (For example…) My wife and I go to the gym 3 or 4 days a week. I’ll be honest, I got a lot more serious about it (after my accident). I’m 66 now, and I’m—and I think my wife would probably back me up on this—I am stronger now than I’ve ever been in my life. And it’s overall strength. I have leg strength so I can get on and off a horse. I can stay on the horse if he makes a sudden movement. And I can trot pretty much endlessly. Now there was a time I couldn’t even get myself out of bed, you know? I was so hurt.
Bruce’s advice:
Balance is really important. I see a lot of people riding. How to balance. Balance is very important. Which part of your lower body to use? Do you stand on your feet? Squeeze with your knees? Do you ride balanced? Do you move with the horse?
And then get off the horse and move every now and then because it’s not good for joints when you do repetitive restrictive movement. Your knees when you’re sitting on a saddle might only move this much like moving in a very small range of motion under a high load. Same with your ankles. Same with your hips, same with your back. And you’re just trotting along for hours because after a while, let’s face it, you’re just looking for that finish line. Let’s just get this over with.
You know, we have fun for the first 25 miles and the other 25 miles sucks. And anybody who doesn’t say that is a liar. If you can get off and move, you can change the weight bearing surface in the joint. When you walk and take a full stride with your hips and knees, you get your joint fluids going, and your muscles contract in a different way. Then get back on and go. And that’s good for anybody. And I got I know people that say “I can’t get off the horse, because if I do, I’ll never get back on. I’m five foot one. I can’t get on my horse.” Well then go to the gym so you can always climb onto your horse or whatever. That’s kind of my answer.
And there was much more!
But this blog post is already long enough. If you’ve got questions for Bruce, leave a comment on this blog, or on the post where it’s been shared. Maybe he’ll agree to do a follow-up interview!