Chronicle Staff Blog

I had a love/hate relationship with the idea of Boyd Martin being our 2011 Overall Horseman of the Year. Not really so much with the idea of him actually being it—I was adamant that no one was more deserving of the title than he—but more with the idea of actually writing the story.

I’ve been doing this job for quite a while, sometimes longer than I like to admit.

I interview lots of people every year. I usually call and talk to about 5-10 people a week. Multiply that by 52 weeks a year, and that’s a lot of conversations. Sometimes, I get a quick note from someone I’ve written about saying thank you, or that they enjoyed the article. That always makes my day, because more often, if we hear a response to an article, it’s a complaint.

With a horse show happening every weekend, and sometimes multiple major events taking place in locations around the country on the same day, the Chronicle reporters spend countless weekends on the road. (See this month’s The Chronicle Connection for some fun stats!) But regardless of how many horses we see jumping jumps and cantering down centerline, a few special moments always leave a lasting impression long after the story is written and the results are old news.

In the grand scheme of things, I am not that old. But, there are times when I feel like a downright dinosaur.

To say that the Internet and cell phones have changed the face of journalism is a bit like saying that Shutterfly might be able to jump a bit. It’s a laughable understatement.

A few days before I left for Mexico I spent an evening at home, de-stressing in front of the television after a challenging week. The show detailed the difficulty an American faced when the Mexican police arrested her husband. After two days her husband’s bodyguard finally determined where he was being held, and the wife went to the police station to find him. There she had to take numbers and wait in lines all day, to be told alternately that the computers weren’t working or that she was on the wrong floor. This was not what I needed to see right before I left to work in Guadalajara.

Ten years ago, my dad and I were perched in the cab of his old Ford pickup, spellbound as we listened to Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit. As we traversed the hills between Maryland and Kentucky en route to Pony Club Championships, I envisioned myself piloting my 12.3-hand games pony as deftly as Red Pollard.

It was my sixth trip to Championships, and by that time my dad had become a seasoned veteran of the mounted games ring crew, a veritable expert at aligning bending poles and entirely deserving of the official championships name badge he wore with pride.

At the end of May, I relocated from the Chronicle’s base in pastoral Middleburg, Va., to Chicago. 

The move entailed myself, my gentleman friend and our rather portly but beloved Corgi leaving a horseperson’s utopia (which also happens to be in the highest median income county in the entire nation) and settling in a predominately Hispanic, low-income neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.

If you know me, you know there are two questions I will always answer “no” to. The first: Are you too full for ice cream? The second: Do you know how to get to (enter location here)?