The term “barn rat” describes someone who chooses to spend large amounts of time at their local horse barn or training facility–to the extent that their presence begins to feel like an actual infestation!
Barn rats eat, sleep, and breathe horses and everything related. They are professionals who dedicate their careers to horse sport, health, or education. They’re also amateurs and young riders eager to lend a helping hand and learn, even if it means hanging around a barn in extreme weather or mucking out stalls day in and day out just to be in the environment they love.
Whether you’ve been obsessed with horses since childhood or you joined the equestrian community later in life, here are twenty-five sure signs that you’re hopelessly addicted:
- You frequently need to shake hay out of your hair or underwear.
- You talk to horses in full sentences and feel as if they are talking back.
- You’ve learned that the quickest way to get barn grime out of your fingernails is to wash your hair and let the strands floss it out.
- You breathe in enough manure dust regularly to wonder if you need semi-annual deworming.
- Your washing machine filter is full of horse hair, and you hang wet, musty-smelling saddle pads all over the house to dry.
- Your dogs recognize the difference between your walking socks and your riding socks.
- You think horse breath would make an excellent air freshener.
- You’ve ever used a hoof pick—new or used—to get something out of your teeth.
- Manure no longer makes you squeamish, unless it’s the fresh stuff, and it’s smeared all over your fingers–but you just wipe it off on the ground and go back to what you were doing.
- Your friends and family aren’t sure if you do anything other than go to the barn, and they don’t know what else to make conversation about.
- Your friends and family try to discuss horses with you, but they tend to ask the same well-meaning questions repeatedly.
- Your friends and family have finally realized how much time you spend at the barn, and now they keep asking you again because they really can’t understand it.
- A friend who has ridden once or twice tries to defend your assertion that riding is physically challenging by fervently stating, “It definitely takes some muscle–like when you have to post the trot!” And your explanation that posting is easier than sitting is met with blank stares.
- You’ve given up trying to talk to your friends and family about horses.
- You go to the grocery store with barn dirt and horse hair on your clothes and wonder how close people have to be to detect your horse odor.
- You can tell the difference between the smell of horses and the smells of other farm livestock.
- Your smartphone navigation thinks you work at the barn (even if you don’t) and automatically tags it as your “work” location.
- There are forty-plus horses at the barn, and you recognize them all by name and sight, but you still can’t always remember the name of the lady who has taken lessons with you there for the past eighteen months.
- You even find ways to spend time and money on horses during vacations.
- You spend more money on riding clothes and footwear than on your regular wardrobe.
- As a kid, you fantasized about riding your horse onstage at school talent shows.
- You’ve daydreamed about calming a runaway horse at a parade, thus saving the day and earning the admiration of onlookers with your horse skills.
- Being at the barn makes you dog tired but fills you with positive energy, and you can’t get enough.
- You want to learn about everything equine.
- You spend all of your time either at the barn or brainstorming ways to sustain and increase your barn rat habits.
If any of these symptoms ring true for you, welcome to the barn rat fold! We’re happy to have you. Every barn rat has a unique story and something to teach the rest of our community. Tell us your story, and it may appear in a future article.
