It’s a moment we all dread. One second your group of friends is deciding where to go to lunch and the next, you’ve been volunteered as the group chauffeur. You wouldn’t mind driving, but each and every one of your seats (save the front because that’s where Puppy sits) has some array of equestrian accessories piled on top of it.
To be fair, headrests make phenomenal portable bridle racks. The top of the back seat is wide enough to fit the gullet of your saddle. Don’t forget about the trunk – that’s home to your tall boots, maybe some brushes, and a duffle bag you packed for the last show. It’s still there.
So, sorry friends. There’s no room for you.
This might encourage you to take a moment and assess the disarray that is your car. Do you really need to save that one bell boot that lost its buddy? What are you doing with that broken noseband that lives underneath the passenger seat?
We keep enough junk in our cars that their inventory is bigger than the local tack shop. Somehow, having access to such a wide variety eases our worries.
Have you ever thought about emptying it?
You’ll be struck by the horror of that idea at first, but then you might think it’s a good idea. Scrub the dirt away, then vacuum up the hay and shavings that pile up on the floors. You can take the crumpled papers off of the seats (it’s okay, it’s just last month’s show entries), and you’ll debate taking out your ribbons. Ultimately you’ll put them on your dashboard, and pray that if you leave the window down while you’re driving they won’t blow out.
Eventually you and your clean car will head to your next horse show. You’ll carefully pack it, taking extra care to place necessities in easy-to-reach places. You might even put down new rubber mats on the floor of your car to guard the cleanliness. Praise be to Febreze – you don’t even notice the smell that friends suggest comes from your mobile tack shop. From supplements to extra saddle pads, you’re good to go.
You’re unpacked and ready for the show. You go to lunge your horse and he canters around merrily on the line until someone’s pop-up tent falls over. Now it’s time to showcase the Lipizzaner moves he knows. Up he goes, and down he comes with a buck. He trips, and off pops a bell boot. You have the extra, right?
As you walk back to grab said bell boot, you realize there’s an official by your horse’s stall. She kindly asks if you have a copy of Horse’s Coggins. Of course you do! It’s somewhere in your tack-shop-on-wheels.
Remember that paper that was crumpled with the show receipts? While you might have a clean car, you do not have a spare bell boot and you certainly don’t have his Coggins.
The moral of this story, fellow mobile tack trunk drivers, is that it is perfectly acceptable to clean your car out. It’s also perfectly acceptable not to.