Mud Season Is Here (And This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things)

DeAnn Long Sloan, , Comments Off on Mud Season Is Here (And This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things)
Or: How Your Light-Colored Horse Destroyed Your Sanity

Some people have an autumn filled with beautiful foliage, crisp mornings, and cozy sweaters. Horse people might have those things, but we also have mud season — that magical time of year when the world hasn’t frozen yet, but the leaves are off the trees, and the pre-wintry mix of rain/slush/sleet turns into a brown soup and your light-colored horse takes it as a personal challenge to become the same shade as a swamp monster.

If you own a gray, a paint, a palomino, or heaven help you, a cremello… this one’s for you. Solidarity. Thoughts and prayers. May your laundry detergent be strong and your sanity stronger.

Here are eight sure-fire signs you’re in the thick of mud season with a light-colored horse:

Sign #1: Your Horse Awakens Each Morning With One Goal — Destroy All Cleanliness

You spent hours grooming yesterday. You curry-combed. You brushed. You bathed. You prayed. You even used the expensive whitening shampoo that smells like angel tears and crushed lavender.

Your horse?

He woke up, walked straight outside, made eye contact with you across the field, and sat down in the only mud puddle big enough to swallow a SmartCar.

He didn’t roll. He marinated.

The infamous pony named Pony after a good roll in the mud. Photo by DeAnn Long Sloan.

Sign #2: The Science of Mud Magnetism (You Didn’t Ask, but Here We Are)

Light-colored horses possess an extraordinary and totally unstudied natural phenomenon called Gravitational Mud Attraction.

How else do you explain that:

  • Their legs attract mud from six feet away
  • Their tails drag through muck even when they’re tied up
  • Their manes sponge up dirt from the air
  • Every other horse in the pasture looks… fine?

It’s physics, probably. Or spite.

She’s not at all sorry. Photo by DeAnn Long Sloan

Sign #3: The Futility of Grooming Becomes a Core Personality Trait

You begin the season optimistic: This year will be different. This year I’ll stay ahead of the mud.

Then you walk into the barn and your once-white horse looks like a Jackson Pollock painting done entirely in brown.

You:

  • Curry for 15 minutes
  • Brush for 20
  • Get out the detangler
  • Try a damp rag
  • Try a stiff brush
  • Try making bargains with the universe
  • Consider shaving the horse
  • Consider shaving your own head just to feel in control of something

And after all that?

He still looks “vintage beige.”

Tequila sporting her version of “vintage beige.” Photo by DeAnn Long Sloan

Sign #4: The Tail That Never Dries

There is no wet object on earth wetter than a dirty, soaking, mud-saturated horse tail in November (except maybe a dirty, soaking, mud-saturated horse tail in March).

You can wring it out like a mop.
You can blow-dry it (don’t lie, we’ve all tried).
You can threaten it.
You can braid it.

It won’t matter. At some point, that tail is going to slap you across the face and baptize you in the waters of your own poor life choices.

Sign #5: Whitening Shampoo Season Begins

This is when your barn aisle becomes a crime scene of purple stains and ruined shirts.

Your horse looks like a deity after a long day at the spa. You look like Barney the dinosaur had an allergic reaction on your hands.

Sign #6: Your Tack Becomes an Accessory to Chaos

It doesn’t matter that your saddle is dark brown.

It will come away from the ride covered in mud smudges shaped like your horse thought about being clean and then changed his mind.

Also, there will be mud on your reins.
On your gloves.
On your breeches.
Inside your boots somehow.
In your truck.
On your dog.
On your soul.

Mondays GIFfrom Mud GIFs

Sign #7: Acceptance

Somewhere around week three you stop trying to fight it.

Your horse is filth.
You are filth.
The world is filth.

You realize the only way to win is to embrace it.

You start using phrases like:

“He’s clean for November.”
“This is his natural ombré.”
“I’m going for a rustic look.”
“That’s not mud — it’s just aggressive shadowing.”

Pony with the zoomies following a mud bath. Photo by DeAnn Long Sloan

Sign #8: The Triumph (Temporary, Fragile, Beautiful)

One glorious day, the mud dries. Or freezes (it doesn’t really matter — it’s not mud anymore).

Your light-colored horse finally turns back into the majestic creature you vaguely remember.

You take pictures.
You post them online.
You say things like “He’s SO white right now!”

And then he walks to the largest pile of manure he can find and lies down.

And So, We Ride On

Mud season is a yearly battle that none of us win, but all of us survive. Barely. Your light-colored horse will look like a disaster. Your grooming tools will live in a state of emergency. Your blood pressure will rise every time it rains. And your muck boot? Lost somewhere in the muck and mire next to the run-in shed.

But hey — at least we’re all in this muddy, messy, beige-tinted chaos together.

May your horse stay (sort of) clean, your sanity hold strong, and your mud puddles be shallow.