100 Percent Against It?
For his 10th birthday, the only thing my son wanted was to go ride horses. His birthday was on Aug. 2, and we scheduled a ride with a local stable in Hillsdale. Unfortunately, it was way too hot to get the horses out that day, so we rescheduled for a week later.
On Tuesday, Aug. 9, we were finally on our way to ride horses and fulfill my son’s birthday wish.
Unfortunately, things didn’t work out so well.
When the owner of the stable found out that I was hosting a trail run on the public access lands that he rides horses on, he canceled our ride. Regardless of my son’s crying, he insisted that my running on the trails was too great an insult to continue with our scheduled ride. I asked him to tell that to my son, and he did – to his face, as my son cried.
He told me, as my family stood, shocked, that he is 100 percent against us running on the public trails, and 100 percent against our race, even though we have had it scheduled for six months, spoken to the local stables, including the owner’s wife and provided the course we planned to run so that the horses could avoid us for the two hours of the race. I even offered free advertising for the stables and said I would allow them to have horses present to promote their business. No go.
When I called on Tuesday afternoon to try to negotiate with the owner, I was threatened (“If I see you on the trail I will cuss you out and I can’t say my horses won’t run you over”), cussed at (extensively and with great proficiency), and hung up on (three times).
Unfortunate. Here is what the local Hillsdale stable is 100 percent against:
• A 5k and 10k trail run benefiting the Miami County Cancer Foundation, who provide services to local cancer patients and their families
• A run in memory of my father, Les Gulley, who passed away in December from cancer
• A run that is supported by the community and local businesses, as is evident in the multitude of volunteers, sponsors – including Miami County Medical Center, First Option Bank, Sonic, Farmer’s Insurance, Moon’s Hometown Market – as well as the many runners from Cottonwood and Sunflower Elementary Schools.
• A run that promotes outdoor activities and a healthy life-style
• A run that includes several children, including my 10-year old, who also helped to design the course
• A chance to promote the beautiful trails at Hillsdale.
Luckily, my son’s birthday was salvaged by Lynn Benton, who not only let my boys ride his horses, but also gave them lessons, let them clean and brush the horses, and also provided it to them with patience and gentleness.
It is rare that I call out the negative in the area through this column, but I feel that it is important for everyone to know that the local stable was able to look a 10-year-old boy in the eye, while he cried, and deny him his one birthday wish for the sole reason that his father is a runner.
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on Aug 17 2011. Filed under Jeremy Gulley, Opinion.
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This man needs to be put out of business. I’m emailing Jeremys article to my 1500 contacts, mostly from Miami County. If he is against others using public access lands, on which he is making a profit and not paying the public for it, I’ll see if the public will refuse to access his business!
Thanks for your comments, Mike. The kicker is that before the race I took time to educate everyone on trail etiquette — I said that if they ever encounter a horse on the trail to speak to the horse and rider as soon as they see it, get off the trail and ask the rider for instructions. I’ve been running there for years and run into many horses and have never had an issue.