When I purchased my 60 acre farm 15 years ago, my doors were open to the public. I was blessed to work with many fine horse owners. We had a lot of fun racing and everyone respected each other. My clients appreciated my hard work and were pleased with the condition and performance of their horses.

However, in all walks of life, there are “bad apples”. Over the past few years I have come in contact with a small handful of uncaring, disrespectful people who looked at their magnificent steeds as mere objects that should be treated like machines. This select group wanted their horses pushed beyond their limits and demanded they race when they were not 100% ready, mentally or physically, for the stress of competition. Not only did they not care about the welfare of the animal, they expected it to be done for little or no cost. All of these people eventually failed to pay for the entire cost of the upkeep on their horses. Having left me hanging with numerous debts, they moved on to their next victim.

Because of these few people, I have closed my doors to the public. While no longer accepting horses to train for others, I will maintain my own small string to race where and when I feel they are ready to do so, without the headache of some money hungry so-and-so constantly demanding too much of these beautiful creatures.

I will be updating the progress of my horses on my homepage at www.sharonsoileau.com. Please stop by to meet our “family” and follow your favorite horse!

Anyway, some of the prizes were tickets to some big football game later this month. Enis called it a super bowl or some such. He says the two best teams play against each other and it’s a really big deal. Anyway, Enis put his name in the drawing for those tickets ’cause they cost something like $1,500 a piece just to go watch them boys knock each other to the ground.  On the way in we saw a lady standing beside a rack of the purtiest fur coats you ever saw. I never seen a real fur coat ’cause peta don’t like people to have ‘em and well, I just never seen one. Them coats was the softest thing I ever did see. Some had two different colors of fur on them, some had real leather on the collars and cuffs and there was a snow white one and I just fell in love with that one!! That nice little lady said they was giving some of them away too. All I had to do was put my name on a piece of paper and drop it in a box and I might just win that purty white coat!

Well, me and Enis went walkin’ around and played some of them game machines. They sure were lots of fun. I played one called Jackpot Party, or somethin’ like that. I pushed a little button a few times, bells rang, lights flashed and it made the darndest commotion I ever saw! Then some fella came out and danced around and around. I don’t call what he was doin dancin’ but that’s what Enis said he was doin. Low and behold, that machine went to makin all sorts of noise, more lights flashed and bells rang, people went to hollerin and jumpin up and down like they all went crazy. Some official lookin fella came over and asked me for my name and all. Enis was just speechless, I tell ya. I didn’t know what in the world was going on but finally someone said I hit the jackpot!

The jackpot!! Lordy have mercy! They gave me $5,000!! All I did was put a few dollars in that machine, push a button a few times and they gave me money and two free meals to boot. I like this place. Enis said we should go get something to eat while we wait for the drawins. He said they had some really good eatin places here, and since they was free, we went to the buffet. There was people crammed in there like hogs at a trough!! I could sure see why ’cause man o man, that food smelled good enough to die for. There was everything you can imagine there. Ribs, brisket, pork chops, fish, shrimps, frog legs, tater salad, steak. I wanted to move in and just live there. Me and Enis ate a little bit of everything. I never tasted food so good in all my life.

Just when we got done eatin, they called the names of the winners for the football tickets. Enis fell over out of his chair when he heard his name called. He jumped up screamin, “we’re going to Florida” and hopped and bounced around like he had frogs in his pants. While we was collecting the tickets, they called the names for the ladies who had won them purty fur coats. It was my turn to jump up and down ’cause I won that white one I was so fond of.

What a nice place that casino is. They gave us food, football tickets, a fur coat and enough money to go see that football game! Florida, here we come!!

©SharonSoileau2010

 Everything was fine for a while. With the rollover minute feature, I always had a surplus of minutes. In January of 2007, I nearly had a heart attack when I viewed my bill. After years of having a cell phone, I had NEVER gone over my allotted minutes. But now, AT&T was telling me that I had gone WAAYYY over my allotment, to the tune of $500+ dollars.

I immediately requested a detailed copy of the bill. At first they sent the bill for the wrong month. I maintained there was a big mistake but AT&T would not hear of it. After finally receiving the correct bill, I spotted error after error. The first one was on Christmas Day. The bill reflected five calls between my daughter and myself between 4:15 and 4:30pm. At that particular time, we were both in my truck travelling west on Interstate 20, on our way home from my mother’s home in Dallas, Texas. Why in the world would we be calling each other on the phone when we were sitting in the truck together? Other mistakes I found were text messages to and from numbers I did not know at 2:00 and 3:00 am. The bill showed that the texts were sent from xxx-xxxx to zzz-zzzz. If these messages were from my phone, my number should have been listed in the spot where xxx-xxxx was listed.

I made phone calls to customer service, sent emails and wrote letters. NO ONE would talk to me. I practically begged someone, anyone, to go over the bill with me. Over the next couple of months, the amount of the bill gradually decreased, until I stopped trying to contact them. Then the bill jumped back up to over $500.00. This trend continued all year. I made dozens of attempts to contact AT&T about my bill. Every month I found instances where I was over charged. I also began recording the length of my calls. It was no surprise that when the bill came, every call was listed as being several minutes longer than what the timer on my phone said it was.

I even went so far as to scour AT&T’s website searching for all the email addresses I could find. I sent messages to executives, heads of departments, etc. Still, no response. Finally,  I spoke to a woman by the name of Ruth. She was extremely rude and told me “AT&T does not make mistakes and no one is going to go over this bill with you“.  That did it!  Screw AT&T!!

I have spoken to numerous people who went through the same experiences that I went through. One even asked if I would like to join in a class action lawsuit against AT&T. Damn right I would! I figure I over paid this company around $2,000-3,000 in 2007. At the end of the year, I went back to Alltel as my cell phone carrier and left a balance due of $958.00. I did not hear a word from AT&T about this bill until this month, more than two years after terminating my service with them.

They have had a collection company harassing me about payment. I have absolutely no intention of giving them another penny. I made extreme efforts to contact them and try to resolve this matter but they are the ones who refused. Now they can take that $958.00 and eat it.

I would like to hear from anyone who has had a similar experience with AT&T. I would love to sue them and get my money back. They are just  a big bully company with no concern for their customers. I believe that they padded people’s bills to pay Bell South for the purchase of the company. Let me hear from you!!

©SharonSoileau2010

For Christmas dinner, Enis near ’bout bought out the local grocery store. We had us glazed hams, fried turkeys, roasted ducks and all the trimmings you could imagine! Enis even got some of them little bitty weinies in barbeque sauce to snack on while we waited for all the other goodies to finish cooking. Just as we was finishing up our wonderful dinner, them darn petards showed up again. I just don’t understand why they won’t let folks be. There we were, minding our own business, eatin’ our delicious food and having a grand ole’ time when those scrawny little nerds, that’s what Enis calls ‘em, started yelling and screaming that we was murderers and some such nonsense, throwing rolls of toilet paper all over in the yard and breaking my windows with rocks!

Well, Enis’s new friends are big healthy boys ’cause they eat meat, just like my Enis. That’s my boy in that picture. Just look how big and healthy he is! Well, they marched outside to run the petards off. When them boys got outside, the nerds got real scared and started yelling “bikers! bikers!” and tried to run off down the street. Enis and his new friends jumped on them there motorsickles and took off after those bad little people. Why, they looked like they seen a ghost or something, the way they took off runnin’. I don’t really know what a biker is, but them petards sure were scared of them!

It wasn’t long ’till I heard them motorsickles roaring back up to the house. It was the darnest sight I ever seed. There was a petard strapped to the back of each motorsickle. All them skinny little fellows looked white as a sheet. They sure do need to get some red meat in their bellies and plenty of sunshine. Well, once they was all back in the yard, Enis’s new friends made them scoundrels clean up every bit of paper and glass there was. Then they made ‘em rake the leaves up and burn the piles. After that, one big burly fellow had ‘em empty their pockets of all the money they had. That nice young man gave it all to me to pay for my broken windows. Before they let the petards go, they had my windows taped up so the cold air didn’t come inside. Why, they even washed my car! Then the bikers let ‘em go. I never seen people run away so fast.

After all the commotion had settled down, everyone came back inside for dessert. Enis explained that his friends are called bikers ’cause they ride them motorsickles and petards are scared to death of them. Seems that nasty ole Ingrid and her nasty people is always tormenting ladies in fur coats ’cause they don’t fight back. Ain’t ladylike to fight, mind you. Since those sweet ladies won’t fight back, peta just keeps picking on them. But peta don’t mess with bikers ’cause them biker people will whup up on them! They don’t start no fights but they don’t let ugly people push them around neither.

I hope Enis brings his new friends around more often. They sure was alot of fun to have around. Now, thanks to them, I don’t have to rake my yard this winter!

©SharonSoileau2009

Several horses have managed numerous consecutive wins like the awesome Pepper’s Pride from New Mexico, Hallowed Dreams from Louisiana, Cigar, Citation, Personal Ensign, and the fabulous Zenyatta. Other greats are revered for their great contests against a certain rival, like Affirmed and Alydar, Sunday Silence and Easy Goer. Everyone has their favorites and every great horse has his or her own unique qualities, running styles and accomplishments.

But who is the greatest filly to ever set foot on the racetrack? Ruffian was a brilliant filly in her time and unfortunately unable to prove just how great she really was. Genuine Risk and Winning Colors both dominated the males with wins in the Kentucky Derby. Pan Zareta is, in my opinion, one of the greatest. She never won any major stakes races, maybe because her connections did not think enough of her to try her at the upper levels. This little red mare from Texas accomplished some amazing feats in her short life. Often running for purses of $300.00, she amassed a bankroll of  $39,082.00. She competed across the country. Her travels took her to Mexico, Texas, Montana, Idaho, Canada, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas and New York. She won regularly, despite being made to carry weights of 136, 140 and 146 pounds. During her few losses, she conceded as much as 44 pounds to her rivals. Not only could she carry weight, she could do it swiftly. In her 5 year career, she set or equalled 11 track records, twice equalled the American record of 1:04.3 for 5 1/2 furlongs and set a world record for 5 furlongs, blazing the track in 57.1.  Despite travelling from one end of the country to the other and carrying impossible weights, Pan Zareta won 76 of 151 starts with 31 seconds and 21 thirds. This true iron horse sadly perished on Christmas Day, 1918 from pneumonia at the age of 8 while stabled at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans and was buried in the infield.

Another outstanding filly was the Hungarian Kinscem, who made 54 starts from 1876 – 1879 and winning ALL of them. Unlike Pan Zareta, this fabulous filly’s career was handled with care and dignity. She competed in stakes races of all levels and made 54 starts in 4 seasons of racing, while Pan Zareta made 151 starts in 5 seasons. Just like Pan Zareta, Kinscem was assigned outrageous posts of weight. Toward the end of her career, Kinscem often carried 150 pounds, or more, and twice won at distances of 12 and 16 furlongs by open daylight carrying 160 pounds.

Today there is Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra. Who deserves to be Horse Of The Year? Both fillies are super athletes in their own right. Zenyatta completed her 5 year career on the race track in perfect fashion winning the Breeder’s Cup Classic against males while keeping her win streak perfect at 14 for 14. Rachel Alexandra, just a baby at three years old, competed against, and defeated, older males in the Grade 1 Woodward Stakes, which was her 11th start in as many months. Rachel’s record of 11 wins in 14 starts isn’t as flashy as Zenyatta’s perfect 14, but she accomplished this while competing at eight different racetracks. Zenyatta won 13 of her races, including the Breeder’s Cup, in her home state of California. While both fillies have stunned the world with their abilities and super powers, I feel like Rachel Alexandra should be crowned Horse Of  The Year because she has accomplised basically the same thing as Zenyatta but travelled extensively to do it while Zenyatta stayed at home. Also, Zenyatta is an older horse at 5 years old and Rachel is only three.

The greatest female of all time? While nothing can be taken away from the current superstars and brilliant fillies of the past, Pan Zareta has to be the greatest filly to ever compete. A gruelling schedule, massive loads of weight and criss-crossing the country, she still managed to win time and again, showing the true heart and grit of the classic Thoroughbred.

©SharonSoileau2009