May 23, 2025 • 25 mins
For L.A. Berry horses have been her life personally and professionally! As a journalist she puts her heart and soul in every piece she writes to make a difference for the horses and the people who love them! And as an ambassador for the Seen Through Horses Campaign she walks the talk for these majestic creatures.
EPISODE NOTES: Horsing Around for Memorial Day
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EPISODE NOTES: Horsing Around for Memorial Day
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rappaport-to-the-rescue-on-pet-life-radio-petliferadio-com--6667849/support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Live.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is Pet Life Radio. Let's talk Pets.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Rapaport to the Rescue with award winning animal advocate, best
selling author, journalist, and pet products creator Jill Rapaport.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'm Jill Rapaport, and welcome to Rapaport to the Rescue.
I hope you're all getting ready for a wonderful Memorial
Day weekend. I have a very special day planned. I
am going back to the shelter that I'm on the
board of Southampton Animal Shelter. You've heard me talk about
my beloved Oscar Meyer. I lost him in September, my
(00:42):
little Doxy that was the last dog that I rescued
from Southampton Animal Shelter. He was eight years young. He
changed my life forever and my heart has been broken
ever since I said goodbye to him in September. I
also had Ruby, my other beloved docs who I lost
during COVID. And there's something about those Doxies that touch
(01:05):
your heart in a way that is so special. I
have so many rescue dogs, all shapes and sizes, but
the Doxies are fearless leaders. Nothing frightens them, and the
love that they give back to you is just so
addicting and so heartwarming that I can still feel the
(01:25):
kisses of both those dogs every day. So needless to
say every time I go into Southampton Animal Shelter, because
I do a campaign there called Home for the Holidays
where I highlight the underdogs, the seniors, the bully Breeze,
and the special needs. And we've gotten ninety eight percent
of them adopted. And these are the hardest to adopt animals,
(01:46):
as I say, the patient pets, the lifers that have
been sitting there for most of their lives. And thank goodness,
these videos that I've done have made a difference to
get them a forever home. But every time I walk
into the shelter, it's a running joke because I say
to the front desk, hey, any red Mini docsins come
in today, and they all laugh and say, no, Joe,
(02:08):
no Red Mini Doxies. Well, wouldn't you know. I walked
in last week and I said, hey, any Red Mini Doxies.
Gave me the same answer no. So I continued on filming,
did five videos, had some meetings with some people while
I was there. The lovely Ashley bloom And says, you
(02:28):
will not believe it. Someone showed up with this little
senior boy who was found wandering in the woods, no microchip,
no collar, just wandering around near the highway in the woods.
And they brought him to us and I looked at
his face. He's very old, it's snow white. He was
(02:50):
literally so happy just to be sitting in a bed.
He must have been traveling on those little legs for days,
Heaven only knows. And he was sleeping and could barely
move his head. And I said, you know what, let's
post him. Let's give everybody a chance to know he's here.
Hopefully his pet parent is going to come and get him.
(03:10):
They must be heartbroken. We waited six days now one
person nobody claimed him. His pet parents, whoever, they were gone,
and it just broke my heart. So what do you
think I'm doing today? I am going to pick up
this little boy who by the way, when I said,
(03:31):
how is he? What's his health? What's his approximate age?
Because the wonderful vetter Terry Meekins had to do a
medical work up on him. They basically told me that
they found that he had severe dental disease, a grade
two three heart murmur, cataracts, and a large prostate. His
skin is yeasty and oh yeah, he probably has severe
hearing loss. I said, when can I get him? And
(03:55):
I am so excited to pick him up. He's anywhere
for I'm thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years of age. But all
I can tell you, I've seen it happen before. When
you give these dogs a chance, when you take them
in in the most horrific situations, I have seen them
thrive and live out their lives and live to have
(04:20):
the most incredible lives, way past the expectation. I've seen
that happen so many times that I don't look at
the age anymore. And that's what I want to tell
all of you. I pray, I hope when he gets
here he gets along with my pack, and I pray
that he has many many years. But whatever time this
(04:41):
little boy has, it's going to be with love, caring, attention,
and a beautiful life that we're going to give him
for whatever days, months, and hopefully years that he has.
And on a final note, because Oscar Meyer named after
hot dog, obviously, I thought, in honor of Oscar Meyer,
(05:04):
we have to follow that route, and I thought, what
would be a cute hot dog name? So this little
boy is going to be called Nathan Rapaport, as in
Nathan's hot Dogs, and I decided to give him a
middle name. He's going to be called Nathan Detroit Rapaport
because I'm from Detroit, and in honor of guys and dolls,
(05:24):
I love entertainment, so I mixed in a little bit
of everything I do where I'm from, the hot dog legacy,
and in honor of my last doxy I lost, Oscar Meyer.
Nathan Rapaport is going to be picked up today and
we cannot wait to get him home and I cannot
wait to smother that little white face with kisses and love. Okay, Well,
(05:49):
on that note, I'd like to talk about our guests
coming up. I'm very excited about her. We've never really
done a person that has a job quite like this.
She is an amazing journalists and writer focusing on her
love of horses. Her name is La Barry, and she's
part of this incredible campaign called Scene through Horses, which
(06:11):
kicked off in May, and I've been part of it
and I've been supporting it since its inception. It's amazing
with this organization, what this campaign does to bring awareness
to horses and people who love them and how they
change our lives. So when we come back, La Barry
and I'll probably talk a little bit more about Nathan Detroit.
(06:31):
Rappaport stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
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(06:59):
Headline Radio, okat Light Radio dot Com.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Welcome back to Rappaport to the Rescue. I'm Joe Rappaport,
very excited for my guests today, journalist and equestrian La Barry.
Now La is a fellow New Yorker and Horses for
Mental Health ambassador. It's an amazing campaign that I've been
part of and she's here to chat about her lifelong
passion and connection to horses and Seen through Horses Campaign
(07:33):
an amazing social media campaign by Horses for Mental Health
that runs through the month of May during Mental Health
Awareness Month, and it supports ninety five nonprofits around the
country incorporating horses into their personal growth and mental health programs.
(07:54):
I'm so thrilled to have you here, La, I know
this is so near and dear to your heart.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
I wish our audience can see this beautiful, energetic face
that you have a smile that is just magical. La.
I'm so happy to have you here.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Jill, I am so happy to be here. You and
I have actually been neighbors in the digital hemispheres for years. Exactly.
We're both Hampton Classic horse show girls, so I'm very
very sure that our bridle pads intersect in a dozen
different ways.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Well, it's funny you mentioned Hampton Classic. I go every
year to cover Adoption Day because, as I joke with
my fellow Pales animal advocates Georgina Bloomberg, Brionn Gutal, Jessica Springsteen,
I said, the only thing I've ever jumped are the
ropes of a ralph Laurence sample Cell. I am not
an equestrian in that sense at all, but I go
(08:51):
to support adoption Day. We have horses and dogs and cats,
amazing animals up for adoption, so that's my role. But
you know, I do love to watch and we should
talk about first of all, this campaign, the fact that
this is airing, that we're putting this out there today.
This is so significant because of Memorial Day weekend.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Right Horses for Mental Health and the Scene through Horses
campaign could not pick a better time mental health awareness
this month, and now we're coming into the Memorial Day weekend,
and I have seen firsthand the kind of magic that
happens in a restorative, emotional and physical sense between veterans
(09:36):
and horses. Those who have served us can find open,
willing partners in four legged friends exactly. And horses really
do have a heart that is large enough that there
are studies to suggest that the magnetic waves off of
(09:58):
their big heart literally attuned to ours, that we become
heart to heart synchronized. It's one of the beliefs of
a good friend of mine, Linda Tellington Jones. You know,
so this veteran's this holiday weekend, go out and horse around.
It literally does a world of good all over my
(10:20):
horses every day.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And I'm always hugging and kissing them, and I'm going
to give them extra hugs and kisses in honor of
this campaign, the whole idea of it and what horses
give back to us and you're talking about the veterans,
but I know firsthand, just for me, the support and
the love and the connection when you have a bond
with your horse and those who are fortunate enough to
(10:42):
be surrounded by horses. We know that bond, don't we, La.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
We know that bond because horse girls don't have fingernails.
Between that and grooming with the shedding blade, getting out
of the winter and into the spring, forget about it
that in gardening you can know a horsewoman by her.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Nails, Oh exactly. And the muck boots too, right, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
But you know with the Hampton classic too. I think
we share a connection. One of the participants this year
has been Lauren Reischer, and she was one of the
Long Island Riders titleist back in I think twenty fifteen.
I interviewed her for Horse Illustrated Magazine. She's an incredible story.
Her dad, Saul, was on the board for a gallop
(11:27):
New York City and Lauren was born with Siba palsy.
Her legs were so tightly bound together it's called the
mermaid Saint John, and her legs did not open until
her dad took her to her therapeutic riding camp. She
got on this humongous Clydesdale and she said it was
like her body woke up and said yes, I know
(11:50):
what to do. And maybe she was about five years old,
miracle boom her legs for the first time, said yes,
I want to be on this horse. And twenty years
later she was on the Brown University equestrian team and
she was champion at Hampton Classic.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Unbelievable story, unbelievable and one that you would be surprised
has happened over and over again for different people in
different situations where horses have brought them back to life. Literally,
I want to talk about u La and where this
love began for you as a child, your first saddle
bread tell us about that story.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Oh my goodness. Well, you know, I thought about sending
the picture because really my first horse was Foufoy, a plastic,
squeaky Palomino, And there's a photo of me at eighteen
months old on my mom's couch and I've got this
Palomino in my lap that's almost as big as I am.
But from there, when I was nine and in the
(12:48):
four AH Horse Club, one of the young women in
it was aging out of four AH and she was
getting married and moving to Germany, and she had a
Palomino that I soon was at least part saddlebread because
the American saddlebread was really popular in television and movie
production in the fifties and sixties.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Roy Rogen's Trigger was a saddlebread.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
My palamino was named Trigger, and I have such a
love of palomino's. The first horse I ever rode, at
six years old at Outland Riding Stables in Michigan, was
a Palomino named pal and I had my beloved sun Dance,
gorgeous golden Palomino. So I share that connection with you. Well,
I'm a sucker for those yellow horses, Yes, me too.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Trigger was my first one, and by being in fouration,
I was the secretary, so I had to take notes
at the meetings. Now, my dad had been a newswriter
for the Coastguard, so he had the job of taking
me to the four h club meetings in the evening,
and he decided that to make the suggestion, since I'm
(13:58):
taking these notes, there's this educational information that's being shared,
why not put it in a form that could be
presented to the county newspaper. So we went and we
talked to the editor and he thought it was a
great idea and recommended maybe I put some funny little
quip or a factorid at the end. So by the
time I was about twelve fifteen years old, I had
(14:19):
my own byline and I've been doomed ever since.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Unbelievable. First of all, I think Winnie's a big fan
of your She's one of my dogs barking in the background.
Please excuse the noise. The minute I start talking about Palomino,
she chimed in, Whinnie, Winnie, Mommy's trying to do a podcast.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
I closed the door. I'm expecting my rescue Tom to
want to push it open and come in. I'm expecting
that scratch, scratch scratch sound any moment.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Now, forgive me. I hope it's not distracting. But you know,
when you're on this show, you're gonna hear animals because
I'm surrounded by him, and so are my guests. But
that's an amazing story. How you got into the business,
How this horse changed your life. And I've never known
somebody who's focused their whole career around horses, just for
in the writing and everything about it. Tell me what
(15:08):
it does for you, How it feeds your soul.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Well, it feeds my soul. To begin, the horse industry contributes,
I think off the top of my head right now,
is about twenty one billion dollars a year to the
gross domestic product that in its height was more than tobacco, lumber,
and the movie industries combined. Oh wow, it's there, and
(15:32):
there are so many amazing different branches of this niche.
So I grew up watching the Olympics and then I, uh,
like I said, I had trigger. I had a buckskin again.
I like those yellow and dun horses.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Love those light horses.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, I had a buckskin named mea Valentine that my
parents gave me on Valentine's Day. So she was the
first horse I learned to train. And then I have
to thank my combined degrees at SUNI journalism and then
equine business management at Johnson and Wales, which was a
hospitality and culinary school. Trust me, if you were in
the equine department, all you ever heard were jokes about
(16:11):
so are they teaching you to cook horses?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Oh no, oh, I can't even go there. I'm a vegan.
Don't even get me started.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
It got me into working for the US Equestrian team.
I ran media at the Olympics. I've had the privilege
as a horse crazy little girl to literally work with
my heroes, horses and human I've even gotten to copyright
for Briar. I mean, I've got three hundred horses against
the few over my shoulder. Oh, I have my Briar horses.
(16:42):
I've worked with some amazing people. I worked on Jovis
Presley collection.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Oh wow, So how unbelievable. You know, it's so funny
we talk about our love of the light horses, the Pallominos,
the buckskins, the cover of my book. People we know horses.
They love Robert Redford and he's on arm his gorgeous Palomino.
There is something about the Palomino and the Roy Rogers,
the whole feeling. Christy Brinkley and I talk about this
(17:07):
all the time too. That was her favorite horse, and
she was obsessed with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Dale
Evans had a buckskin utterably buttermilk right, and so just
they're magical, beautiful animals. I love all horses, but it's
so funny how we share that connection and how you
turned it your passion into your life's work. And your oxygen.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Well, it's magical because as a child of the sixties,
I'm sure it resonates for both of us what the
feminist movement, what the pursuit of equality has meant to
our country. And Olympic equestrian sport is one of the
very few. Oh I used to know it off the
(17:50):
top of my head when I worked for the team.
I think it's Archery and crew are the other two
where men and women compete equally, not only men and women,
but there is no age division. I can remember. I
think it was the Beijing Olympics. There was a Japanese
dressashweider who was in his seventies and he's competing against
(18:12):
young women who are in their twenties. The horse has
always been such an amazing equalizer, and that I think
has been one of its most compelling aspects. That made
it a great place to have a niche to write
in is because the horse sees everybody equally all the time.
(18:33):
It's such a great environment.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Well for you, not only is it your career, but
you're also a huge animal advocate and you appreciate them
for what they give back and how much they can
help us as human beings with our life. They really
are just a life force that changes us in so
many ways.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I know.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
For me, I covered and did a horrific story about
the horse racing industry where we went upstate where eighty
six horses were living off rain, water and wood fencing
for protein to live. Literally, they were retired race horses
that were dumped and left to die. And I did
this expose and we ended up saving over sixty five
(19:14):
of them. Sadly many didn't make it, but the majority did.
And my report it was a two part story on
the Today Show. We showed where they went on to
find loving homes. It's very hard for me. I can't
support the horse racing industry. I can't even watch those races.
I know everybody's with the mint julips and the hats
(19:34):
of the Kentucky Derby, but I look at it differently.
Do you ever wrestle with that? Because some of the
side of the business that's not animal welfare is very
tough to deal with enormously So when I stepped in
in the nineteen nineties to the equestrian team's publicity offices,
it was just as Sports Illustrated was breaking the blood
(19:58):
money scandal about show jumping and trestage horses being murdered
for their insurance money, and how they hired a guy
they nicknamed the Sandman who would go into the barnes
at night with a car battery and hook one end
to the rectum in the other end of the ear
and it would make the horse look as if it had,
(20:21):
unfortunately had a heart attack. Oh, I can't even listen
to this. So it must be very difficult for you
because it's your job to write about the world of horses.
But I would imagine you're conflicted at times.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
I'm never conflicted because I always stand on the side
of righteousness. I make different organizations get very conflicted over me.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Good for you.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Without naming names, I have to confess it. Just last
week I motivated one international organization to do a late night,
last minute zoom with both its marketing and legal departments
over and article I was writing about sport horse abuse.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Good for you. I know you've taken a strong stand,
but because you do cover the whole sport, have you
ever done a story that afterwards LA thought, Wow, I
wish I didn't cover that or give any press or
any attention to it.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Not a story per se. But for a number of
years I subcontracted with another publicity, equestrian publicity service in
Florida that picked up a writer, Tussage, writer from Columbia
whose videos have become quite notorious. He became a US citizen,
(21:42):
and he competed in the Pan American Games. But he's
got some horrific training methods that have since come out.
And I look back on a couple of those years
of doing his press releases after a show and yes,
you know, feeling like you want to take a shower.
So I've purged my files of that. The equestrian legal
(22:05):
system will handle him as it may. But most of
the time, like I said, I can always look at
my own face in the mirror in the morning and
answer to myself. I live right here outside of Saratoga.
I've written for Saratoga Today's magazine for almost ten years,
(22:25):
but I can still find both the positive aspects and
I think I've been in the sport long enough to
make recommendations that I hope will help see the sport grow. Certainly, holistically,
we have the very fact that we recognize the horse's
place with veterans. That's a huge, huge, surge in our
(22:47):
industry is the therapeutic and veterans is support side of it.
We now have a wonderful cartoon representative and actually she
was on the campaign too, a good friend of mine,
Geen Abinathy, who created an illustrated Fergus the horse. Now
we have Fergus in our life. Now we're breaking down
(23:09):
more barriers. Another participant who I introduced to this campaign
because I just interviewed him, is an NFL football player
with the Miami Dolphins, Pharaoh Brown. Pharaoh Brown loves working
equitation and dressage, and he owns a four year old Fresian.
(23:29):
These are fabulous things that I don't think we will
have had to talk about thirty or forty years ago,
so having people write about it bring it to the public.
I've always felt my goal is to sort of play
that bridge between the horse industry and the people who
want to be around horses. So I'm still optimistic. I'm
(23:50):
more optimistic than ashamed. But the horse business does still
need to do better and do right more often.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Well. That is a wonderful an important message to end
this interview on. And thanks to people like you, La Barry,
you are making a difference for these steeds in need,
and we need more people like you to do this
because we're their voice.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
They see us better than we can see ourselves. And
that's why Seen through Horses campaign we've hit three hundred
thousand dollars. The month isn't over yet.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Like John D.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Rockefeller said, never be ashamed to ask for money for
something you believe in. So give, Give to the Horses
for mental Health, give to this campaign.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And this is the final weekend, kicking off this wonderful,
heartfelt weekend with just a beautiful message from you, and
I am so happy to have finally met you. And
let's see.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Each other at the Hampton Classic.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
I will be there Adoption Day. Let's hang out.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
What do you say if Georgie throws another great brunch? Absolutely,
Georgina Bloomberg. Georgina has enjoyed my press box at Long
Jean's on the Island Governor's Island as a matter of fact.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
So yeah, we go back to well you are fabulous.
This is a joy and the perfect interview, the perfect
subject for the holiday weekend. We hope everybody has a safe,
wonderful time. If you're blessed enough like La and I
are to be around these majestic beautiful creatures big and small.
(25:29):
Give them an extra hug and kiss this weekend, and
thank you all for joining us on the special Memorial
Day edition of Wrap. Report to the Rescue
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Let's talk beats every week on demand only on petlive
radio dot com
Live.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is Pet Life Radio. Let's talk Pets.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Rapaport to the Rescue with award winning animal advocate, best
selling author, journalist, and pet products creator Jill Rapaport.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'm Jill Rapaport, and welcome to Rapaport to the Rescue.
I hope you're all getting ready for a wonderful Memorial
Day weekend. I have a very special day planned. I
am going back to the shelter that I'm on the
board of Southampton Animal Shelter. You've heard me talk about
my beloved Oscar Meyer. I lost him in September, my
(00:42):
little Doxy that was the last dog that I rescued
from Southampton Animal Shelter. He was eight years young. He
changed my life forever and my heart has been broken
ever since I said goodbye to him in September. I
also had Ruby, my other beloved docs who I lost
during COVID. And there's something about those Doxies that touch
(01:05):
your heart in a way that is so special. I
have so many rescue dogs, all shapes and sizes, but
the Doxies are fearless leaders. Nothing frightens them, and the
love that they give back to you is just so
addicting and so heartwarming that I can still feel the
(01:25):
kisses of both those dogs every day. So needless to
say every time I go into Southampton Animal Shelter, because
I do a campaign there called Home for the Holidays
where I highlight the underdogs, the seniors, the bully Breeze,
and the special needs. And we've gotten ninety eight percent
of them adopted. And these are the hardest to adopt animals,
(01:46):
as I say, the patient pets, the lifers that have
been sitting there for most of their lives. And thank goodness,
these videos that I've done have made a difference to
get them a forever home. But every time I walk
into the shelter, it's a running joke because I say
to the front desk, hey, any red Mini docsins come
in today, and they all laugh and say, no, Joe,
(02:08):
no Red Mini Doxies. Well, wouldn't you know. I walked
in last week and I said, hey, any Red Mini Doxies.
Gave me the same answer no. So I continued on filming,
did five videos, had some meetings with some people while
I was there. The lovely Ashley bloom And says, you
(02:28):
will not believe it. Someone showed up with this little
senior boy who was found wandering in the woods, no microchip,
no collar, just wandering around near the highway in the woods.
And they brought him to us and I looked at
his face. He's very old, it's snow white. He was
(02:50):
literally so happy just to be sitting in a bed.
He must have been traveling on those little legs for days,
Heaven only knows. And he was sleeping and could barely
move his head. And I said, you know what, let's
post him. Let's give everybody a chance to know he's here.
Hopefully his pet parent is going to come and get him.
(03:10):
They must be heartbroken. We waited six days now one
person nobody claimed him. His pet parents, whoever, they were gone,
and it just broke my heart. So what do you
think I'm doing today? I am going to pick up
this little boy who by the way, when I said,
(03:31):
how is he? What's his health? What's his approximate age?
Because the wonderful vetter Terry Meekins had to do a
medical work up on him. They basically told me that
they found that he had severe dental disease, a grade
two three heart murmur, cataracts, and a large prostate. His
skin is yeasty and oh yeah, he probably has severe
hearing loss. I said, when can I get him? And
(03:55):
I am so excited to pick him up. He's anywhere
for I'm thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years of age. But all
I can tell you, I've seen it happen before. When
you give these dogs a chance, when you take them
in in the most horrific situations, I have seen them
thrive and live out their lives and live to have
(04:20):
the most incredible lives, way past the expectation. I've seen
that happen so many times that I don't look at
the age anymore. And that's what I want to tell
all of you. I pray, I hope when he gets
here he gets along with my pack, and I pray
that he has many many years. But whatever time this
(04:41):
little boy has, it's going to be with love, caring, attention,
and a beautiful life that we're going to give him
for whatever days, months, and hopefully years that he has.
And on a final note, because Oscar Meyer named after
hot dog, obviously, I thought, in honor of Oscar Meyer,
(05:04):
we have to follow that route, and I thought, what
would be a cute hot dog name? So this little
boy is going to be called Nathan Rapaport, as in
Nathan's hot Dogs, and I decided to give him a
middle name. He's going to be called Nathan Detroit Rapaport
because I'm from Detroit, and in honor of guys and dolls,
(05:24):
I love entertainment, so I mixed in a little bit
of everything I do where I'm from, the hot dog legacy,
and in honor of my last doxy I lost, Oscar Meyer.
Nathan Rapaport is going to be picked up today and
we cannot wait to get him home and I cannot
wait to smother that little white face with kisses and love. Okay, Well,
(05:49):
on that note, I'd like to talk about our guests
coming up. I'm very excited about her. We've never really
done a person that has a job quite like this.
She is an amazing journalists and writer focusing on her
love of horses. Her name is La Barry, and she's
part of this incredible campaign called Scene through Horses, which
(06:11):
kicked off in May, and I've been part of it
and I've been supporting it since its inception. It's amazing
with this organization, what this campaign does to bring awareness
to horses and people who love them and how they
change our lives. So when we come back, La Barry
and I'll probably talk a little bit more about Nathan Detroit.
(06:31):
Rappaport stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Begging to hear more of your favorite show, Colful. Episodes
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(06:59):
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Speaker 1 (07:08):
Welcome back to Rappaport to the Rescue. I'm Joe Rappaport,
very excited for my guests today, journalist and equestrian La Barry.
Now La is a fellow New Yorker and Horses for
Mental Health ambassador. It's an amazing campaign that I've been
part of and she's here to chat about her lifelong
passion and connection to horses and Seen through Horses Campaign
(07:33):
an amazing social media campaign by Horses for Mental Health
that runs through the month of May during Mental Health
Awareness Month, and it supports ninety five nonprofits around the
country incorporating horses into their personal growth and mental health programs.
(07:54):
I'm so thrilled to have you here, La, I know
this is so near and dear to your heart.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
I wish our audience can see this beautiful, energetic face
that you have a smile that is just magical. La.
I'm so happy to have you here.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Jill, I am so happy to be here. You and
I have actually been neighbors in the digital hemispheres for years. Exactly.
We're both Hampton Classic horse show girls, so I'm very
very sure that our bridle pads intersect in a dozen
different ways.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Well, it's funny you mentioned Hampton Classic. I go every
year to cover Adoption Day because, as I joke with
my fellow Pales animal advocates Georgina Bloomberg, Brionn Gutal, Jessica Springsteen,
I said, the only thing I've ever jumped are the
ropes of a ralph Laurence sample Cell. I am not
an equestrian in that sense at all, but I go
(08:51):
to support adoption Day. We have horses and dogs and cats,
amazing animals up for adoption, so that's my role. But
you know, I do love to watch and we should
talk about first of all, this campaign, the fact that
this is airing, that we're putting this out there today.
This is so significant because of Memorial Day weekend.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Right Horses for Mental Health and the Scene through Horses
campaign could not pick a better time mental health awareness
this month, and now we're coming into the Memorial Day weekend,
and I have seen firsthand the kind of magic that
happens in a restorative, emotional and physical sense between veterans
(09:36):
and horses. Those who have served us can find open,
willing partners in four legged friends exactly. And horses really
do have a heart that is large enough that there
are studies to suggest that the magnetic waves off of
(09:58):
their big heart literally attuned to ours, that we become
heart to heart synchronized. It's one of the beliefs of
a good friend of mine, Linda Tellington Jones. You know,
so this veteran's this holiday weekend, go out and horse around.
It literally does a world of good all over my
(10:20):
horses every day.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And I'm always hugging and kissing them, and I'm going
to give them extra hugs and kisses in honor of
this campaign, the whole idea of it and what horses
give back to us and you're talking about the veterans,
but I know firsthand, just for me, the support and
the love and the connection when you have a bond
with your horse and those who are fortunate enough to
(10:42):
be surrounded by horses. We know that bond, don't we, La.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
We know that bond because horse girls don't have fingernails.
Between that and grooming with the shedding blade, getting out
of the winter and into the spring, forget about it
that in gardening you can know a horsewoman by her.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Nails, Oh exactly. And the muck boots too, right, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
But you know with the Hampton classic too. I think
we share a connection. One of the participants this year
has been Lauren Reischer, and she was one of the
Long Island Riders titleist back in I think twenty fifteen.
I interviewed her for Horse Illustrated Magazine. She's an incredible story.
Her dad, Saul, was on the board for a gallop
(11:27):
New York City and Lauren was born with Siba palsy.
Her legs were so tightly bound together it's called the
mermaid Saint John, and her legs did not open until
her dad took her to her therapeutic riding camp. She
got on this humongous Clydesdale and she said it was
like her body woke up and said yes, I know
(11:50):
what to do. And maybe she was about five years old,
miracle boom her legs for the first time, said yes,
I want to be on this horse. And twenty years
later she was on the Brown University equestrian team and
she was champion at Hampton Classic.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Unbelievable story, unbelievable and one that you would be surprised
has happened over and over again for different people in
different situations where horses have brought them back to life. Literally,
I want to talk about u La and where this
love began for you as a child, your first saddle
bread tell us about that story.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Oh my goodness. Well, you know, I thought about sending
the picture because really my first horse was Foufoy, a plastic,
squeaky Palomino, And there's a photo of me at eighteen
months old on my mom's couch and I've got this
Palomino in my lap that's almost as big as I am.
But from there, when I was nine and in the
(12:48):
four AH Horse Club, one of the young women in
it was aging out of four AH and she was
getting married and moving to Germany, and she had a
Palomino that I soon was at least part saddlebread because
the American saddlebread was really popular in television and movie
production in the fifties and sixties.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Roy Rogen's Trigger was a saddlebread.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
My palamino was named Trigger, and I have such a
love of palomino's. The first horse I ever rode, at
six years old at Outland Riding Stables in Michigan, was
a Palomino named pal and I had my beloved sun Dance,
gorgeous golden Palomino. So I share that connection with you. Well,
I'm a sucker for those yellow horses, Yes, me too.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Trigger was my first one, and by being in fouration,
I was the secretary, so I had to take notes
at the meetings. Now, my dad had been a newswriter
for the Coastguard, so he had the job of taking
me to the four h club meetings in the evening,
and he decided that to make the suggestion, since I'm
(13:58):
taking these notes, there's this educational information that's being shared,
why not put it in a form that could be
presented to the county newspaper. So we went and we
talked to the editor and he thought it was a
great idea and recommended maybe I put some funny little
quip or a factorid at the end. So by the
time I was about twelve fifteen years old, I had
(14:19):
my own byline and I've been doomed ever since.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Unbelievable. First of all, I think Winnie's a big fan
of your She's one of my dogs barking in the background.
Please excuse the noise. The minute I start talking about Palomino,
she chimed in, Whinnie, Winnie, Mommy's trying to do a podcast.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
I closed the door. I'm expecting my rescue Tom to
want to push it open and come in. I'm expecting
that scratch, scratch scratch sound any moment.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Now, forgive me. I hope it's not distracting. But you know,
when you're on this show, you're gonna hear animals because
I'm surrounded by him, and so are my guests. But
that's an amazing story. How you got into the business,
How this horse changed your life. And I've never known
somebody who's focused their whole career around horses, just for
in the writing and everything about it. Tell me what
(15:08):
it does for you, How it feeds your soul.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Well, it feeds my soul. To begin, the horse industry contributes,
I think off the top of my head right now,
is about twenty one billion dollars a year to the
gross domestic product that in its height was more than tobacco, lumber,
and the movie industries combined. Oh wow, it's there, and
(15:32):
there are so many amazing different branches of this niche.
So I grew up watching the Olympics and then I, uh,
like I said, I had trigger. I had a buckskin again.
I like those yellow and dun horses.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Love those light horses.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, I had a buckskin named mea Valentine that my
parents gave me on Valentine's Day. So she was the
first horse I learned to train. And then I have
to thank my combined degrees at SUNI journalism and then
equine business management at Johnson and Wales, which was a
hospitality and culinary school. Trust me, if you were in
the equine department, all you ever heard were jokes about
(16:11):
so are they teaching you to cook horses?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Oh no, oh, I can't even go there. I'm a vegan.
Don't even get me started.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
It got me into working for the US Equestrian team.
I ran media at the Olympics. I've had the privilege
as a horse crazy little girl to literally work with
my heroes, horses and human I've even gotten to copyright
for Briar. I mean, I've got three hundred horses against
the few over my shoulder. Oh, I have my Briar horses.
(16:42):
I've worked with some amazing people. I worked on Jovis
Presley collection.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Oh wow, So how unbelievable. You know, it's so funny
we talk about our love of the light horses, the Pallominos,
the buckskins, the cover of my book. People we know horses.
They love Robert Redford and he's on arm his gorgeous Palomino.
There is something about the Palomino and the Roy Rogers,
the whole feeling. Christy Brinkley and I talk about this
(17:07):
all the time too. That was her favorite horse, and
she was obsessed with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Dale
Evans had a buckskin utterably buttermilk right, and so just
they're magical, beautiful animals. I love all horses, but it's
so funny how we share that connection and how you
turned it your passion into your life's work. And your oxygen.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Well, it's magical because as a child of the sixties,
I'm sure it resonates for both of us what the
feminist movement, what the pursuit of equality has meant to
our country. And Olympic equestrian sport is one of the
very few. Oh I used to know it off the
(17:50):
top of my head when I worked for the team.
I think it's Archery and crew are the other two
where men and women compete equally, not only men and women,
but there is no age division. I can remember. I
think it was the Beijing Olympics. There was a Japanese
dressashweider who was in his seventies and he's competing against
(18:12):
young women who are in their twenties. The horse has
always been such an amazing equalizer, and that I think
has been one of its most compelling aspects. That made
it a great place to have a niche to write
in is because the horse sees everybody equally all the time.
(18:33):
It's such a great environment.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Well for you, not only is it your career, but
you're also a huge animal advocate and you appreciate them
for what they give back and how much they can
help us as human beings with our life. They really
are just a life force that changes us in so
many ways.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I know.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
For me, I covered and did a horrific story about
the horse racing industry where we went upstate where eighty
six horses were living off rain, water and wood fencing
for protein to live. Literally, they were retired race horses
that were dumped and left to die. And I did
this expose and we ended up saving over sixty five
(19:14):
of them. Sadly many didn't make it, but the majority did.
And my report it was a two part story on
the Today Show. We showed where they went on to
find loving homes. It's very hard for me. I can't
support the horse racing industry. I can't even watch those races.
I know everybody's with the mint julips and the hats
(19:34):
of the Kentucky Derby, but I look at it differently.
Do you ever wrestle with that? Because some of the
side of the business that's not animal welfare is very
tough to deal with enormously So when I stepped in
in the nineteen nineties to the equestrian team's publicity offices,
it was just as Sports Illustrated was breaking the blood
(19:58):
money scandal about show jumping and trestage horses being murdered
for their insurance money, and how they hired a guy
they nicknamed the Sandman who would go into the barnes
at night with a car battery and hook one end
to the rectum in the other end of the ear
and it would make the horse look as if it had,
(20:21):
unfortunately had a heart attack. Oh, I can't even listen
to this. So it must be very difficult for you
because it's your job to write about the world of horses.
But I would imagine you're conflicted at times.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
I'm never conflicted because I always stand on the side
of righteousness. I make different organizations get very conflicted over me.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Good for you.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Without naming names, I have to confess it. Just last
week I motivated one international organization to do a late night,
last minute zoom with both its marketing and legal departments
over and article I was writing about sport horse abuse.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Good for you. I know you've taken a strong stand,
but because you do cover the whole sport, have you
ever done a story that afterwards LA thought, Wow, I
wish I didn't cover that or give any press or
any attention to it.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Not a story per se. But for a number of
years I subcontracted with another publicity, equestrian publicity service in
Florida that picked up a writer, Tussage, writer from Columbia
whose videos have become quite notorious. He became a US citizen,
(21:42):
and he competed in the Pan American Games. But he's
got some horrific training methods that have since come out.
And I look back on a couple of those years
of doing his press releases after a show and yes,
you know, feeling like you want to take a shower.
So I've purged my files of that. The equestrian legal
(22:05):
system will handle him as it may. But most of
the time, like I said, I can always look at
my own face in the mirror in the morning and
answer to myself. I live right here outside of Saratoga.
I've written for Saratoga Today's magazine for almost ten years,
(22:25):
but I can still find both the positive aspects and
I think I've been in the sport long enough to
make recommendations that I hope will help see the sport grow. Certainly, holistically,
we have the very fact that we recognize the horse's
place with veterans. That's a huge, huge, surge in our
(22:47):
industry is the therapeutic and veterans is support side of it.
We now have a wonderful cartoon representative and actually she
was on the campaign too, a good friend of mine,
Geen Abinathy, who created an illustrated Fergus the horse. Now
we have Fergus in our life. Now we're breaking down
(23:09):
more barriers. Another participant who I introduced to this campaign
because I just interviewed him, is an NFL football player
with the Miami Dolphins, Pharaoh Brown. Pharaoh Brown loves working
equitation and dressage, and he owns a four year old Fresian.
(23:29):
These are fabulous things that I don't think we will
have had to talk about thirty or forty years ago,
so having people write about it bring it to the public.
I've always felt my goal is to sort of play
that bridge between the horse industry and the people who
want to be around horses. So I'm still optimistic. I'm
(23:50):
more optimistic than ashamed. But the horse business does still
need to do better and do right more often.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Well. That is a wonderful an important message to end
this interview on. And thanks to people like you, La Barry,
you are making a difference for these steeds in need,
and we need more people like you to do this
because we're their voice.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
They see us better than we can see ourselves. And
that's why Seen through Horses campaign we've hit three hundred
thousand dollars. The month isn't over yet.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Like John D.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Rockefeller said, never be ashamed to ask for money for
something you believe in. So give, Give to the Horses
for mental Health, give to this campaign.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And this is the final weekend, kicking off this wonderful,
heartfelt weekend with just a beautiful message from you, and
I am so happy to have finally met you. And
let's see.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Each other at the Hampton Classic.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
I will be there Adoption Day. Let's hang out.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
What do you say if Georgie throws another great brunch? Absolutely,
Georgina Bloomberg. Georgina has enjoyed my press box at Long
Jean's on the Island Governor's Island as a matter of fact.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
So yeah, we go back to well you are fabulous.
This is a joy and the perfect interview, the perfect
subject for the holiday weekend. We hope everybody has a safe,
wonderful time. If you're blessed enough like La and I
are to be around these majestic beautiful creatures big and small.
(25:29):
Give them an extra hug and kiss this weekend, and
thank you all for joining us on the special Memorial
Day edition of Wrap. Report to the Rescue
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Let's talk beats every week on demand only on petlive
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