Everyone was a producer of some sort, or an assistant to a producer, and all the titles started to sound the same. The urgency was palpable as ladies with clipboards rushed by and guys with back support belts and knee pads were perpetually lifting and adjusting gates, cranes, and dollies. Everyone wore an earpiece, and everyone seemed to be talking to someone, but it was hard to tell if it was to someone in their ear or to me when they made eye contact. How on earth does anything get done under such frenzy?
It was February 22nd, on a soundstage in Burbank, California. My horse and I arrived promptly at 8:00am for our call time to our first ever T.V. show appearance. While my colleagues used their two-month-long winter breaks to go on skiing trips or other exotic locations, I spent weeks auditioning on phone and Zoom to producer after producer for this new animal-based T.V. show. I mean, I had already spent the first two years of the pandemic - when we couldn’t go anywhere anyway - to focus on teaching my horse tricks so this seemed like an ideal opportunity.
My first audition was on Zoom with Sven, a bald man with a thick Eastern European accent and cheeks like a cherub. His first question was “what is your horse’s name?” and he giggled when I told him. Although I wasn’t sure why that was funny, I giggled right along with him. Is this what people do during auditions? I was already hot and sweaty having had to trailer my horse 5 miles down the road to a public parking lot to get good enough cell service to connect to Zoom. The sun blasted me in the face as I stood myself and my horse the required 6 feet away from the camera so he could see our whole bodies. Yes, it was February, but February in southern California sometimes meant 80 degrees.
On the other side of the parking lot, a gardener was trimming the bushes. Clack clack clack with his trimmers. I hoped he would finish soon. I hoped he wasn’t about to start up a lawnmower next. That would not be a professional look on my end, but I could hardly pack up and move to another location mid-audition. Darn everything going virtual! But then again, how could they handle 100+ animals all showing up at once, everything from horses, dogs, ducks, camels, cats, and cows all in one location for traditional auditions? Okay, it could’ve been worse. The clack clack clack continued and I hoped nothing else would happen. I was in a big empty parking lot between a freeway and a very busy park, with my horse standing next to me, and my iPhone precariously perched on a cheap plastic tripod on the side of my truck bed. Anyhow who knows horses knows that scene wasn’t typical so I should’ve felt lucky that my horse attached to the other end of the lead rope wasn’t freaking out right now.
Sven then asked me to do a demo of my horse’s trick. As I started to walk Johnny off to the side to prepare him, I heard Sven laugh again. It was a deep, hearty laugh and he choked out, “Why---is he doing that?”
“Doing what?” my horse was just walking slowly behind me, and we hadn’t even started the trick yet.
“It’s hanging out!” he exclaimed.
As soon as I heard that I knew what he meant. My flasher/exhibitionist of a horse was hanging all of his manhood out. To be clear, he dropped a solid footlong of his penis out.
“Oh, that’s just something he does when he’s excited. I mean, not ‘excited’ but when he’s happy.”
I rolled my eyes to myself as that was a daily occurrence in my world. My horse is a good horse but man, he’s embarrassing. And of course, this guy is still laughing about it. I walked Johnny in a circle quickly to get him back to looking more…professional.
“Here, I’ll go again,” I said as I walked up to a plastic chair, started to sit down, and Johnny pulled the chair out from under me. It’s his favorite trick.
“Wonderful!” Sven exclaimed. “But do you think he would do it on tv?”
“Yes, of course,” I told him. “It’s his favorite trick so he’ll do it anywhere.”
“That’s not what I mean. Can he do the trick with it hanging out again?”
We made it to the filming and sure enough, Johnny dropped it all out during our rehearsal. Sven’s cherubic cheeks smiled at us from across the set. When it came time for the live taping, however, Johnny kept it tucked away. I was so proud.
Great story. Johnny is awesome!