Now welcome "Horse Talk," a new radio show on Park City's KPCW (91.9 FM) that may be the first of its kind in Utah. The live weekly program is hosted by equine expert Jen Hegeman with help from sidekick Charmian Wright, a Park City veterinarian who specializes in horses.
Call the two women Clip and Clop. Why not? They do.
"I said it off the cuff one week and it just stuck," says Hegeman, a Francis horse trainer who conceived the show this spring. KPCW's listening audience is mostly in Summit and Wasatch counties, although Utahns elsewhere can hear the show each Saturday at 10 a.m. over the Internet.
As on "Car Talk," Hegeman and Wright take questions from callers. But instead of, "What does it mean when my engine goes 'thumpathumpathump?'" they field queries about bits, saddles and horse wormers.
"Horse Talk's" weekly topics have included horse safety and equipment, Utah's only polo club (who knew?) and horse-related myths and folklore. Callers have asked how to get started with horses, which kind of horse is best for polo and how to get a horse to follow a lead.
The hourlong show is a labor of love for Hegeman, who has been "hopelessly addicted" to horses since she was a girl shuttling around the globe with her military family. She got her first horse at 16 and was so smitten that she sometimes slept in the barn to be closer to it.
Upon moving to Utah in 2000 she found work as a riding instructor with the National Ability Center, a Park City-based nonprofit that promotes recreational activities for the disabled. There Hegeman developed a pioneering horse-training approach that has become her trademark. Called "balance breaking," it revolves around the idea that horses are athletes whose muscles can be isolated, strengthened and repaired just like humans'.
Hegeman now runs her own horse-training program from her home in Francis, a ranching town south of Kamas, where she strengthens horses, improves their gaits and helps them recover from injuries.
She launched the radio show May 6 as sort of a broadcast clearinghouse for Utah's large but fractured equine community, which includes everyone from ranchers to rodeo cowboys to equestrian riders. Hegeman interviews guests each week about different aspects of horse culture.
"We're all segregated by discipline. So why not share [each other's] knowledge? I wanted to give people access to the best equestrian knowledge in Utah," she says. "I also wanted it to be really comfortable and fun."
Comfortable for the listener, at least, if not for the host. Hegeman had never done radio before and was so nervous during the first show that she forgot to introduce herself. Studio guest Mark Eaton, the former Utah Jazz center who owns three horses and is a Hegeman client, had to nudge her along.
"She had brought all these notes. I told her to get rid of three-quarters of them and just talk about horses," Eaton says. "I call her the professor because she has such a wide breadth of horse experience. Her expertise comes across in the show, and that's what makes it work."
That, and Hegeman's sense of humor. Like her "Car Talk" counterparts, her on-air style is both informative and informal.
"I try to keep it as light as possible," says the equine guru, who has broken both arms and a leg in riding accidents. "You may as well just say it - there's so much stodginess in horses."
Although there are more condos than horses these days in Park City, KPCW program director Jan Williams says listener reaction to the show has been favorable.
"There's been response right out of the box," she says. "There's obviously a market for it."
What makes NPR's "Car Talk" so popular, of course, is the regular-guy humor - it's accessible to listeners who don't even like cars. Can "Horse Talk" have the same crossover appeal? Hegeman hopes so.
"Everybody loves horses. They're part of our society," she says with a nod to history. "Without the horse, there would be no humans. Without the humans, there would be no horse."
griggs@sltrib.com
