Last month we discussed 12 days of shopping ideas for your favorite equestrian (which might be yourself.) I hope you’ve had time to take advantage of these gift giving hints, which are sure to amaze and delight your rider – ok, at least amaze, as in “I’m amazed you thought I’d want that.”

Now let’s get down to business for the remaining 13 days, including Christmas Day. It may be easy to buy for the riding crowd, but it’s not always easy to find things that are simply so unique that the recipient is left speechless with gratitude…or something.

So for the Equine Winter Holiday Shopping Calendar Part II, I’m getting a little fanciful. Join with me in the spirit of the holidays as we daydream of gifts, both large and small, real and imaginary. Gifts like…

Day Thirteen

…a Clinician of the Month Club membership. You haven’t heard of the Clinician of the Month Club? That’s because I just made it up, and frankly, I’m thinking of patenting it. Had you noticed that clinics are all the rage among the horse-y set these days? Oh, you had? You might have even spent your own hard-earned money to take yourself and your horse to your favorite instructor/trainer/natural horseman’s clinic.

There are many of us who are fans of more than one expert, and would enjoy the opportunity to learn from several. Ta-da! My Clinician of the Month Club, where your rider gets to go to a different clinic every month. If you can’t decide on 12 clinicians, enroll in my “How to Choose Your Clinic” clinic, where I put you through your paces, and then toss a coin to choose the clinicians you should be following. Ok, if a clinic a month is too much, at least treat your loved one to a full weekend clinic from her favorite clinician.

Day Fourteen

A natural follow-on to the Clinician of the Month Club is the Branded Gear and Contraption Collection. After your gift recipient has chosen all her clinics, she receives CDs, t-shirts, ball caps, DVDs, bits, saddles, sticks with string attached, and all the other logo-bearing goodies and gadgets of said clinicians. You can always scale this gift back: a nice branded ball cap and t-shirt set to wear to her weekend clinic.

Day Fifteen

Equi-Pod music player. You didn’t know such a thing existed? Well, it doesn’t yet. I’m going straight to Apple and see if they can invent it. I think an equine version of the i-Pod could have such tremendous applications. Think of the events that have a musical component: dressage musical freestyle, reining freestyle, and vaulting, to name a few. Wouldn’t it be useful if you could pipe your custom-made music directly into your horse’s ears? That way, he could follow right along with the program instead of noticing every distant whinny or truck noise in the area.

Ideally the Equi-Pod ear bud could simply be woven into a bridle. That creates an additional market for next-generation tack, perhaps an I-Bridle, which would function like those cool pieces of clothing with special pockets for a music player. And sharing playlists with your horse could provide a special bonding experience.

Day Sixteen

We mentioned the endurance riders last month, so how about giving them, or your favorite trail rider, their own piece of wilderness? It’s not easy, but if you check around, you can still find some spots; just Google Wilderness for Sale.

All you need is, say, 25 miles of good undeveloped outback that your rider can go careening around in to practice for the competitions, or just use to get away from it all. Try to get a landscape that has all the fun stuff – water crossings, nearly-sheer rock walls, flats, forests, throw in some unpredictable weather if you can. Good times! If you don’t find any suitable wilderness area for sale, get your endurance rider a set of those nice, expensive aluminum horseshoes.

Day Seventeen

The Back-in-Time Instruction Package is another option if your rider is tired of all the present-day clinicians. This package allows you to actually travel back in time to ride with the great horsemen and women of the past! There are a few kinks to be worked out, such as the entire process of time travel, but just imagine…you could go back to ancient Greece and study with Xenophon himself…be one of the first students at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna…learn trick riding with the lady riders of the Wild West shows! Not ready to be a guinea pig for untested time travel contraptions? Well, then, invest in books by or about the great horsemen of history.

Day Eighteen

Today’s gift is cross-training lessons. If your giftee is a dressage rider enroll her in a barrel clinic. For barrel racers, get them driving lessons. For the carriage set, sign them up for a ride-and-tie competition. If you’re the gifter, prepare to be scoffed at for apparently completely misunderstanding your equestrian pal or family member. But if you’re the gift recipient, don’t look a horse gift in the mouth. It might open up a whole new world of riding for you. At the very least, new shopping opportunities for gear and clothes.

Day Nineteen

And speaking of carriages, why not get yourself or your favorite rider one? I doubt I’ll ever compete in the driving classes, but I always look longingly at the carts and carriages at the shows. In a sport where gear and tack is very, very important, the driving enthusiasts win the prize for the biggest toys. But, you’re saying, no one at my house does now, or will ever, harness a horse to a cart or carriage for competition. That’s ok – your kids can use it to haul stuff from the house to the barn. Get a lightweight one.

Day Twenty

Set up a riding vacation for after the holidays. There are so many to choose from! Not a fan of dude ranches, beach gallops or trail strings? Try something a little more adventurous then, like the volcano-by-horseback trek in Maui. Or what about this: ride the Sahara with the Bedouins. Live out your inner Lawrence of Arabia as you gallop across dunes and camp each night in a traditional Bedouin tent. Or perhaps you’d prefer the glacier rides in Chile, cantering through icy mist with the roar of avalanches all around you. What’s that, you say? You’ll settle for driving cattle in the U.S. of A.? Cowboy up, dude.

Day Twenty-One

Horses are fine and all, but what about branching out into some other equids? Gift your lucky loved one with a donkey. Donkeys are not only cute, they are awesome guard animals. Mules are handy for pulling things, like the carriage you got on Day 19. Or if your tastes are more exotic, surprise your rider with a zorse: born of a zebra dad and horse mom. And if you really want a curious looking creature, put the donkey and the zebra out together. The babies thus produced are all stripes and ears, and they’re called Zedonks.

Day Twenty-Two

If you don’t already have your own equestrian estate, now might be a wonderful time to get one. How about a 300+ acre luxury estate for a cool $13 million? Wait – before you decide that’s too much right now, consider that it has two guest houses, four studio apartments, three state of the art horse barns, and 32 paddocks. Not to mention lush resort landscaping with waterfalls, the exercise track around a private lake, and the aviary and greenhouse in the main residence. And you thought hot and cold running water in the wash rack was luxurious.

Think twice before you pass this up, because clearly there’s room for the carriages, the mules, the time machine, and the growing herd of Zedonks in the back pasture. If this is a bit more than you planned to spend for the holidays, how about just getting a Breyer horse barn set for the kids to play with? I found a pretty cool one with a “fold up corral” included.

Day Twenty-Three

Now here’s a special gift idea – but first, a pop quiz. Question: What does every rider not have enough of? Answer: Time to ride, of course! So for day 23, I recommend getting your rider an extra hour every few days, to be spent riding.

The 25-hour day is tricky to come by, so here are some ideas. 1) Take the battery out of their watch. 2) Arrange for someone else to do some of the horsekeeping tasks they normally do themselves, and tell them they’re to use the extra time to ride. 3) Spring for dinner or wash the clothes, so they can spend that “chore time” in the saddle. 4) Encourage them to take a vacation day, and spend it bonding with their horse. 5) Buy them a lesson, so they get expert instruction in the saddle. 6) If they like to trail ride, arrange for one with friends.

Meanwhile, I’m still working on the 25-hour day. It might involve just a short trip in the time machine from Day 17.

Day Twenty-Four

It’s Christmas Eve, so this is the time to pull out the second-biggest gun you can. And I have a pretty big gun for you: FEI World Equestrian Games 2010. You have heard, I’m sure, that the U.S. is hosting that impressive event in Kentucky. For horse people, this is a bit like having the Olympics here, so I’ve done the legwork to find the blow-your-socks-off packages that you can get your rider to be part of this exciting event. How about an eight-day package for a group of six for about $40,000 – don’t worry, that includes food and beverage!

Among the amenities listed for the Hospitality Pavilion: “luxurious restroom facilities.” Many horse show regulars would argue that justifies the price right there. Or, join the Champion’s Club, where you can have a table that seats eight with “an unparalleled view of the event,” for your favorite discipline. If this is a bit rich for your blood, try the one-day hospitality pass for $600. Still too high? Sign your gift recipient up to volunteer, and she gets a working view of the biggest international event in the horse world plus a cool shirt.

Day Twenty-Five: Christmas Day!

And what would be the best gift of all under the tree? Why, the perfect horse, of course. This horse, believed to be as rare as the unicorn, is affordable, just the right age, kind, respectful, a good teammate, fit, athletic, talented, and beautiful. He enjoys the company of donkeys, mules, zebras, dogs, and children, and works like a trouper at home or at a show. We all daydream of owning him.

Still, aren’t the holidays about magic? Keep believing in that dream, and you’ll surely find that perfect horse – perfect for you.

Merry Christmas!

Ange Dickson Finn is a freelance writer, western pleasure competitor and retired horse show mom who will gladly send you her holiday wish list. Visit her at www.theingate.com.