Razado and the Saddle Tramp
A Vanishing Way of Life Remembered
by Robin Brunet

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Horse ownership in all its wonderful weirdness, from a veteran Canadian journalist and best-selling author! After becoming drawn to horses and the British Columbia countryside, former crime reporter Robin Brunet gradually earns his spurs as a saddle tramp: someone with a modicum of equine skills but never enough money for security in this rapidly vanishing realm. Being philosophically against ownership, Brunet surprises himself by purchasing Razado, a seemingly temperamental Peruvian Paso. Razado and the Saddle Tramp details their years together as they develop an indelible bond amid struggles to find ideal accommodations (and dealing with the wild personalities at each stable), illness and injury, gentrification, and even recessions and the pandemic. Brunet writes, “In the twenty-first century, apart from their work at the track, horses had become giant pets requiring chronic attention and plenty of land—the latter of which was shrinking. I was insane to buy a horse.” Razado and the Saddle Tramp proves that sometimes, insanity pays great dividends (just not of the monetary kind)!

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Talent manager Bruce Allen once called Robin Brunet “a true freelancer. And a hustler. A whore. A troubleshooter. A gambler. A con man. A bon vivant. A raconteur. And a hell of a writer.” But despite having chronicled Canada and Canadians since 1984 in hundreds of magazines and newspapers (plus six books), Brunet far prefers being known as Razado’s owner. He and his wife Wendy live on a horse boarding farm close to the Washington State border, around the corner from where Razado once roamed.

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Robin Brunet