My Journey from Fear to Fun

I grew up with a horse trainer for a mom. I spent my childhood in the lounge room of her Spanish-riding focused barn, eating cake left by riders who’d recently fallen off and training rolly polly bugs to join the circus. My sister and I would chase each down the dirt tracks behind the barn and dare each other to eat horse treats, popping pieces of hay in the corner of our mouths and pretending to be cowboys. I was more interested in Pokemon and air-conditioning than horses. It wasn’t until I was 11 years old, sitting in class in middle school, when the obsession suddenly hit me. I remember thinking, “My mom is going to be so excited when I tell her I love horses now!” 

And she was. I started lessons, then when I showed I would stick with it, we half-leased a horse. I had my first fall, a very uneventful slide off the bare back of a horse trotting on the lunge line. I felt like a real rider after that. A year later, I was helping my mom with a horse she was training. It was a big, beautiful bay off-the-track Thoroughbred named Amelia. She was sweet and gentle and I felt important that I could help in her retraining. 

I was on Amelia’s back while my mother was walking alongside. As a thoroughbred who had raced, Amelia had been taught that the cue that for all other horses meant stop (pulling back on the reins) meant go faster. We were working on breaking that association. We would walk the length of the Olympic-sized outdoor ring. When we reached a specific point on one long end, we would have her trot. Then, at the same point every time, I would pull back and ask her to walk. Along with my mom’s reinforcement on the ground, we’d been having success. When my mom was called to the gate to talk to someone, she told me to just keep her walking. And this is where I got a little big for my britches. 

When I’d walked her a full circle and we ended up back at our trot point, I thought, “Heck, she’s been doing so well. She knows what we’re doing.” And I asked her to trot. And she did. And when we got to the spot at the end where we would transition to the walk, I pulled back. And she leaned in and went faster. Before I knew it, we were racing around the ring. I made it one and a half laps around before deciding to bail, soaring out of the saddle like a flying squirrel and belly flopping on the arena sand. Amelia, bless her, stopped immediately and walked back over to me like, “Hey, I thought we were having fun. Why did you jump off?” 

I sustained very minor whiplash and a small concussion, but nothing a little rest and a hot bath didn’t fix. My confidence, however, was shattered and fear took hold. I was terrified of losing control, suddenly aware of the potential dangers in a way I hadn’t been before. I’d always been in love with the romance of horses, devouring books about horse girls who were chosen by wild mustangs and wore bracelets braided with hair from their mane. I found myself still called to horses, desperately wanting to experience their magic, while simultaneously being gripped with fear whenever I was confronted with the prospect of riding them. 

A boarder at our barn let me ride her horse, a kind and stout Norwegian Fjord who couldn’t have run off with me even if he wanted to. I’d straddle his wide back, whispering encouragements to myself as my heart threatened to beat out of my chest. I wasn’t going to give up. 

I wanted my own horse. I saved my money and my mom and my best friend and I went to a horse auction house. There, we found Suzie Q, an emaciated dapple grey thoroughbred. I’m not sure why, given my past experience with OTTB, but I fell in love with her. We all did. We bought her for kill price, paying $950 for her. $1 per pound. We took her to our barn, named her Legacy, and started helping her recover. 

Legacy was my trial by fire. She was sweet, mostly, but suffered from pain in her back and teeth that we had to address. She was fiery and if given the choice of fight or flight, she would choose fight. She was beautiful. She taught me how to overcome my fear. 

Well, her and Painters. When we moved from Georgia to Texas, we rented a house on acreage where we could keep Legacy and my mom’s horse. The owners of the rental also owned the house behind, a gorgeous property with a barn, a pond, and a mansion. They would go to Montana every year and buy horses for cheap and bring them down to Texas. One of those horses was Painters, a chestnut paint horse who didn’t look like a paint horse at all. He was kind and patient and they said I could ride him whenever I wanted. Their daughter was 3 years older than me and 20 years braver than me. She would ride over bareback on her palomino Mustang and we would go on rides around the property. We dressed up our horses and pretended we were native Americans. We packed food in saddle bags and rode into the fields for a picnic. She slid off the back of a run away mini pony, laughing even as her butt hit the ground. She reminded me that riding was supposed to be fun. 

I worked with Legacy until I was sixteen. Then, my interests shifted. I was busy with school and theater and needed a car, not a horse. We found her what we hoped would be the perfect home for her to continue to grow with another little girl and a patient mom. And I didn’t ride again until I almost ten years later. 

I still loved horses, still felt nostalgic when I smelled fly spray and sun-baked dirt, but I didn’t have the time or money. Well, that’s not entirely true. I could have continued to ride. But from high school, to college, to young professional, to married woman, to new mom, I found myself busy with other things and riding just wasn’t a priority for me. 

I would spontaneously decide to take a few lessons or ride my parents horses, but it would inevitably fizzle out. The fear was still there and I didn’t have the drive to overcome it. 

Until I moved to Pennsylvania. 

My son was one and a half and we’d moved from Texas to the north east just three months before. I was thinking about how much I missed riding. My parents had a horse, Cowboy, who they’d had for 14 years. He had been staying with a family friend for a few years at this point, as my parents were traveling internationally. I told my mom, “If Cowboy ever needs to move, I’ll bring him up here.” 

Not two weeks later, I got a call. Cowboy needed a new place to call home. 

We found a shipping company and had him in the north east before the end of the month. 

My addiction was in full swing. I went to see him every day, brushing him in his field and trying to communicate with him with just my mind. I was still that mystical horse girl at heart. 

When we started working together, though, the fear was back. Unlike the thoroughbreds I had learned fear on, Cowboy was a paint horse. His act of rebellion was to stand, still as a statue, and refuse to move. I remember one particular day when I was walking him back to his pasture and he refused to take another step. 

“I’m taking you back! You WANT this! Why won’t you walk?” 

It took us an hour to make it 40 feet. Did I mention it was the peak of summer? I nearly passed out from heat stroke while he stood there, literally unmoved by my efforts. 

Even this would cause my fear and anxiety to spike. It made me realize that it wasn’t the speed I was afraid of. It was not being in control. I was almost just as afraid of not getting a horse to go as I was about not being able to get them to stop. 

“You wanted a horse, not a bicycle,” I would remind myself, reading every training book I could find and watching YouTube videos. 

I can get into more detail about our process in later posts, but TLDR is this: I needed to believe what I was saying. If I said go, I needed to mean it and believe that we would go. I needed to believe that I was the boss. 

It’s been a year and a half with Cowboy now. We’ve progressed from barely moving to cantering on trail and jumping small cross rails, things I didn’t think I was capable of and definitely not with him. He nearly died from pneumonia, he gave my 3 year old son his first ride, and he continues to test me in new ways. But most importantly, he helped me push through my fear day after day by forcing me to show up and do the damn thing. I had the horse. I’d shipped him across the country and I was paying his board. I had too much invested to let my fear win. And he showed me that I could assert myself without needing to be aggressive. And that he would keep me safe. 

By learning to trust him, I was able to grow and trust myself.