On a warm April day some 4 years ago I took my big bay Percheron cross Amber for a ride like I'd done a thousand times in the 3 years I'd owned her. The ride started well like any other, she was being fabulous! We picked up the canter, got half way around the arena and suddenly my horse wasn't underneath me anymore, she lost her footing, she couldn't catch herself and she went down, She threw me forward and flipped. When we landed I was laying on the ground with her hind legs flailing over my head. I rolled out from underneath her and went and made sure she was ok. We were both ok. She had some scrapes on her nose and face, my chest and stomach were scraped up but there was no lasting damage, at least I didn't think there was. I didn't know at that point that when I hit the ground that day, something did break, something that no doctor, or rest, or medicine could heal. That day when my horse fell out from underneath me and my body hit the dirt, my confidence broke, my faith in myself broke, they snapped right in half, and my love for horses now had some cracks as well.
It wasn't my first fall, and it wasn't my last, and I've asked myself many times over the last few years, why that fall? Why was that the moment that everything started to go south? Why was that the straw that broke the camels back? Why that fall? And I may never know... But I do know that moment not only ripped my confidence apart, it damaged the relationship I had with that horse beyond repair. I fought it out with her for 3 more years, we had some decent moments together but mostly we fed off of each other and our rides got worse and worse. It got so bad at one point, and my nerves were so shot that if she gave even the smallest sign that she was possibly thinking of spooking at something I would have a full blown anxiety attack and get off of her crying. I would go for weeks or months without riding, I didn't enjoy it anymore, I was starting to fall out of love with horses.
Then a year ago a new equine came into my life. She was a big beautiful registered Clydesdale with a white face, a roman nose and 4 perfect white feathered legs. Rayna was the very definition of my dream horse, she perfect, and she was totally untrained in the ways of riding she had been an Amish broodmare and then a driving horse... I bought her anyway. Maybe not the smartest move for someone with such severe confidence issues, but something about that mare started to heal me. She had her share of issues for sure but I found myself more willing to go to the barn and be with the horses then I had been in a long time. Unfortunately while that mare started to heal my love for horses, working with her was having a damaging effect on my faith in my own abilities, no matter what I did she really wasn't improving, I was losing faith in myself again and once again found myself going to the barn less and less. Plus I still had Amber and I was still completely uncertain about what to do with her,
About 5 months ago I moved from my home in New York to the beautiful bluegrass state of Kentucky. Little did I know that moving would be the first step in finding Amber her human soulmate and finding me my Horsey soulmate. Amber is now living the life with my good friend Megan who is helping the mare reach her full potential, something I had never been able to do. They are doing fabulous together and are a force to be reckoned with, and I, well I am perfectly happy to watch them from the sidelines and cheer then on!!
As for me I was still struggling between loving horses and being afraid. Afraid of getting hurt, and afraid of not being good enough to accomplish my goals. Then a little over a month ago I was approached by a woman who was desperate to find a home for a horse who was going to be put down if no one would take her. The horse was a 19 year old chestnut appendix QH mare named Penny. She was arthritic, she was horribly out of shape and she hadn't been ridden in over 2 years. Her owners were older, the man was ill and they could no longer care for her. They didn't want to send her off to an unknown fate so if they couldn't find the perfect home for her they were going to have her humanely euthanized. I really wasn't in a position to take on another horse I already had my clydesdale and my mule that I had recently rescued from a kill pen. But I couldn't get that little red mare off of my mind. Finally after lots of thinking I agreed to take her on a temporary basis and find her a good home.
Penny arrived 3 weeks ago. And the amount of healing I've done in those 3 weeks nothing short of a miracle. That little red mare has changed my world. I finally have a horse that I trust 110% and I can feel my confidence starting to stitch itself back together, I can feel my faith becoming whole again. She's filling the cracks in my love for horses that were put there the day me and Amber hit the ground. I am falling in love with horses all over again. This little red mare and I have spent so much time walking around and exploring, shes very out of shape, I'm very out of shape and we're taking it slow, almost 3 weeks of riding 4 to 5 times a week and we just started small trots during our rides. She is still quite stiff and has been started on joint and hoof supplements which will take some time to get in to her body and start working, But she's getting there.
I am also riding Rayna again and I feel far better about her and my abilities to train her then I ever have. Even when she tried to buck my butt off at the caner yesterday it didn't phase me and we just kept on working. Last night at dusk I rode Penny bareback out to her field, and my friend commented that in that light I looked like I was back on my first horse, Phoenix (my equine soulmate) again. Bareback rides at dusk were one of my favorite things to do with Phoenix and in that moment I knew, I knew that Penny had been sent to me to heal me. Maybe Phoenix sent her, or my Nana, but that horse surely was sent by angels somewhere, I'm excited to go to the barn again, I'm excited about my future with them again. I want to show Rayna, I'm excited instead of anxious about training her. I love horses again and I owe it all to a little red mare named Penny who showed up in my life at just the right time.
