The Older Horsewoman

No matter how often I look in the mirror, I am still shocked to see the signs of aging. Dang! In my heart, I am still in the prime of life . . . slim, fit, unlimited energy. But then the mind (and too often, the body) reminds me that I am quickly approaching 60 . . . 2 ½ years to go at this writing. To comfort myself, I look around at others in my age group and recognize that I am much more active than many of my age mates. But despite that small comfort, I know I’m on the back half of middle-age.

So what does one do when faced with this time of life? Well for me, I just keep doing what I’m doing. Sometimes I’m slower than I want to be, and sometimes there are things I choose to pass on. When it comes to my horse life, I just keep riding. When I travel to my trainer’s place, I watch the kids and the young adults riding hard, jumping courses, and I know that if I’d started riding as a younger person, I would have loved the high speed, exhilarating side of horsemanship. But I started riding rather late in life and so dressage is more my speed….it is exacting and requires a lot of discipline, but it is not a fast sport, relatively speaking.

In truth, I wanted to be a horsewoman as far back as I can remember. As a girl, I read every horse book I could get my hands on. I started a back yard Black Stallion fan club, even writing to the author, Walter Farley. I was thrilled when I received an envelope full of Black Stallion Fan Club buttons and a letter from Farley. I also had a father who loved horses, and he would take me to a local stable a few times every summer where we would go on an hour-long trail ride through a wooded parcel in the middle of corn country. I would inevitably beg him to buy me a horse and couldn’t understand why we couldn’t keep one in our backyard (in the middle of a subdivision).

If events happened differently during my young adulthood, I might have become a horsewoman then, but they didn’t. Instead, I discovered skydiving, and so I wiled away my youth falling fast through the sky. I don’t regret that at all. I was a member of an unbelievably fun group of like-minded people. We all had the time of our lives and participated in a different kind of exhilarating, high-speed sport (one that is still reserved for the very few…after all most sane people would never jump out of a perfectly good airplane).

I had an opportunity to become a horsewoman in my early thirties when my oldest daughter was bitten by the horse bug. I understood just how much she wanted a horse, and so I made it happen for her. I often thought about taking some lessons on her horse, but the call of the sky was still too strong. I just didn’t have the time to spare because there was always an airplane that needed to be jumped out of. But then, in my mid-forties, the horse bug bit me again and I’ve been infected ever since.

There are a few bonuses to being a horsewoman at my age. I have more disposable income, and I have more time. I also have the great privilege of training with a talented, dedicated young woman who, despite my age, pushes me past my comfort zone on a regular basis. She has made me jump regardless of my little protests, and she has required me to drop my stirrups to trot and canter. Because she stuck with me even as I struggled more than most to improve, I have become a much more competent rider than I ever thought I could be. My plan is to keep riding as long as I can. My horse is only 8 years old, and I anticipate that by the time he is ready to retire from the arena, I will be too . . . but I’m thinking that time is at least 12-14 years down the road. And who knows how long I’ll be able to meander slowly down the trail on the back of a quiet horse. So when I see that older face staring back at me in the mirror, I remind myself that she has a long way to go (and that way will be on horseback).

Horse Nerd

I am such a horse nerd. This morning, after checking my email and my Facebook, I decided, once again, to do a little research to see if I could find some history about my horse. . . and BINGO! I finally found something. I found a photo and bio of Jude’s sire, Gallant, on the webpage for the Lazy K Ranch in Chowchilla California, the city where Jude was born. It turns out that Jude’s grandsire, Gallant Move, was an APHA Supreme Champion. Supreme Champion!! This award is extremely hard to earn, and Gallant Move was the 39th paint horse to earn the title. Woohoo! I feel like I just discovered that I’m related to royalty. Sadly, I couldn’t find anything about his dam. But I’m sure she was special too. And she was an appendix, which helps explain his wonderful, dressage-aptitude athleticism.

So why do I care about his beginnings? Well, as previously disclosed, I’m a horse nerd. But horse nerdness aside, I find beginnings fascinating. Whether it’s the origins of words or expressions, or the origins of my horse, I like to learn about it. When I first bought Jude, I looked at his papers and noted that he was born in Northern California, was sold to someone in Bakersfield, CA. (a long trailer ride for a 7-month old colt), sold into Iowa a few months later, resold in Iowa (imagine a young horse on a trailer ride from southern California to western Iowa). His registered name was Nick’s Last Call….I imagined that he might have been called Nicky.

That was all I knew for a while. But as fate would have it, my daughter and I bought a pony from the sale barn where Jude’s penultimate owner bought him. The previous owner only mentioned that barn once, but I remembered it. And when I was there, I wasn’t shy about asking the old lady of the barn if she remembered my horse…and she did. She told me that her buyer had purchased him at an auction in Iowa and that she called the previous owner to find some history on him… She told me she gave the notes to Jaime, the man who bought the horse from her (and he had passed those notes on to me when I bought Jude) and so I knew a few more things about his previous life. She also told me they had called him Amigo while he was at her barn.

Okay, I now knew he was bought at an Iowa auction in the spring of 2006….and it didn’t take me long to find the old sale bill online…and low and behold, I now had photos of Jude being ridden western by a blonde-haired lady. The info on the bill explained that the owner was selling Jude because she wanted a western pleasure prospect (it must have been obvious by then that Jude was a dressage horse, despite his loud paint markings). It was there that I discovered that she called him Dewey! Dewey, Amigo, perhaps Nicky….I’m so glad that his last owner renamed him Jude.

The last place Jude lived before he moved to my modest barn was a grand equestrian center near Barrington, Illinois. Jaime, Jude’s previous owner kept him perfectly groomed, so perfect that Jude’s coat was slick from regular applications of Show Sheen. His obsession with grooming and his outward affection toward Jude made it obvious that he loved his horse, but a back injury kept him out of the saddle and a traveling career kept him from the barn for extended periods. And so, after only 6 months, Jude was sold once again.

So now there are only a few gaps to fill. Due to my recent discovery, I have learned that Jude lived outside on a big ranch for the first 7 months of his life. The Lazy K website states that all their foals are raised outdoors….and I have seen beautiful photos of large herds of mares with foals at their side, running through water (which explains Jude’s complete lack of concern whenever we encounter water). Now, all I want to know is why the Bakersfield owner sold him off to Iowa as a yearling, and why that first Iowa owner turned around and sold him again. But I’m thankful that somehow, via Chowchilla, California, he came to me, because in Jude, I have found the horse of a lifetime. And in me, Jude has found his forever home. Yep, I’m truly a horse nerd.

Husbands and Horses

Husbands and horses. Hmmm, it does have a nice ring to it. Perhaps it’s the alliteration, or maybe it’s just because they tend to dominate my life. Whatever it is, the parallels can be alarming. The trains of thought seem to go off in the same direction. I am always thinking about him. Is he healthy? Why did he do that? Was it something I did? Where did that behavior come from? Another mess? I just cleaned this place up! I could be thinking about either one of them.

From the looks of it, these two parts of my life seem to be closely intertwined; yet if the truth be known, my husband would like to be as far away from horses as possible. Certainly his horse allergy might account for some of this distance fetish, but it doesn’t account for all of it. He admittedly just doesn’t get the horse thing. He can’t understand how riding in an arena for an hour can be therapeutic or educational or even fun. He can sort of understand the trail rides, but not really since an ATV does the same thing without the whole horse thing going on. Then there is that manure/hay smell that drives him crazy…and not the good crazy. The short of it: When I say horse, he tunes out or freaks out. His eyes glaze over or his “how much money did you spend?” radar goes off. Husbands and horses don’t always work well together.

There are times when I realize that I’m playing a fine balancing act. Do I hang out at the barn or with my husband? Do I get all dolled up and fix him a fine dinner, or do I throw on those breeches and boots and head for the barn? My husband would suggest that the horse wins 9 times out of 10. I’m not so sure about those numbers, but I do admit that I suffer some tunnel vision problems when it comes to horses.

I know from my many barn friends that I am not alone. It seems that so many of us horsewomen must endure our husband’s total lack of interest in that other part of our lives. At times, we must work to assure our husbands that there is no reason to be jealous of a horse. To be fair, we are probably guilty of the same thing. Did I mention that last time he invited me to go fishing? I turned him down because I had to clean the barn.

So it seems I have two lives, one with a husband and one with a horse. They both provide me with great joys and, well, occasional disappointments. But I can’t live without either of them. Or can I? Hmmmm.

DISCLAIMER: I know that there are some wonderful horsemen out there who love to share their horselife with their wives. I also acknowledge that there are some extremely supportive horse husbands who gladly send their wives to the barn, pay the board, buy the tack, go to the horse show and so on. Ladies, if you have one of these men, cherish him because he is, indeed, a rare bird.

The Down and Dirty of Owning Horses

This morning it is raining, and so I have respite from my semi-annual stint of spreading manure. Manure happens when you have a horse . . . and it happens and happens and happens until you have a huge pile which must be spread around. For the last two days, I have loaded my tiny spreader, headed to the field across the street, and dispersed a whole lot of #*$%^. As gross as it may seem, I find I enjoy the process. I'm outside enjoying the weather, sitting in my John Deere gator while thinking about lots of things, and paying some dues for all the pleasure I get from having my own horse.

Of course, I have a few scars from the process. My hands are a bit beat up from dings and scratches caused by digging out a clogged spreader (using a pitchfork, mind you) and from making emergency adjustments on the spreader chain. And I have that pitch and roll feeling one gets after a day in a rolling boat, except my pitch and roll is from bumping along through a unplowed, harvested cornfield in my gator for hours on end.

Despite the banged up hands, at the end of day one, I took some time to get on my horse, Jude, so I would remember why I love horses. We had a wonderful ride. We started by walking casually down our grass airstrip, just enjoying the warmest day yet this spring. When we were warmed up, we trotted large figure eights, working on softness and suppleness. Once Jude was in the frame, we cantered . . . first circles, then long straight lines, up and down the property line. When we finished, and I had dismounted, both Jude and I took that deep, long breath of satisfaction. He asked me to rub his head, and I obliged. We are well matched. He trusts me, respects me, and is my partner. And I trust and respect him.

I'll spread that manure every spring and fall because it is part of the deal, and as such, I'll find the good in it....cleanliness, of course; satisfaction in a job well done, yes; and contentment because the horse life is a good life.