Lessons From a Horse

I sat in an old fold out chair with an iced tea in my hand watching the horses in the large green pasture run, jump, and eat the grass. It makes me smile to watch them and to remember all the hard times I’ve had to get them like this. My eyes swing over to a large bay colored horse with a white star and snip and white socks on it’s hind feet, this one, my first, is also my favorite. She’s the best horse I’ve got and my most trusting and loving one too. She runs through the field happily and stops at a large patch of long grass and starts chomping away. She seems happy, she wasn't’s always this happy... memories come flooding back and I feel myself being swept away with them, unable to help myself, I close my eyes and remember...1

20 years earlier...2

It’s 2004 and a cold day in January. I sat with my friend Megan in her old barn and talk about horses.3

“Maybe next week it will be nice enough to ride,” she says hopefully.4

I nod my head in agreement even though I know next week there will be another excuse. There always is. This week its too cold, last week it was Rubi’s back hurt from lessons.5

We stand up and walk back into the barn where we both pick up future forks and go into separate stalls to do the mucking... the thing I help her with everyday.6

I stopped and stood there wondering what it would be like to have my own horse, my own large yard with green pastures and horses running and jumping. I certainly couldn’t have a horse in the yard I had now, a yard that sat on only a half acre, I’d never had a large yard before but I dreamt of what it would be like. 7

It was my dream to own a large house with a wrap around porch and large green fields filled with horses and dogs lying by my rocking chair and cats in the windows all looking out with me at the horses, happy horses, horses that loved me. This had been my mother’s dream as a child too and still a smaller version of it with less dogs and no cats was still her dream. That’s exactly what it is, I thought, a dream.8

“Amber? Are you ok?” Megan asked seeing me standing there staring off into space.9

“What? Oh. Yes... yes I’m ok, sorry,” I said a bit embarrassed and went back to mucking stalls.10

I’m not sure how exactly it happened but I finally got my mom to agree that if Megan would board a horse for me I could get one. I was so excited that I practically ran to her house that night to help with the cleaning.11

Megan thought it was a great idea. I had been riding a year and I was beginning to get pretty good. 12

For the next couple months we looked around for cheap horses. Every time we saw one that seemed interesting Megan would say that there was something wrong with it, something I never saw. Most times it was too tall, too tall for her to use as her new lesson horse. My horse, she wanted to use as her new lesson horse because all her horses were too old or not good enough... no... not my horse, she was not going to use mine.13

Finally we found one for $1,000. It sounded good so we called. My mom took us all down there... my sister, Megan, and I. When we got to the place there was an old dirty house that I imagined was once white but was now a sickly brown color and a barn that had broken windows and a crooked broken floor. There were about 20 horses there, all dirty and skinny. 14

A short, fat, and balding guy named Ren came out and took us to the back of the old barn where there was a little run in type of stall. He opened the gate of the “stall” and walked in. When he emerged he had with him a very large and fluffy horse.15

He walked her out and took her right into the round pen while he told us about her. She was a 15.3 hand registered American Quarter Horse. She was bay with a white star and snip and white socks on her hind feet that were a dirty brownish-yellow. Her official name was Shes A Class Skipper but they called her Sierra. I loved her immediately, she looked like a large furry teddy bear because of her thick winter coat, she was dirty but I knew that once she was cleaned up she would be beautiful.16

There were few problems with her in the round pen, she listened to Ren and stood there when he saddled her up and allowed Megan to ride her then me. Megan claimed that she was a little choppy, I felt no choppiness, she was a little fast but with some work I knew she would be fine. She was a little disobedient and when Megan tried to touch her underside Sierra kicked at her. She wasn’t perfect but something in her eyes told me with some work she could be.17

On the way home Megan told me that she wasn’t a good horse and I should wait and look some more, I was tired of waiting. I wanted HER not another horse HER.18

“She’s too big. Maybe you should look at that 14.2 hand horse,” she said suggesting the pony the women who she leased from owned.19

“No,” I said, “she’s too short and my legs are too long, it would look weird. Besides, Sierra isn't too big for me, she’s too big for you to use as a lesson horse and thats too bad. When I get a horse you’re not using it for your lessons, you get the pony!” I said, my anger flaring. Months of looking for her only to shoot down every horse but that dumb pony, all the months I helped her and got no lessons in return and this is how she thanked me. I would not stand for it anymore, I had to stick up for myself and the horse I knew I had to have, even if it wasn’t perfect, it would be.20

Megan turned to look out the window and stayed silent the rest of the way, when we dropped her off she warned me against her again, “she’s too big, she’s not the right horse for you, she has problems.”21

“That’s ok,” I said, “she will learn, I will teach her.”22

“I cant take a horse that big, I don’t have the room. I still need a new horse to give lessons with. I’m sorry, I can’t take that horse, let’s keep looking,” she pleaded.23

“No,” I said.24

“But that other horse sounds just right. Wont you even-”25

“Megan, that horse would be too small for Amber. Look how long her legs are, it would be crazy,” my mom replied in my defense. My sister nodded in agreement.26

“Why don’t you get rid of Rubi? She’s old and you keep saying that you might have to put her to sleep soon anyways. Or you could get rid of Sadie, you cant even use her. She cant be used as a lesson horse and she’s pregnant. If you got rid of one of them you would have the room,” I said.27

“No, I cant get rid of Rubi, she’s old and I’ve had her a long time and she served me well as a lesson horse for years, I cant do that to her. I cant,” she insisted and got out of the car.28

I sat back and sighed and closed my eyes. What would I do now? Where would I put this horse? I thought.29

“It’s ok, we’ll find a way,” my mom said from the driver’s seat as she pulled away.30