Endless milkweed—silky white puffs and yellowing pods that split and curl—come into sharp focus between the ears of my horse. The ears are darker viewed from the saddle than on the ground. Sooty buckskin in color. They swivel, flop and sometimes point at invisible things as we make our way through the field. It’s ride five. Leaves crunch as we turn into the woods. Chaps’ neck arches with curiosity, nostrils, ears, eyes alert. Bold feet move us into dappled light.
He is a 3-year-old Shire sport horse with one blue eye and an unflappable nature. Hay bales flying from above? Fine. Chainsaw? Fine. Feed bags blowing in the wind, a weed-whacker? No problem.
Impulse Buy
I bought beautiful Chaps on impulse when he was little more than a year old. He was the size of a pony with much growing to do. For two years we have enjoyed trail walks, grooming and hand-grazing. My Section D Welsh Cob and I ponied him on quiet hacks.
On the long walk to Chaps’ turnout field, we worked on small goals, my shoulder to his cheek: walk next to me, not in front. Stop when I stop. It is possible to walk through grass without grazing.
Chaps learned fast. But soon this joy monger would need to learn to carry a rider. I’d sent a deposit a year before for a spot in a colt-starting program with a gentle cowboy named Randy Brown. Chaps walked right onto the trailer the day he left for his three-month Shenandoah Valley summer “riding camp.”
First Ride
By all reports he did great. Still, worry set in as I drove down to ride him for the first time. I had been riding my cob for 17 years. I hadn’t quite faced the fact that now I’d need to ride a freshly started youngster.
I recalled the day my oldest child was born. I’d sailed through a blissful pregnancy, but having a newborn to care for at the end of it was still a shock.
The Blue Ridge mountains cast shadows over the unfamiliar barn. Chaps greeted me warmly. Outside, he stood like a soldier as I stretched my leg over his back for the first time. He moved off at an unhurried, unworried pace.
This new perspective felt right, his wide shoulders and thick mane in front of me. Chaps seemed to understand that it was me up there on his back, ears flicking in my direction to check in. I exhaled and put my shoulders back as joy began to replace angst, one stride at a time.
14 Days
The next day, Randy escorted us through an expanse of beautiful farmland. We walked. We talked. I reached my hand back to scratch a spot on Chaps’ back just behind my leg. Later, I used the word “momentous” to describe the brief ride. It had importance.
When Randy delivered Chaps home at the end of September, he admonished me to make the most out of my training investment. To lightly ride—or do something with the horse—every day for 14 days, starting immediately. “Just ride him,” Randy said.
I still had anxiety about the new responsibility (and risk) of riding a young, inexperienced horse. The first day, we explored the ring. Then we expanded our travels to the fields and into the woods around the property. There was a single meeting of my knee and a tree (I yelped so loud he was careful from then on).
I could see that Chaps still had much to learn: Don’t rush downhill, pay attention to your feet even if there’s something to look at, don’t veer off the trail. When I let him wander, our first stop was always a visit to Teddy, his pasture mate relegated to a paddock.
Crunching Leaves
While our rides were short and light-hearted, the everyday routine meant daily bursts in our trust and confidence in each other. Chaps didn’t spook much. I reassured him as needed.
On that fifth day as we turned into the woods with the crunch of leaves underfoot, I worried how I would make the rest of 14 days work. I had a full-time job, a teen with a broken arm who couldn’t tie his own shoes, a husband out of town, three dogs, a cat and a turtle to mind. I was determined, but what if getting there every day—17 miles each way—started to feel like a chore?
Maybe it was the crunch of the leaves that reminded me of my 12-year-old self on that turn into the woods. The sound could be my autobiography. It reminded me in that moment of how hard I had to work for access to horses when I was a kid.
I persuaded the school bus driver to drop me off at a riding school along her route. Then I convinced a riding instructor to let me do chores in exchange for lessons. It wasn’t long before she let me wander off on solo trail rides on Whiskey, a liver chestnut Quarter Horse she had in training. I’d sing to him when he would startle from noisy geese overhead or a passing car on a dirt road. Often we were alone in the woods, just me, Whiskey, and his hooves crunching through the leaves.
Inner Horse Girl
The weather cooperated for every one of Chaps’ and rides during those intense two weeks. The trees turned autumn colors as we explored forgotten corners of the farm and made figure-8s around trees. We lingered with hawks and deer. I quit worrying where all this was going.
Day 14 was not our best ride, but it didn’t matter. None of this was a chore. It was pure joy.
Along the way, this remarkable young horse helped me pay respect to my younger horse-loving self, and the work it sometimes takes to get and keep yourself in the saddle—over a lifetime if you’re lucky.
This article appeared in the September 2024 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!
