desire – A Horse Leads Me to Water

My First Horse

Vegas was given the name Vegas by one of his owners in the succession of owners that ended with me. If I understood the lineage correctly she was the owner before the owner from which the proprietor purchased him. Aside from knowing that he was originally owned by whomever organized his breeding, how many owners in between is lost knowledge. But counting the ones I know of, including me, there were at least six. When I met him his age was said to be 18. If six owners were all there were, Vegas’ average time with each owner was around three years. That’s a lot of handoffs. The impetus for tracking down any of those who came before me was […]

The Equestrian Complex

Arriving at the new ranch was a bigger adjustment than it had been going from the first ranch to Red Tail Ranch. I was still fairly green in the ways and means of having a horse – so dependent on others for knowing what to do and how to do it. Even the horse knew more than I did, though I couldn’t see that then. We were yet again on leased Stanford land. Spanning many hundreds of acres, most of the boarding was in a pasture arrangement. The mares were separated from the geldings. There was an out of the way, easily unnoticed, set up of stalls and small paddocks where some horse’s lived regularly, and a few found refuge […]

In Pursuit of Happiness I Went to the Horse

My early childhood came with a love of horses. Being with them signified happiness. My parents afforded me such opportunities as generously as they could, but it wasn’t in their ability or perhaps not even in their idea of their own lives that I should have a horse of my own. In lieu of any time with live horses I collected Breyer models and other equine imagery and lived out my dreams as a horse girl through books like Black Beauty and The Black Stallion. Looking back, disappointed as I was at not getting a horse, I can admit that it was best that one did not come under my charge then, whatever my parents’ reasoning. By the end of […]