equestrian world – A Horse Leads Me to Water

The Great Recession

When Casey’s owner found a permanent retirement situation for her, she left us in the Spring. That summer we bought a horse trailer and a tractor. Then, over the next two years I added two more horses to my collection One was a Thoroughbred mare, who I named Starfire, bought as a project horse from a rescue ranch and the other was a registered Appaloosa gelding who I bought because he was well trained and sound for riding. He was called Jim. Working with a trainer specializing in eventing, I first rode her Hanoverian to improve my equitation and prepare to learn how to jump and traverse the patterns of the dressage arena. Later I turned to riding Jim. A […]

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 […]

Assuming the Equestrian Identity

The equestrian identity had appeared to me as the salve for my struggles with the human condition, especially my emotional wounds and faltering growth. The delight of novelty crested as a tsunami of hope against my melancholy. With so much to learn, each new aspect of horse care and training remained full of positive potential even if things didn’t go as planned or were stalled because the horse or I lacked in some way. As soon as Vegas was officially my charge, it became uncomfortable to remain at the ranch where we started together. For all I had gratefully learned there from the proprietor, my independent study had expanded my knowledge of horses. As the owner of Vegas my […]

In Search of the Horse

Not long after my immersion into the world of Seabiscuit I announced to my dear husband that I was thinking about “getting back into horses”. He mentioned rekindling his own interest in sailing, wondering if that would be of interest to me too. It wouldn’t, my sights were firmly set on horses. He did not try to stop me. Our urban San Francisco location did not immediately facilitate my goal, even though there was a riding stable in the city’s famous Golden Gate Park. I researched horseback riding lessons there and on the peninsula, the suburban, if not bucolic area south of the city known well as Silicon Valley. Each interview with a prospective facility began with the question of […]