This BCHA Share Your Story is by Melissa Page
If you have a conversation with most “horse” people, there’s a fantastic chance they’ll recount how they landed with their first horse and the life changing markers that relationship produced.
As a fairly new and now initiated member of the pack, I rarely introduce myself without punctuating the first few sentences with a hint of my story with one golden pony named Riddle. It’s not always appropriate during a job interview but certainly a strategy to stand out.
Since adopting one another last year, she’s become as much a part of my identity as my brown eyes or proclivity to eat too many potato chips. And now, a year into the rearrangement of everything we know and expect from our lives, I realize she’s my wisest accountability coach, mood moderator and manufacturer of what I believe we humans can use more of; a beginner’s mind anchored with untethered vision for what life can feel like if we show up and keep trying.
Since you’re obviously a captive audience, I’ll tell you a little about us. I grew up outside of Manhattan, riding from a young age in “proper” English barns trained to emulate a beautiful equestrian statue with something moving and jumping underneath me that functioned as the vessel for my perfection. From what I know about Riddle, she grew up in Denver, was a rodeo pony and almost sent to a livestock auction to be sold per pound to pay for a funeral. A rescue found her and intercepted what could have been a very sad ending. An ending that unfortunately happens to good horses daily. She was an outlier at the rescue, one of those horses not thrilled to be dealing with humans yet sweet and pretty difficult to catch.
That’s where we met and I was introduced to the notion I could actually bring this one thousand pound living object home. I found myself online for hours searching for the perfect halter, meeting (and judging) hay resources and working around my favorite farrier’s schedule. I started playing the role of “woman with horse” June 1, 2020 as the reality of COVID intensified. Shortly after, my full-time work vaporized.
Along with my Chihuahuas, Mildred and Simon, Riddle was the constant in my life as the world around us continued to tip out of balance. I wondered how I was going to manage? We somehow knew we belonged to one another. I decided to start riding again after, in m y mind, a few years off. I called in a saddle fitter and figured we’d trot off into the center of a rainbow. Miss Riddle had other ideas and I quickly saw her previous life included pretty rough riding. She did not care for our lovely new saddle or beautiful bareback pad. I realized, my few years off equaled four decades and this horse was fairly green.
As difficult experiences often reveal, this is where our partnership has really taken form and my status as unemployed yet resourceful statistic has provided the time to work on it. We’re going for it and neither of us has given up on one another. After a few false starts we’ve found a barn and a community of like-minded, giving people. We also found Tiffany, a beyond incredible trainer who curates our evolution from well-outfitted hot mess to just another pair in the arena. I am grateful.
Riddle has organically become my personal North Star by providing discovery, love and consistency during COVID that will endure. When I call for her from the pasture gate, her beautiful head always pops up and the soft smile in her eyes when she sees me imprints my heart every time. She stands at the mounting block now, and I believe the reinvention of the riding experience for us, the release of perfection for me and the unequal expectations for her, has infused us with an uptick in confidence we both needed. This odd pandemic time warp will exit, but the value of the experience it deposited will not.
I know now, from this horse, I can do anything.
M
