The first lesson he taught me was simple:
Take the leap if you really want something.
I wasn’t in the market for a horse when I met him. I was fresh out of college, just happy to spend my few spare dollars on riding lessons and all of my spare time at the barn. Being the overgrown barn rat that I was, I spent an awful lot of time with Beau in addition to the horse I was leasing. A year later, when his owners put him up for sale, the thought of losing him broke my heart in two. Without realizing it, I had fallen head over heels in love with this horse. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him so I did the thing that no half-broke 23-year-old should do. I bought my first horse. Was it the smart thing to do? Nope. Did it turn out to be the best decision I’ve ever made? Probably.
While I busied myself learning the riding techniques I had not yet mastered, like how to find the distance to a jump or what the outside rein is supposed to do, Beau was patiently and obediently trotting around, setting the stage for the next lesson:
This is supposed to be fun.
We spent our first show season at the local schooling shows, holding our own and having pretty decent rides. By our second year together, I was feeling more serious about going to recognized dressage shows, so we entered an early spring show at Lake Erie College. Entering the warm up ring, I found myself blown away by the quality of the horses and immediately realized this was out of our league. I erased any visions of winning, put my metaphorical blinders on, and told myself to just get in that big beautiful indoor and go have fun with my horse. With a relaxed, obedient test and a smile on my face, he topped the class.
But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, and riding is not a sport for those with any kind of ego. From day one onward, Beau consistently and eagerly pointed out lesson number 3:
Know that things will go wrong.
The same year that he brilliantly won at the Prix de Ville, we were eliminated at a schooling show because he saw a gaited horse and it blew his mind. Unable to fathom how/why a Paso Fino moves like that, Beau went into “giraffe mode” with his nose in the air, and whinnied roughly two million times before deciding not to turn at K and plowing down the dressage arena instead. Know that you will be bucked off at a clinic with a prominent clinician and land in the auditors’ laps. Know that you will be launched solo over jumps and at a show he will step on and break your reins so you can’t get back on. Know that he will get turned out with a new horse the week of a show and get kicked in the stifle. Know that as you savor the bliss of a beautiful horse show morning at your first Regional Championships, the cry you hear of “LOOSE HORSE!” will be about your horse…
We all know that riding teaches you to be tough, to be determined, to not give up. This is not a sport for the faint of heart. But it wasn’t until I had a horse of my very own, for better for worse, in sickness and in health, that I really had to learn the next lesson:
Be flexible.
I bought Beau as a hunter who could maybe do an equitation class here and there. We had some success, but we also had some pretty major catastrophes. To stay the course with blind and dogged determination would not have been much fun for either of us. He loved jumping at home for fun, with no flower boxes and no pressure. At the horse shows, he could not handle my nerves or the scary jumps. Yet at dressage shows, he (usually) shined. My horse was trying to tell me something and I had to listen. The path I envisioned for us was not the path he was meant to take. So we doubled down on dressage training and kept jumping oxers of plain brown rails just for fun.
Any athlete struggles with self-doubt. Sometimes teammates struggle to trust one another. When your teammate can’t speak the same language as you and is scared of miniature horses pulling carts, a lot things that move, wind, noise, and some things that don’t move, that trust can be even more elusive. At a particularly spooky venue in Loch Moy Farms in Maryland, Beau taught me another lesson:
Believe in yourself.
As we started moving up the levels in dressage and going to bigger shows, I became more acutely aware of being the hunter rider on a draft horse. My lace-up Ariat field boots were a dead giveaway and Beau, well, if I had a dollar for every time a judge wrote “needs more suspension” I could probably have a horse with more suspension… Finding myself in the heart of horse country in huge class with pros and amateurs alike, the self-doubt took over. I was nervous and Beau channeled his inner Thoroughbred to start seeing dead people around every turn. We unraveled in the show ring and finished with a record worst score. I didn’t sleep a wink that night, just staring at ceiling of the horse trailer I was hoping no one would notice me sleeping in. I rode that test over and over again in my mind, going over every mistake and wondering how I was going to fix it the next day. At 4 am I gave up trying to sleep and went to the barn. I watched him eat grass and gave us a pep talk. We could do better. I would ride better, he would perform better. It didn’t matter how amazingly good everyone around us happened to be, we just had to beat us. I told him I would be the best damn hunter rider on the best damn draft horse at that show. I told him I believed in us and there were no freaking dead people lurking at A. I channeled all of my frustration into motivation and rode the most accurate test of my life. I came out of the ring beaming. Redemption. We walked back to the barns with our heads held high, mission accomplished. It was even sweeter that my underdog with a heart of gold won that class with the highest score we’d ever get, a 75.6%.
More recently, the lessons my wise professor is teaching me are more universal. If you asked me about unconditional love before his injury, I would have nodded and said yes, yes absolutely I understand that. I love my family, human and animal, unconditionally with all of my heart. But after he was hurt, and all of my riding and competition goals were erased, my dreams and plans were halted, and I drove to the barn day after day after day without a second thought… then I really started to understand what it meant. I knew from day one of this journey that life as I knew it was over. I mourned the loss of my riding career and it crushed me. This horse has given me everything I had ever dreamed of. He gave me successes and challenges. He gave me joy and purpose. He carried my dreams on his back for nearly ten years. I could barely envision a life that didn’t involve riding and training this horse. Every day after he was hurt, I was completely dedicated to his rehabilitation and care, knowing that it was only for him. My brief stint as his rider was over, I only wanted him to be happy and healthy again. And for 175 days, no amount of being cold, exhausted, hungry or burned out deterred me from being devoted to him and his wellness. And while I was telling myself, I was doing it selflessly, doing it only for him, here he was–teaching me about love.
He has been trying to teach me this one for a long time, but I am a slow learner… I find peace in spending time with animals because they know nothing outside of the present moment. The past is in the past, the future is nothing to worry about now. I hope that the recent challenges will finally teach me this important lesson:
To live in the moment.
A few weeks ago, Beau suffered a reinjury and the outcome of his vet visit was exactly what I had feared–the ligament which appeared to be healing so well was really just false hope. The ultrasounds which had looked promising, were misleading. The tissue that had regrown was not strong. His recent soundness at the trot was a byproduct of his rehab being done so carefully and so methodically, with perfect shoes and perfect footing, nothing to cause the weakness to rear its ugly head. I cried for weeks, grieving the loss of the hope I started to feel, the devotion of the last six months which had yielded no progress, and I worried of what the future held. The day after we returned from the vet was a clear, sunny day. I took Beau out for grass and watched him graze for hours with tears streaming down my cheeks. He happily plunged his face into a field full of daises and looked up at me with calm brown eyes, as if to say, “isn’t this just the most perfect day?”
My wise, beautiful horse… although our riding career has ended and he will not be the one to teach me how to be a better rider still, he will keep teaching me how to be a better human. With each passing day, I’m starting to see what the next lesson is:
Accept the things you cannot control.
I gave him my everything, and still it was not enough. This is by far the hardest lesson to learn. Sometimes it won’t matter how hard you work, how much you sacrifice, or how bad you want something. These creatures are as fragile as they are powerful. They will bring us both the highest highs and the lowest lows. Life with them brings us the greatest fulfillment and the worst broken hearts. We simply cannot have one without the other and looking back, I still wouldn’t trade it for the world.
My teammate is retired now, but he remains my greatest teacher and my best friend.
Thank you for everything Charlie Brown.
❤❤❤❤