My horse story-From city rooted, to country grown

I didn't always aspire to be a barrel racer, risking my life on a stubborn 1100lb animal. In fact, my life began pretty ordinary. Me, my two older siblings and my parents lived in the City for the first eight years of my life. When I was two, I faced a life altering accident when my family was camping, and I unexpectedly tripped and fell into a fire. I was taken into surgery where they removed the skin from a patch on my leg and re-attached it onto the burned spot on my right lower arm. Though the scar still remains, I am thankful I never faced any permanent damage. I began ballet at age three with my sister, where we attended weekly lessons and performed in many performances. Ballet became the most important part of my life for many years as I found an immense amount of joy and compassion performing. When I was four or five years old, my grandmother began taking me along with her to her weekly bible study group. She would drop me off at a classroom full of some of my favorite teachers and friends and we would play in the gymnasium and listen to intriguing bible stories. Afterwords, my grandma would take us to the churches local playground and we would play for hours. We often went for picnics on the weekends as well and on occasion would meet up with some of our best friends there.

I was about seven when I began running alongside my brother, Liam, and his cross country team. Unofficially, due to my age, I would join them during practice every week and run with them. Along with ballet, running became something I loved as I have always found contentment in pushing my body beyond its physical limits. Though everyone in the running team was much older than me, they never failed to include me and allow me to feel more than welcome. Not only did we have a blast running together, but multiple times we found ourselves having water fights after long hot races. The group quickly became some of my favorite people to be around! In 2018, my family and grandma moved to a large country house on five acres of historical farm land. I, not being an outdoor kind of girl, was definitely not happy with the move, but that all changed one day. My parents decided to surprise me and my sister after a seven hour ballet rehearsal with a long drive ahead to an unknown destination. We arrived continuously guessing what the big surprise was. We walked into a large house, down into a basement, to find a three month old pit bull/lab puppy. Shocked, we shrieked with excitement as we had always wanted a dog. We wrapped her up tight and made the long journey home staring in awe at her meticulously, designed-to-perfection, face. Not long after that, came goat after goat and chicken after chicken, until we had our own farm.

It wasn't but a year later when Covid-19 hit and turned our world upside down. I started doing ballet lesson online, before realizing I no longer enjoyed it, which led to me dropping out. On October 7, 2019, me and my sister had the opportunity to try out horse riding lessons for the first time. Terrified, I climbed up onto the horses back, which I had done many times before, and rode laps around the small sand filled arena. It wasn't long before I realized that was what I wanted to do with my life. That was “it” for me, horses. Second Timothy 1:7 says, “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power, and love, and self control.” I often referenced this quote which enabled me to overcome my fear of horses. I began taking weekly lessons on multiple different horses. We went trail riding bi-weekly and learned barrel racing the other weeks. I quickly became horse crazy, not like your basic horse lover, I'm talking, clinically horse crazy! I remember the day after my first lesson I failed my math assignment due to being stuck in a deja-voux feeling all day! After a few weeks of attending, my sister decided the price wasn't worth it for her and she dropped out. This time of my life was emotionally rough with multiple changes including the switching of churches from my childhood church to a small thirty person baptist church. In May, 2022, I had the astonishing opportunity to attend a barrel racing equine clinic which my horse trainer was putting on. I arrived around 9:00AM to find a few other girls also just as excited as me. We watched slides and learned about tack, veterinary needs, and all the proper maintenance of owning a horse. After a few hours had passed, before bringing them into the barn, we where told which horses we would be given for the day. Grabbing the halter of one of my favorite horses, I quickly ran out to the pen to get him. We proceeded to tack our horses up then led them to the pen to be ridden. We rode for four exhilarating hours straight making this what felt like the best day of my life....so far! After our long ride, we ate lunch and then continued our work with the horses on the ground. I left that day more exhausted and excited than ever before!

Months later, I began experiencing financial issues which required me to drop out after nearly four years of being there, leaving me nothing short of heartbroken. Weeks had passed when my mom informed me that the horse I had the best connection with, had passed away. This did nothing but break me more. I realized I had completely lost that connection with the barn community.

As 2022 was coming to an end, I began saving money to begin my search for a horse of my own. I looked at many online, but one particularly stood out to me, a bay Arabian mare located only twenty minutes from my home. After convincing my parents to meet her, we drove the short drive and I absolutely fell in love with her. We later found out that we where not approved to house her due to her specific needs. About a month later, I found a paint mare online, ironically, one I was not a big fan of. Despite the long two hour drive, me and my mom took the trip to meet her. As we pulled in to find wintery and muddy, conditions, we also found the horse of our dreams. A day after the visit, we put a deposit in and then she was ours! That really was the best day of my life! If I'm being completely honest, days after owning her, I faced an immense amount of regret about my purchase. I had absolutely no desire to deal with her as she quickly became a whole new animal when she arrived here. Biting, kicking, and refusing to do things, the last thing I needed in my life was a stubborn animal. After finding a trainer, who worked wonders, I came to realize my biggest struggle with my new horse wasn't her biting, or kicking, or stubbornness, it was the fact that she was just like me, and dare I say that changed my entire perspective. Along with the stubbornness, I learned she, too, struggled with loneliness, fear, stress and many of my other troubles at the time. Quickly after my realization, Montana and I bonded like no other horse In my life before! Though we still face many conflicts, we work through them together and I have never been more proud of an animal for coming so far along in just one year. Though I am facing many troubles now, Montana never fails to lighten my day.

  From ballet to horse riding, from animal hater to lover, from inexperienced to still growing, from city rooted, to country grown, all these experiences have molded me and made my life worth the ride.

Thank you so much for reading and i hope you enjoyed the read!