on riding

When I was in junior high, my mom said that the only time I ever sat up straight was when I was on a horse. I started riding when I was 8 and rode every week, sometimes several times a week, until I graduated high school. I leased my first horse, Dusty, when I was in seventh grade. Later in high school I began to show horses, usually a temperamental chestnut quarter horse named Kirov. He had a violent temper and, as a result, had his own field separated from the other horses and a stall in an isolated part of the barn. He had no fear of anything or anyone, would jump anything you put in front of him, and throw any rider he didn't like. We were a great team.

I know that riding is a privilege usually reserved for the upper crust of society. I know that, stereotypically, it the sport of stuffy upper class British men or, worse, spoiled American tweens. Although my parents did make me work off many of my lessons by cleaning stalls, cleaning tack, and doing other various chores at the barn, it was really more on principal than out of necessity. Over the years my parents must have spent thousands of dollars on riding lessons, boots, brushes, tack, show fees, leasing horses, and, of course, every saddle club book ever published. When I think about the money that was spent on my hobby, I can't help but cringe.

At the same time, it is hard for me to classify riding as a complete waste of time and money. In high school, I dealt with self-esteem issues (like everyone), depression (like most people), and an eating disorder (like all too many people). Riding was one of the only constants in my life, the one thing that I did all the time, and one of the only things I did well. I slouched while sitting, standing, and walking because I was scared and shy and ashamed of who I was, but I sat up straight on a horse because it was a place I could feel confident, comfortable, and strangely enough, safe. I had to respect myself while riding because a horse won't respect a person who doesn't respect herself. I learned to be confident and commanding while maintaining composure. It is difficult to get a 2,000 pound animal to do anything, let alone take make an circle with an exactly 30 meter diameter, jump a 4 foot fence, or bend his neck at a perfect arch; riding takes strength, determination, and self-assurance. Riding taught me patience and to put my needs and desires second to the needs and desires of someone else. Many mornings before 7:00 I ignored my own hunger to feed 35 horses breakfast, many evenings I sat pulling briars out of my leased pony, Yankee's, tail until my fingers bled. I learned that the sport is more than the glamour of showing and jumping; like anything, you have to shovel a lot of shit to get anywhere worthwhile.

I stopped riding when I graduated high school, but not for long. I rode again the summer after freshman year, although my beloved Kirov had died of intestinal cancer. I instead leased a massive, barely broken draft cross named Ranger. He was... difficult. After that I began riding at school as well, taking lessons from a trainer north of the twin cities. It felt good and right to be in the saddle again, to forget everything else going on in the world and my life and focus exclusively on the task at hand. That's another thing about riding: it forces you to focus, to really, really concentrate, because the last thing you want to be thinking about while in mid-air over a jump on a horse is English homework or some guy. Of course, accidents happen even while focused, and on February 20, 2007 I was thrown from a horse. He was a giant, gorgeous bay gelding named Dante, perhaps 4 or 5 years old. He was a good horse, but feeling anxious, and as we cleared the last jump of a course he started bucking. I sat two of them (thank you very much) but was thrown over his head by the third, landing flat on my back in front of him. I broke my back in three places and ruptured a disc. It hurt.

But even this I count as a blessing, because at no other time has my strength been tested like that. After some time bedridden, and some time in a ridiculous brace, and some time in physical therapy, I'm (more or less) recovered, and evermore thankful for my life and mobility. I was inches from being paralyzed, and now often find myself checking buildings for wheelchair access, wondering what my life would be like had a landed just a little differently.

I've only ridden twice since the accident, due to financial reasons. It is harder and harder for me to justify spending so much money to feed and care for and ride animals when humans around the world starve to death. I can't bring myself to fork over $60 for an hour of riding when that amount of money give 60 people clean water for a year (http://www.bloodwatermission.com/). But I still don't regret the time and money spent on my behalf to ride horses, because it has made me who I am and taught me things I don't know that I would have learned any other way.

Today I packed up all of my riding gear- my boots, chaps, helmet, pants, show shirt, show coat, brushes, boxes, crops, etc- to give to lift me up, a therapeutic riding program for kids with developmental and/or emotional disabilities (http://www.liftmeup.org/). I will miss riding, but can no longer justify it to myself (especially since my income next year will be (ta-da!) $50 a month). But I sincerely hope that my boots and spurs and tack will be used by some other kid who needs them, not just to have fun, but to learn about hard work and self respect and caring for living things. I also hope they make the kids who are physically able clean the stalls and throw hay once in a while; it's good for them.