The Groundwork

Of all the lives I’ve lived, the one on four hooves may have had the most meaning. Unlike motorcycles, it required something deep inside that would resonate without words.

I was the one watching $500 riding lessons from the other side of the fence, the "wild girl" sitting bareback on the stallion no one could ride. I never understood their mechanical approach of control. For me, it was always about a feeling. The kind you get when you're standing next to someone intense, - hard to name, impossible to ignore. I could feel that intensity and modulate it, raise it, soften it, meet it. Soon I could extend my palm outward at any horse in the corral and watch it walk toward me.

I was never truly comfortable in a saddle. I preferred the feeling of dropping directly into their bodies, moving them with my excitement and slowing them with my calm.

I was well known, but not popular. The ones who spoke to me were the ones who knew the most — the ones who put me on unridable horses, where I learned as much from them as they learned from me.

Word of my weirdness spread and I got a couple side gigs exercising horses, one who had a stall larger than my house. I was supposed to patrol the closed backcountry trails in Big Basin State Park after severe storms, when massive redwoods would fall and block the paths. I diligently did my duty, but just happened to use them as massive jumps for weeks prior to reporting them as dangers. It. Was. So. FUN. As soon as we lined up towards one of those 4 ft tall obstacles, I'd drop the reins completely and slide my fingers on to either side of his neck and grab a fistful of mane, just a slight tug of hair gave me more control than any bit ever had.

It took a few months before I understood the real story. The woman who owned him came out to the stall one day to talk to me and instantly he went lame. As she was explaining she thought he had an intermittent issue with his shoe which would explain why he was fine with me, he got tired and changed which leg was "lame". She never noticed the switch.

Turns out, she was number seven in the world for endurance racing at the time, and this was her prized horse. She treated him like a piece of equipment she owned rather than a partner.

I miss the wild riding, nothing but trust holding us together, but it was the ground work, the dull work -- the brushing and grooming, shoveling and feeding -- that I miss the most.

I learned more about partnership from horses than I ever did from humans. Horses taught me that power doesn't need to be forced. It only needs to be met.