I’m just so glad that as a young teen it never even occurred to me to consider how annoyed, how strongly people would feel about a stranger asking to ride their horse. When I was 12, horribly shy, scruffy, horseless, horse-crazy me used to wander my rather horsey suburb neighborhood and admire the horses I’d come across. There was this one particular beautiful bay mare that was just the embodiment of Horse Perfection to me, and I’d make a point to go see her, patting her on the nose over the fence and dreaming of having a horse of my own like her. One day, I saw the owner coming up to halter her, kind of a posh lady, rather intimidating. I summoned all my courage and told her how beautiful I thought her horse was, and abruptly asked to ride her. The lady was very kind to a scruffy, awkward little girl when she could have been incensed at my impertinence, and gently said no, that she was a former race horse, not suitable for a kid to ride, but thanked me for saying her horse was beautiful. I was disappointed, of course, but plunged on and asked what her name was and was told it was [I forget the first part] Nellie (?) Sea. I was greatly impressed and said, “Nellie Sea? Like Seabiscuit the famous racehorse?” The lady looked at me closely, and said yes, that was in her bloodline. I just about swooned and got all wide-eyed. Then the lady paused and asked if I’d like to help groom her. Would I??? Are you kidding? I was in heaven! She let me help brush her, pick out her feet, taught me about grooming, invited me to come back, which I did every so often over the course of a summer, letting me help bathe her, teaching me about environmentally friendly shampoos, etc., and all the time rattling off bits about barn care, telling me stories about the mare’s racing days, etc. Those were the most amazing moments for a shy kid, and totally fueled my horse obsession. I’d go home and write notes in my diary about it all.
Months later, I asked another girl who was about four years older in the neighborhood if I could ride her horse, and she said no, but I offered to help her with morning feeding anyway because I could see she needed help, and was thrilled to get to do it every morning before school. I was very dedicated. Soon she let me ride her horse and gave me pointers, and let me continue riding when she went off to college. That led to me getting asked to exercise other people’s horses here and there, and I learned so much. Finally I was able to take some real riding lessons in exchange for mucking out, and finally as an adult got a horse of my own, wrote magazine article about horses, then horse books, then ultimately had a kid of my own who rode horses competitively.
Fast forward, I’m now older than the hills and have a horse that I would have died to have had as a kid, a beautiful hunter that I have a pro ride. I go and watch him compete and all these years later, I still think about how amazing it was that that lady was so nice to some little clueless kid and kind of jump-started a whole lifetime of horses. So I get it that it can be off-putting to be asked to ride your horse, and I certainly understand why the answer is usually no since there are a number of truly good reasons. I’m just glad someone looked past the impertinence and took a moment to share horses with someone who maybe didn’t deserve it but risked the ask and appreciated it more than they ever could know.
I took her to the vet hospital for a minor procedure; one of my FB friends made a point of being the only one to handle her because she thought she was going to be a holy terror. When she brought my horse
