No matter what’s going on. No matter how bad my day has been. All I have to do is go be around the horses.
Not even just with riding, or working, or grooming.
Just sitting in a sunny field watching my favorite horse graze. It brings such peace to the soul.
I wonder what it is, but it doesn’t even matter. It’s one of the best things in life
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I think it was supposed to be Winston Churchill that said that the outside of a horse was good for the inside of man. It’s true. I never cared whether I rode or not - it was just being around them that made me happy. The riding bit was just a bonus.
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I’ve been talking a lot about all this lately. We have a HUGE movement going on of horses helping, well, EVERYONE. Trauma or physical or mental disabilities. Trauma whether it’s veterans or other horrible events. The young, the old. Everyone in between. Those of us involved with horses for fun also know the incredible meaning it gives to our lives. Like you said, no matter what is going on, our time with our horses helps us be better humans.
What I love most about my involvement since a little girl and coming up in the traditional, American cowboy kind of way…is working towards never having anger towards my horses. I’m mostly there but there are moments sometimes. Like this morning ponying one off the other and them having other ideas. It was just a slap with the cotton lead rope but still…asking myself later if there was a better way in that moment.
So thankful for our REVOLUTION going on in turning away from anger towards better training. And so thankful for these gorgeous creatures. Giving me such purpose to my life.
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Isn’t it though?
My mom took me and my brother to a pony ride when I was 2 and he was 3. It was a first for both of us city dwellers. You sat in that basket type saddle thing while the pony went round and round.
My brother screamed the whole time to get off. I on the other hand screamed when they tried to take me off. I talked about horses ever since. It is something you are born with 
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I got on a horse for the first time at 7, trail ride in the black hills during vacation
At first I didn’t want to get on. Then I didn’t want to get off.
Loved them ever since!
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I just told my new BO today that unless something major prevents me from it, I’ll be at the barn every day at some point. Even if it’s just for a quick 10-minute visit, I like to see and touch my horse every day. I had my own farm for 20 years and he and my two that have now crossed the rainbow bridge were right there in my front yard. They were the first thing I saw in the morning, the first thing I saw when I got home from work, and the last thing I saw before going to bed. Once I moved and I started boarding my remaining gelding, it was a real adjustment for me. I got sort of caught up in work and the new house and everything, and I realized I wasn’t getting my dose of “horse time” every day.
Obviously, if I go on vacation or I’m sick or whatever, I might go a few days without seeing him now, but otherwise, I at least drive out to the barn to give him a treat and a kiss on the nose. And all is right with the world.
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My parents have a picture of me when I was about 3 on a big horse being led around a corral. I’m sitting up there in my little dress with the biggest smile on my face. i’ve been smitten ever since.
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I believe that while we’re with our horses, we’re in sort of a zone, living in the moment, being in the now.
And really, that’s the only time that matters. The past is gone, future hasn’t happened. We enjoy our horse time and everything else just fades away.
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For me, this is it. I struggle with OCD that can exhaust me mentally if I’m stuck in a loop of anxiety about something. Right now I’m actually looking down the barrel of a big change in my life and I’m excited, but also scared and sad and full of what-if’s. There is something about being around a horse I know and love, something about the barn, that takes away any moment I’d have to think about the what-if of the future or holding on to the past. I am present, and even if I’m cleaning some cannon crud off, or washing brushes, I am at peace. This time of year in particular there’s no more beautiful moment for me than hearing the cicadas in the evening while I’m handgrazing. There’s something about the rhythm of caring for them, the labor, that’s calming. Honestly until going through this thread I didn’t even stop to think that I didn’t once have an anxious thought while I was at the barn this morning.
I am very grateful for the blessing of peace and purpose horses have given me. It’s wonderful to ride, but just to be near them, carry the barn smell home, is enough for me.
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My theory is that we are so drawn to horses because horses, just like dogs and cats, have co-evolved with humans for thousands of years. Horses were probably domesticated five thousand years ago, maybe closer to ten, and humans were making art of horses tens of thousands of years prior to that. I truly think our species are meant to be together and are better off together, in a very real and powerful way.
Even a hundred years ago, a good horse could radically alter your quality of life in certain places - a horse could plow your field, move your cattle, bring your sick child to the doctor. My great-grandfather, working as a rancher, survived a summer snowstorm in the mountains because his horse knew the way home in a whiteout. When he was a child, the family horse died and they couldn’t afford to replace it, so a neighbor gave them a horse out of charity - they were already desperately poor and they would have struggled to survive without a horse.
I think the safety and peace I feel around horses is more or less encoded in my DNA, but I think that’s true of everyone on earth. Mine might just be a few generations closer than some people, but I think we all know on a deep biological level that we are safer and stronger with horses in our lives.
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