By: Nicole Buckner

I remember what it was like when I was eight years old, literally yearning for a horse. I knew I couldn’t have one, since my dad was out of work for two years due to a bad injury in his knee. We had no money for a horse. My mom had loved them as a child and still does, and she promised me once my dad was healed and got his job back, I would get riding lessons. So for two long years, I prayed and prayed, and my dad finally got his job back. Now it was my turn. My sister and I took riding lessons at my mom’s friends’ house for a year. I rode their awesome little pony named “Stoney” and my sister rode a little paint pony mare named “Coco.” I loved it, and riding lessons once a week was a whole lot better than spending hours in my room reading about them and looking at pictures, sometimes even crying over not having one. I was one step closer to horses, which was good enough for me.

About a year passed, and Birgit and Arnold (the people that gave us lessons) moved to another town that was about a forty-five minute drive. We still took western riding lessons, but not quite as often. We weren’t even close to being considered as “great riders” but we had the basic skills down, and we were good enough to ride on trails if we were riding calm horses. That Thanksgiving, I was ten, and my mom bought a beautiful little filly. She was the daughter of a mare named Mac, who is what some call a “babysitter” horse.
That means they’re so calm, you can trust about any age of child with them, knowing they’ll be just fine. The main reason we bought Swiss Miss, the filly, was because it was Mac’s daughter. She was a year old at the time. I was so excited about it. We finally had a horse! She was a little mean at first, okay, she was vicious. She tried to bite me three times. I knew she’d grow out of it though. She was just being a baby. We bought her from my dad’s cousin Christine, who owns a horse ranch in Northern California. The problem was that we lived in southern California, (500 miles away.) It would be at least a few months before Swiss Miss would be moved where Birgit and Arnold lived. However, we went home happy as ever, she was so cute!

Christmas came fast. The weather was cooler, and we hadn’t seen Swiss Miss since Thanksgiving. My sister and I were overjoyed when we received a beautiful Arabian mare named Dapples on Christmas Eve from our parents. She too, was living with Christine at the time, since Christine was the one who had found her, bought her from the owner, and sold her to my mom. Dapples had been abused and wasn’t in good shape, but I loved her before I even met her. A few months passed and Dapples was brought down to live with Birgit and Arnold, and their many horses. They took good care of her for us. They gave me riding lessons on her whenever time allowed, let her out to play with the others, and she ended up a real beauty. We had become really close. She followed me, nuzzled me, and trusted me. Then colic, a deadly sickness to the horse, stole her right out from under me.

By then, Swiss Miss was living at Birgit and Arnold’s, as was a beautiful appaloosa named Blaze. God knew we needed him when Dapples left. Blaze was given to us by his owners a week before Dapples died. They told us we needed him, and he needed us to take care of him. They loved him, but couldn’t afford to give him the best of care, and older horses have certain needs. You could never tell he was twenty-one by looking at him. He’s so healthy, elegant, and proud. You’d think he was two!

Life was going pretty darn good for me. We had Blaze, the perfect horse. We had Swiss Miss, a soon-to-be perfect horse. However, Blaze was rightfully my sister’s since he had healed her of being terrified of horses. She had been kicked by a young mare the day Dapples arrived, and all through Dapples’ time with us, wanted nothing to do with horses. But then Blaze came along, and being his sweet self, got her right back in the groove. She was riding again, and she loved horses again.

Swiss Miss was my mom’s horse from the start. It wasn’t like I was trying to be a brat or anything, but Marcy would barely ever let me ride Blaze. She was so in love with him, she didn’t want to share him. And Swiss Miss wasn’t old enough or trained enough to ride. Actually, we were still working on building a relationship with her. Then one day, I saw a beautiful palomino. Little did I know how much he would change me not only as a rider, but as a person.

It was cool outside the day we went out there to go see Blaze and Swiss Miss. When we got there, we went about our normal routine. Arnold and Birgit buy and sell horses a lot, so it’s not a surprise to see new faces in the barn. We got out of the car and saw Arnold out exercising a horse they had recently bought. He told us he had a new one-eyed friend. I didn’t know what he was talking about, until he pointed to a stall in the corner of the property. My sister, mom, and I went to go see him. The moment I saw him, I wanted him. I don’t know if it was his beauty, his attitude, or strangely enough his missing eye that made me fall in love with him. I’m not one of those people to judge a horse or any animal or person for that matter by their looks. I thought his eye made him unique and different, just like me. I couldn’t care less what kids at school say about me, because in my eyes, they’re all a bunch of fools.

Magic was different, and I admired it. A few weeks passed, and Magic was officially my horse. I was completely in love with him. I wrote poems and stories about him, I sang love songs picturing me on my big muscular golden horse riding together, and boys were not in the picture. I loved going to see him once a week, and even got my mom to take me during the week sometimes.
Everything was going great until Magic started getting stubborn. Before when I had ridden him, he would gallop, turn, and slide-stop. But now, he didn’t seem to want to ride at all. He stomped his feet when I tried to make him go, and sometimes refused to move at all. I tried to ignore his attitude, but as it got worse and worse, I felt helpless. I was still a beginning rider, and he was 1001 pounds of stubborn horse. I felt like there was nothing I could do. Then even worse problems came. Before, Magic had been a great trail horse. He would walk contently with the rest and calmly go where I asked him to. But now he would get competitive with the other horses and try to take off with me to beat them home.

I never fell off on the trail, but every time I was terrified to where I didn’t want to ride the trails anymore. I tried to justify his problems with his missing eye. Maybe that was the problem. But then why would he have problems now with it, but not before? My head was swimming with questions. Was it my fault? Was I doing something wrong? My mom became worried, and felt scared, like he was going to hurt me. The thought of selling him crossed my mind at one point, but I knew I would never do it.

I didn’t want to picture some other girl riding my horse. I had developed such a strong love for him, that I knew I would feel like a failure to him if I sold him. Finally one day, I thought about it real good and hard. And in my head, I said, That’s it. I’ve had it. No more thinking, it’s time to do something. The next few times I went out to the horses, I made sure I gave him lots of attention, to let him know he was the center of my world. When I rode him, I wasn’t rough, but gentle. I tried my very hardest to ride as best I could. I remembered everything Birgit had taught me during lessons. Heals down, hands down, lean back.

If I wanted him to turn, I pulled really gentle on either side of the rein, and gave him a little kick on the opposite side. Slowly, I started noticing differences in his performance. He didn’t fight the bit anymore, but did what I asked, and I would always reward him with a pat on the neck. I spoke with a gentle voice to let him know I would be patient if he made a mistake. I didn’t want him to feel like he had to be perfect, I wanted him to give everything he had. Then one day, I got up the courage to ask him to gallop. I couldn’t have been more thrilled when he immediately held his head up and galloped as fast as he could from one side of the arena to the other. I couldn’t believe it. I had done it. I had taken what I knew, put it to use, and now Magic was galloping again. I’ll never forget that day, and how happy I was. It felt so great to know I was a good enough rider to work him through a problem like that. He was back, Magic was back.

It’s been about a year since that glorious day. Magic is still with me. He is now eighteen years old, and I’m twelve going on thirteen. He’s getting better and better everyday. Every time I ride him now, I notice how he puts his heart into it. I have also grown as a person as well a rider. Animals are wonderful teachers. That horse has left hoof prints on my life. And long after he’s gone, and I’m grown, I’ll always know and remember how much he has changed me. We’re the best of friends. I talk to him about everything. I’ve told him about school, friends, problems, and without saying a word, he’s gotten me through it all. I know that no matter what I look like, no matter how I dress, or no matter what I do, he’ll always love me. He’ll always be loyal, and he’ll always be a shoulder to cry on. He’s one of the best things that ever happened to me. Friendship is found everywhere, even in a golden quarter horse gelding, missing his right eye.

Tags: Emotional Horse Stories, Great Horse Story Southern California, Horse 2 Heart, inspiring Horse Stories, Miraculous Horse Stories, riding lesson

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 8:26 am and is filed under Emotional Horse Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.