Confessions of a Horse Girl -- Buckinghamshire, England

Confessions of a horse girl –

I’m afraid of horses.

I first sat on a horse when I was 5 years old. I wore dirty blonde, haphazardly curled hair with thick, chopped bangs, a prodigious pink dress with white frills that looked like a fairytale wedding cake, and white grandma socks with my thrift store pumps. I wore all the jewelry I had collected in my entire life (five-year-olds think they’ve lived forever) and mourned the fact that I had no makeup and that my ears were noticeably un-pierced. Grandma earrings are much more painful than grandma socks.

I first sat on a horse when I was 5 years old. It was my birthday party and my dozen or so girlfriends were all bedecked in their best gowns and bedazzled in dollar store jewels. I hated the one with pierced ears and wondered what it would be like to not experience a headache when wearing my finest pearls.

I first sat on a horse when I was 5 years old. I can’t remember its name, whether it was a mare or a gelding, or whether the saddle was English or Western.

I remember the chestnut mane of the horse I rode when I was 5 years old. I remember the sensation of being rocked side to side, back and forth in rhythm with another creature’s movement. I remember being helped out of the saddle and immediately turning my exuberant face to my father.

“I want a horse.”

“Do you?”

“I really want a horse.”

“Okay.”

“REALLY.”

“Tell you what, if you can pay for half, I’ll pay for the other half, Mimigirl”

And that was that. I saved up all my pocket money, manned an abundance of lemonade stands, baked cookies, worked in my father’s carpentry shop, babysat children and spent a summer expediting at Village Inn. All this was for my future horse, who would be a Thoroughbred (because I was going to be a jockey) and who would be a mare (because I didn't want to have to see big horse willies all the time). Finally, the day came when I told my dumbfounded father, “Daddy, I have my half.”

And we bought Rose. Loco Rose. A 9 year-old ex racehorse who looked as if she’d seen far better days, but my 14 year-old heart went out to the downtrodden mare, and with my trainer’s blessing, we purchased the dead-eyed, stumbling beast.

It was a disaster. I was very green and insecure (having only been taking riding lessons once a week for two years) and my new horse was skittish, injured, and fearful. She reared and bucked whenever I rode, so riding quickly made the transition between something that uplifted me to something that saddened, frightened, and frustrated me. But I stuck with it. Loco Rose was my horse, damnit. My first horse. We were going to make it through these rodeo shenanigans and we were going to be better for it.

We weren’t. The dangerous behavior continued and my troubled bay Thoroughbred began to show signs of lameness. After a visit from the vet, I realized that I’d purchased a horse I could never canter, jump, or work with in any intensive manner. Her navicular bond disease was just too advanced.

My trainer felt guilty for recommending I buy an unsound and anxious mare for my first horse, so she purchased her from me as a brood mare.

I was found myself horseless and enormously discouraged.

This isn’t how it works out in any of the horse books. Girl meets horse, girl falls in love with horse, girl and horse gallop off into the sunset after winning the Grand Prix or the Triple Crown.

Girl meets horse, girl gets beat up by horse, girl sells horse to make babies. No. No, that’s not in ANY of my books.

We bought my next horse not long after. Did we bring home a gentle, middle-aged, well-seasoned quarter horse gelding like we should have?

God, no.

We brought home a six year-old, completely untrained, pregnant, spoiled, spunky Thoroughbred mare. Who’d never even been in a trailer before.

Some people take a long time to learn.

Around this time, I started feeling like my current trainer’s facilities were too dangerous for horses. She was building a barn (which is all well and good), but she decided it was unnecessary to section off the parts of her field under construction. I found my horse wandering through the skeleton of the stables, picking her way around deep holes, sharp building equipment, and nails sticking inches out of various two by fours.

So my horse -- my darling, spoiled Mariah – changed homes. However, as she could not be trailered, I had to walk her the two miles down the Colorado country road to her new construction-free facility. The first fence we passed through as we entered the pasture was barbed wire. Hideous barbed wire attached to two beastly fence posts. The horses were kept behind a thin electric wire on the other side of the pasture, so once through, my darling wouldn’t be in close proximity to barbed wire for the rest of her stay at this facility.

We were almost there. A dominant horse rushed up to the electric fence to aggressively greet the new member of the herd, and my darling Mariah lost her shit. She let out a whinny of fear, violently reared up, spun around on her hindquarters, and ran in the opposite direction, leaving burn marks on my shocked hands as the lead rope dragged through my powerless fingers.

I watched in horror and helplessness as my baby barged through the treacherous barbed wire fence. I saw the stakes torn from the ground as she dragged it back down the road at her breakneck pace.

Something went very quiet inside of me. Something shut down.

I ran after her, sprinting, jogging, and speed walking in her bloody hoof prints. After a hundred yards, I saw the bloody fence discarded in a ditch. After four hundred yards, I saw a blood stain in the middle of the road where she’d tripped and fallen.

The quiet inside of me turned cold. The sight of that warm blood made something freeze.

When we found her, she was scraped, scarred and scared. For the next couple of months, I cleaned her wounds and applied a silver spray to keep off the flies.

She hated me for it. Whenever I entered the stable, she would turn her hindquarters to me, as if preparing to bust my head in. She would nip and rear and throw a fit whenever she saw the can of silver spray.

I’m just trying to help, baby girl.

But my Mariah began to associate me with pain, and our relationship spiraled downhill. We could walk, trot, canter and take small jumps, but she would always throw a tantrum mid-practice, and I never knew when it was coming. The tantrum wasn’t just a bit of defiant head-shaking or crow-hopping, either – it was full-fledged bucking and rearing up so high that I was afraid she’d fall over backwards on top of me.

This went on for months.

We worked with different trainers and explored natural horsemanship techniques after the rearing escalated to such an extreme level.

Perhaps she could feel that cold quiet inside of me. Perhaps she’d just been dreadfully spoiled and didn’t understand why she should have to work at all. Perhaps when she saw me, she thought of the barbed wire fence in the same way seeing her made me think of the whites of her eyes and the burning sensation of the lead rope across my calloused tomboy palms.

She never unseated me (my trainer told me I had a Velcro ass), but she did manage to plant a solid hindquarter kick right in my lady parts, and with the inevitable bronco extravaganza enhancing every outing, riding was no longer a joyful, uplifting experience. I remember being so desperate to love this animal, but every time she bit or kicked, reared or bucked, I would take it personally and shut down a little more. It didn’t help that at this point of my life, I was so shy around people that I would have a panic attack if my mother asked me to make a phone call.

If I had to leave a message, it was the end of the world. Surely, it was the end of the world and I’d be (hopefully) raptured away at any second. Unfortunately, my predictions on the world’s end seem just as accurate as everyone else’s these days, so I’d stare at the great and terrible black ringing thing in my hands.

I’d take a deep breath to calm my nerves.

I’d click the button with the green phone...

Click the button with the red phone...

Click the button with the green phone...

Dial the number...

Click the button with the green phone..

Hear the ringto –

PANIC.

Turn the phone off.

Deep breaths. Deep, slow breaths.

Jot down what I was going to say to the machine on a napkin or paper towel.

Hi, this is Aimee Bourget and I’m calling to cancel my appointment at 10:00 this Tuesday. Thank-you very much and have a good day.

Deep breaths. Deep, slow breaths.

This was me at seventeen. This was before I found writing, so developing a dance with horses through body language was my sole means of communication as a lonely, insecure and socially inept teenager.

When it came time to choose between university and horses, I chose university. At seventeen years old, I sold my second Thoroughbred mare and her Appendix foal (who has his very own harrowing story that I won’t get into here). I sold the dream I made as a child in a wedding cake dress and grandma socks.

I’ve ridden on and off since Mariah, doing a bit of training here and a bit of trail riding there – but I’ve never really opened up to loving an animal again, be it horse, cat, or dog. I couldn’t love my Mariah. I couldn’t save her from running headlong through that fence. I couldn’t establish trust after that can of f*cking silver spray.

My insides were quiet and cold.

Now I’m working with Peter.

Slowly.

Delicately.

Quietly.

And my insides are beginning to thaw.

I’m afraid of horses.

I’m not afraid of being physically hurt by the sizable beasts – I’m afraid of feeling that sensation of hopeless desperation again. I’m afraid of loving a creature that loathes me and not knowing how to work through it.

Now I’m working with Peter, and as he slowly, delicately, quietly follows me around the round pen with his head lowered and his ears perked attentively in my direction, I feel the barbed wire wounds finally closing. 

my childhood drawings from what feels like another life: