Boredom drove me from my dorm room this afternoon into my white Bravada, through Dillon, down graveled Frying Pan Road, and to the J and S Sporthorse Equestrian Center where the UM Western’s equestrian team hosted a hunter/jumper horse show this weekend. As I pulled into the headquarters of the center, there weren’t many vehicles or horses. I was rather disappointed, but not too surprised. This is Montana, and you can’t expect much else.
I parked my Bravada behind the facilities and walked past the indoor arena to the outdoor ring where the equestrian team members were readjusting the jumps for another course. While that took place I admired the few horses being walked in the area and eavesdropped on conversations about the show. Apparently I had made it in time for the last few classes, and then the show would be over for the day.
When the competitions resumed, there were only three competitors - - number 68 was a bearded man on a massively-built bay gelding called Grasshopper, number 103 was a lady in her fifties or sixties who rode a feisty blue roan named The Other Half, and number 72 was a younger, blond woman on a fine-boned black-and-white paint horse called Arctic Moon. There was a friendly camaraderie among the trio as they teased and congratulated one another, but they still took the competition seriously, carefully checking and balancing their horses before the jumps, which consisted mostly of white-washed boards or pine poles stuck between painted posts and some shrubbery.
The dust kicked up by the horses’ hooves swirled around my legs as I leaned against the rails and watched. I wished that I could be one of the riders, sitting in two-point position over the pommel of a saddle, the leather reins rubbing the skin between my third and fourth fingers, my calves warm from the heat of my horse’s body, my cheeks red from the wind sweeping between his pricked ears, my throat dry and scratchy from the whirling sand. But more than anything, I just wanted to touch a horse. To extend my hand to his nostril and feel his hot, moist breath dampen my fingers as he took in my scent. To stroke his muzzle, soft as a child’s skin, and trace the veins running along his cheekbone to his jowl. To pat his sweat-lathered neck, to smell the steam rising off him.
Honestly, that was probably what lured me to the show today more than anything else. I wanted to be near enough a horse to smell him. Perhaps it’s a strange concept to some people, but to me, the scent of horses has the same alluring, comforting quality as the scent of home-baked bread, or perking coffee, or the lilacs in the garden, or the zest of a mountain wind. It’s a scent that brings me home, no matter how many hundreds or thousands of miles away I am - - home to a prairie grass pasture with a chestnut Arabian mare who lifts her head from grazing, a few strands of grass still emerging from the corners of her mouth, and ambles over to me to nuzzle my jean pockets for horse treats.
Today, this was as close as I could come to home.
After the competitions were finished, I wandered into the indoor riding arena where three ladies were working their horses. I found out from a women sitting on the bleachers that two of the riders had competed at Grand Prix level - - one in dressage and the other in jumping - - and that both were now trainers. It isn’t every day that you meet such talent in Montana and have a free opportunity to watch them perform. The younger of the two trainers rode dressage - - which is a sort of horse ballet - - on a well-proportioned black Canadian Warmblood who side-stepped and occasionally resisted while his master trained him on delicate and demanding movements. The other woman, a pert, laughing rider, worked as a happy-go-lucky team with her gray Spanish Andalusian gelding, popping over the two jumps in the middle of the arena and cantering in miniscule circles. The other girl in the arena, who was about my age, rode a paint-colored, draft-cross mare that placidly trotted and cantered as her novice rider asked.
I was mesmerized, but a part of me kept begging to do more, to not leave this ranch without at least touching a horse.
The lady with the Andalusian finished her ride and headed out of the arena. My heart jumped in my throat and I seized my opportunity. “May I pet your horse?” I asked. She didn’t hear me. I hesitated, wondering if I should ask again. I stepped closer. “May I please pet your horse?”
This time she heard me. “Of course!” She halted him so I could approach. “Are you a horsey-girl?” she asked.
I laughed. “Yes.” I let him sniff my hand, and then rubbed the broad forehead and the knob above his eyes. He was beautiful, and so gentle-mannered. His neck was damp and sticky with sweat, and his sweet scent filled my head.
Tears stung the back of my eyes as I pet the sweet creature. I kept thinking of my horse at home, almost three hundred miles away. I wished that I was there, swinging onto her back, listening to her hooves plop against the dirt, feeling her rough strings of mane run through my fingers.
Horses are a part of my life; they’re part of my identity. Ask anybody who knows me, and they’ll be sure to tell you I’m horse-crazy. Visit my dorm room and see the calendar cut-outs galloping on my walls; take a look at my bed and the three stuffed horses waiting to curl up with me at night; glance over the drawings in my art book, almost all of horses.
The truth is, as I drove away from the equestrian center today, I realized that I don’t want to get so caught up with the more profitable or logical routes that I leave behind one of the few things that fuel my passion for life as much as writing does.
I don’t want to live a life without horses.
What does this mean for my future? I’m honestly not sure. Perhaps it means switching from a Secondary Education English major to a double major in English and Natural Horsemanship. Maybe it means working long, hard hours this summer so I can pay boarding fees for a horse. Maybe it means investing my spare time here at college into studying equitation books. I suppose only time will tell.
But one thing I do know. When I go home this week, I’m going to run out to the pasture, find my horse, wrap my arms around her neck, breathe in the scent of her skin, feel her whiskers tickle my palm as I feed her a treat, listen to her crunch it to bits, and then laugh at her as she nuzzles my pockets for more. I will saddle her and ride in the shifting shadows of the woods, and no longer will I be jealous of the riders I saw today.
I will have my own mare between my legs, and my heart will soar higher than the tallest jumps that they have ever cleared. And life will be beautiful, simply because I love a horse.
