Personal Essay: Experiencing A Horse

It was a warm mid-september day and I was preparing to go horseback riding for the very first time. I was celebrating my bestfriend’s birthday with her family and a couple other friends. On the ride over you could feel the jitters in the air and the excitement to try something new. We arrived to Bobby’s Ranch in Westford MA and settled on petting some of the other animals. It was all very bizarre, almost movie-like. We joked around about rookie mistakes and wondered how many of us were going to fall under it’s trap. The ride was scheduled to be an hour long, through the woods and in an orderly fashion. I got on top of a platform and was instructed on how to get up on the saddle and how to use the reins to guide the horse. The birthday girl

I slipped my left foot into the stirrup and pushed off the ground swinging my right leg over the back of the horse. I took a moment and a deep breath in thinking back to a month before when I had taken a bad fall in a show, landing on my head, and getting a concussion. Sitting in the saddle I could feel my stomach turning and visions of falling off again kept reappearing in my mind. I had fallen off a handful of times before, but never that bad. I took grip of the reins and put pressure to the horse as I signaled for him to walk on. My confidence level had taken a toll, but step by step I was becoming less nervous and back to my old riding self.

When I was young I obsessed over horses as do most young girls but, that obsession never changed as I grew older. All the falls, all the heartbreak and stress that it caused made me fall even more in love with it. I have now been riding for twelve of my seventeen years of life and I do not ever

I took a deep breath as I walked my horse into the Greeley Stampede Arena. I told myself just to "relax." I loped a circle around the arena to make sure that my horse was warmed up and ready to go. He was ready but I was starting to get nervous. I stopped in front of the roping box to put my piggin' string in my mouth. I looked at my calf in the chute to make sure that it was number 33, which was one of the best calves out of the whole set. It was, and I was ready to ride into the box and rope my calf, or attempt to rope my calf. I began to get more nervous, more nervous than I ever had been at a rodeo.

When I was 10 my dreams came true and I got my first horse. Her name was Shesha, she was only a 23 years old, jet black, quarter horse. The first time I let her in the arena to play she ran, bucked and rolled. It was really fun to watch. After she played for quite a while i decided to try and chach her, it didn’t quite work out that way, she ran away from me for quite awhile until I decided to grabbed a carrot and broke it in half with that i found out that she really liked carrots because when she heard that sound she actually came over to me to eat the carrot. Which was so nice to find out.

There have been too many times to count where a horse has taught me a lesson whether it be in the saddle or on the ground. But there are a few horses that have taught me lessons that I'll never forget. Specifically, there was one mare who was named Molly she is a twenty-year-old Saddlebred that was an ex-park horse. Like most stereotypical mares, Molly was more than just challenging to get around with on the ground and in the saddle. Under saddle as soon as you put your foot in the stirrup and pressed any weight into the stirrup you better be prepared to swing your leg over and ride because she was off at the canter or a trot. There was no such thing as a flat walk, nor did you get to choose the gait you rode, it seemed every second of

We got on the ride quickly there was no line and I was scared, like about to pee myself scared. We all got strapped/buckled in and the ride started, it started climbing the first hill to then drop us onto whatever came next.It seemed like

We were waiting in line, I was so scared. Dad said, “Go on the ride it will be fun.” Finally it was our turn when we got on the ride we started going up.¨Are you ready?¨”Dad said. I was not feeling great about doing this. When we hit the top we went straight down everyone was screaming. I was so scared but relieved I did it. The rest of the ride

It was just another beautiful day at the stables. I was 10 years old at the time. My younger sister Kelsey and I were scheduled to have our usual horse riding lesson that day. However, we were completely unaware that our ordinary afternoon would soon take a turn towards disaster. The lesson started with us warming up and taking turns going over a series of jumps. But in an instant, Kelsey’s horse spooked and suddenly my 6 year old sister was desperately clinging to a 1,000 pound mare that was galloping out of control. I watched the flurry of hoofs and sand in shock as my sister clung to the mane that clearly could not support her weight. Time seemed to slow down in that moment as I helplessly watched her slide from the saddle, to the front

I started riding at the age of eight, when my dad took me to the barn in our neighborhood. I had initially just went to pet the horses, but I ended getting to ride; and that is where it all started. Soon after I started taking lessons at a local barn. Four years later I purchased my first pony, Trigger, from my trainer. I worked so hard for the money to buy Trigger, and I was so proud of him. Sadly I was only able to keep Trigger for about a year before I had to sell him back to my trainer. I still continued with lessons and rode when I could, but I didn’t get to purchase my next horse until I was twenty. I purchased Talia in January 2015 and trained her myself. I plan on making her into my competitive jumper and showing her as much as I possibly can.

When I was little I had a horse called Maddy Fatty. She was called Maddy Fatty because when she would canter or trot her belly would go side to side because she was so fat but she was the best horse I could ever ask for. I was the only one who could ever ride her. When my mom would try to ride her, she would do anything to get her off her back. When we had play days at Lead Hill arena. I would barrel race on her which I would try to go fast but my mom would yell and tell her to trot and she would listen to my mom. I first rode her when I was 2 years old. When we lived in Diamond City we were not aloud to have animals in our yards. So we had a wood wall so no one could see and we put them in our backyard with a swing set and every time I went to play on it. There was poo there every

This year I got over my fear of horses. For my fifteenth birthday my aunt got me four weeks of horseback riding lessons. My lesson horses name was Skyjet. At first I was terrified of the horse and how big it was, but really it was one of the smallest ones there. I learned how to groom the horse on put all the gear on it. I learned how to 5-star which is when you go into a squat forward leaning position and stay like that, I learned how to post which is kind of like doing squats but instead of going down you are going up, also how to get the horse to trot and stop. To trot you say trot on kick the horse's side until it does. To stop you pull the reigns to you and release when they stop.

My dad is a firm believer in learning through experience. They both looked at me and my dad said, “Get on.” After putting on the dirt bike outfit mom and grandma gave I jumped on the bike. My dad Kneeled down at me and started talking about how to go stop turn shift and all I heard was go and stop. So now it was time I looked the part and have the cool bike now the pressure was on. We started it up and I pulled on the throttle and it started moving. I was doing well

"First place goes to 218 Katelynn and her horse She's a Package!" Joy and pride surged through my body when I had won. Horse to me is more than the dictionary definition. The word horse is defined as an animal, a herbivore with hoofs instead of feet. In my life, though, horse is the loss of my grandpa, trying to live up to expectations, and the anxiety of getting hurt.

New things to me always scared me away, and riding a bike was no exception at all. After I changed into my brother’s old racing clothes, I went outside to get on my bike. I was struggling to sit on the seat of the bike and keep it balanced. After, I finally got adjusted comfortably my father came over and handed me a helmet. He helped me get to the end of our bumpy driveway.