Pilot

 I remember praying  one night while I sleeping at my grandma’s house that my Heavenly Father would send me a dream about when I would get my first horse. I promised I would stop begging my parents for a horse if I could just know when I was going to get one.

I’m not that religious right now in my life. But I remember so clearly dreaming of a brown horse running around my dreams that night.

When I was sixteen I was given a little brown horse for Christmas. I was crazy happy. He was young, and I was not the horseman I thought I was.

I was still battling a fear of horses. Two years before that I was kicked in the head and it had created a consuming fear that could crush me. I was slowly getting better, but I felt it strongly that first day I spent with my first horse.  I felt like a failure.

Because of this fear I often lashed out at my little brown horse when he scared me. I thought that force would help. It didn’t. It made him mad and defensive, and we were at a point where we both needed someone to step in and help us.

After multiple struggles I was invited to ride in clinic with a young guy named Ricky Quinn. I was apprehensive, I didn’t think anyone had much to teach me.

I didn’t take my horse that first day, I was embarrassed of him, and me, so I borrowed another horse.  I watched Ricky work the horses on the ground. I was used to lunging horses, but nothing more intricate than that. I watched as he called out how he was asking for the hind end, the front end, the hind end, the front end.

It made no sense to me, but I watched these horses instantly become attached to him, I watched them want to be with him, and most of all, respect him, not pin their ears at him, move away from his pressure. I wanted that.

I brought my own horse the next day. We struggled, but I felt I was getting somewhere.  Ricky came up to me at the end and told me very bluntly that it was clear I didn’t like my horse very much by the way I treated him. I walked my horse back to my stall crying. I was crying because I knew he was right. I was crying because my fear ruled over my love for my little brown horse. I felt like I ruined this horses life.

I went to the third and last day of the clinic. Ricky apologized to me. He told him he knew I loved my horse, but my horse didn’t know that. That was the truth that I wanted to hear. But it still crushed me, crushed me more than the fear.

I worked with my little horse for a month more. The clinic had started the hunger for knowledge, but I still knew very little. I still struggled.  I decided to send my little colt to a ranch of Ricky’s friend who was skilled and fair. I said I just needed a break from my little brown horse to put everything together with an older horse that was more forgiving.

I never got my little colt back from them. I haven’t seen him since I loaded him up five years ago to make the trip up there.

They love him, he’s a kids horse, and they send pictures of him to me often. I bought the older horse that taught me to be fair and when I wasn’t he bucked me off. I owe that guy a lot, so I sold him to a home that uses him twice a year for pony rides, he’s happy, and still bucks kids off once and awhile.

I go to Ricky’s clinics, I host them for him where I live now, and I am a better horseman than I was. That clinic shaped who I am. I take other people’s horses and turn them into something.

I just bought a little brown this horse this spring. He was a horse that scared me for the first time in awhile. He acted just like my Christmas horse. I called Ricky crying, ashamed that I was and that this horse had come back to haunt me.

He told me I had a choice. I had to either work this horse and become a horseman, or I had to send him to someone else and be a rider.

I went back to the beginning, and 5 months later, this little brown horse has my heart. I love him, and he’s the nicest horse I have ever put time into.

I’m so grateful for the people who are willing to say the truth to help the horse.