Aren't I fabulous?

In 2013, the young girl working for us told us about a Quarterhorse gelding which belonged to a friend of hers who had decided boy humans were more interesting than boy horses. She and I went to take a look at him, with Craig having charged me to make the decision. The horse was big, solid, grey, young, overtly personable, so my decision was easy. We brought him home to Hideout Ranch and quickly changed his name from "Skipper" to "Orrin". (More on names later...)

Well, Orrin was a little more "Orrin" than we anticipated out of the startbox. His first outing with Craig went swimmingly until - in a flagrant breach of trail etiquette - the other horses and riders went around the bend and out of sight before everyone was mounted. Orrin went a little spastic when he thought they'd left him. Wide-eyed (for Craig), he said to me later, "I don't know if he's going to work out. We can't have him acting like that!" Then, "You take him and work with him."

Um, okay.

I took Orrin out as often as possible for the next few months. He was quirky, to be sure. Not a horse you could "fall asleep" on, but a horse that made you ride. Really ride. You had to pay attention. Stay centered. Sit back. Keep a solid leg without nagging him. Heels resolutely down. Hands had to be quiet, consistent, steady. You had to mentally be three steps ahead of him on the trail, prepared in case a yucca hurled an insult as he passed or a chipmunk blew raspberries at him as it ran across the trail.

I loved it. He made me ride and I loved it.

After I'd "legged him up", Craig took him back with a "Thanks, dear", and off they merrily went.

Quite some time after Craig's passing, a group of us went over to White Tail to help our farrier work cattle, and I took Orrin. "Cowing" at White Tail was always big fun, and this day was no exception. This may well have been the day Orrin executed a stupefying move he had never executed before. We sat in a knot, waiting for Guy to give us our next directions. Suddenly, Orrin's front end picked up - head down and feet off the ground. Then his back cracked, followed by his back end and feet thrusting out behind my head. All in slow motion. Honestly. Slow motion.

"Orrin, what are you doing?" I laughed, wholly amused and still in the saddle.

"I did the wave, Mommy!" he replied, quite pleased with himself.

"In slow motion?"

"Yes! Aren't I fabulous?"

I remember shaking my head and chuckling because indeed, he had done the wave. In slow motion.

Later (perhaps even on a different day but still at White Tail), on the other side of the dirt road after scouring a couple pastures for recalcitrant cattle, Guy waited to close the cowboy gate as we all passed through. Shortly beyond the gate was a deep wallow. I eased Orrin down the slope at a walk, and he picked up a canter as he crossed the narrow bottom and flowed like heavy cream up the other side. We kept the canter, rolling along under the blazing Arizona sun hanging proudly in a perfectly azure sky. We cut through the warm spring air like room-softened butter, Orrin's feet pounding out the waltz-like rhythm of a joyful canter.

It dawned on me I was joyful, lighthearted, and at peace. Orrin and I were perfectly in sync as we rolled across the grassland, and I remembered why. Why I rode horses. Why I had come out west with my beloved late husband to build his dream of an equine-centric guest ranch. Why I was still on earth when Craig was with Sammy and Warner, Wyatt and Logan.

Orrin and I were the same being for that canter stretch. He might have prompted me to ask the customary question, "Orrin, what the hell are you doing?" at his slow-motion wave earlier. But for those blissful moments cantering through life, I knew, I felt "why"...

He Gave Me His Heart, His All...

Sport's story started long before this particular day in the late 1990s and will be told, but this is one of the most memorable moments in years and years of memorable moments.

I was taking both Sambora and Sport to the Dominion Valley Pony Club Schooling Event at the historic, picturesque Foxcroft Boarding School just outside Middleburg, Virginia with a new trainer. She pulled up to the barn with an older bumper-pull trailer, and we loaded the horses - Sammy on the right and the BigMan on the left. Something happened when the trainer started to pull the trailer forward, and the horses got jostled. They squeezed together, popping the center divider off its pins and it came sliding down between them. We got the trailer stopped, the divider out, and the horses unloaded and calmed down. However, they had each been scraped and Sport was rather bloody on his back right from the hock down. We got him cleaned up, Sammy checked out, and - bless them both - reloaded and on our way to Foxcroft.

Sport's division was first, and we managed to complete our dressage test reasonably well. Then came cross-country. We warmed up, then took our turn in the start box. Down and over and across and back up and over fences and obstacles, through the water, then we pounded on the right lead, around some trees and up to this particular jump called a hay manger. It was 2'7" high with maybe a 3' spread. But Sport was on it, listening to me, moving forward. As we made the turn around those trees and up the hill to this jump, I remember the sheer strength and power of him. Approaching, I touched him with my leg, yelled my encouragement, and felt him gather and go - up, across, over, down. The last fence was a stone wall leading to the alley home, and Sport got even bigger (as if 16.3 wasn't big enough). Hurtling through the finish flags, he started screaming for Sammy, exceedingly proud of himself. We made it through stadium, then Sport got to relax while Sammy did her thing.

Coming off cross-country, Sport was all big and bad, bursting with excitement and pride, calling for Sammy to share his triumph. He was brilliant that day, not high in the ribbons, but he went out after a terrifying trailer incident and gave me his heart, his all. THIS was my BigMan. And so he had always been...

One Particular August Night...

In the 1990s, Sambora lived at Miran Farm in Aldie, Virginia, a large boarding barn with more team ropers than English riders. We all got on though, with a mutual respect and recognition of riding skills and abilities but not without a healthy dose of good-natured teasing. The boys had roping practice every Wednesday night like clockwork. We girls would school our eventing ponies on the flat or over fences, then sit on them and watch the boys and their roping.

One Wednesday evening in August, Sammy and I were tacking up to enjoy some time together. I think it was rather early as there weren't many people at the barn, so Sam and I soaked up being together. As I was adjusting the saddle, I heard a deep voice say, "Come on girl. Let's go get cows."

Peeking around Sammy, I saw Ron, one of the ropers, on horseback just beyond the barn door, swinging a loop. Tickled to be asked, I undid the crossties, led Sammy out of the barn, and climbed up in the saddle. It was a typical sight at Fareed's - one horse rigged in full Western and another tacked English, walking companionably toward an adventure. It was a sparkling evening - no humidity, soft sunshine, vivid sapphire and shimmering emerald above and below us respectively, balmy temps. In short, it was a perfect late summer evening in Virginia.

Ron and I found the cows, gathered them up, and started pushing them toward the front of the large pasture, then across to the arena. We cantered across the gentle, open ground, the smooth summer air washing over and around us. I looked over and saw Ron riding effortlessly - without reins, gliding as if he and his horse were in fact a centaur, swinging his rope. Sammy was loving the canter stretch, reaching out and covering ground with as much joy as I was experiencing, feeling her reach and cover ground.

It was one of those occurrences in your life when everything crystallises, and you realise you are wholly in that very moment, crushingly alive and sublimely confident you are one with the entire universe. I knew this in the moment, and I know it still. I can still feel Sammy moving, the velvet of the air, the pure joy of two people of totally different disciplines simply enjoying being out with their horses in an easy camaraderie.

When life gets contorted and convoluted, as it certainly does, I slip back to this singular August evening. Sammy and I together. Ron ridin' and ropin' without a care. And all gets right with my world...

Sammy and I, goofing off in the round pen at Fareed's...

Welcome to As The Gate Swings...

I had been adopted as a seven-week old infant by a typical family living in a decent sized Midwestern metropolis. Horses had fascinated me as a child growing up on the Eastside of Indianapolis, Indiana - with sidewalks and neighbourhood schools and parks to roam with the other neighbourhood kids. But, I consumed horsey books (I believe my name was the ONLY name on the card for checking out "Linda Craig and The Palomino Mystery" at the school library). I sat rapt when watching Westerns, looking more avidly at the horses than the cowboys - well, except maybe for Little Joe Cartwright. My adoptive grandfather would steal me away on weekends, take me to the local public riding stable, and rent me a pony and let me ride for an hour. If a friend had a horse, I was around it, on it. I took Horsemanship in college, taking a bus from campus to a nearby stable every week to ride. My parents weren't necessarily keen on it, but I had to ride. Had to be around horses. Had to. Didn't know why, but I had to...

The answer came to me in a most unexpected way. One Monday night, home from one of my college classes, I walked into Mom's den. Before I could ask where my dog was, she flung a piece of paper at me, saying "Read this." My adoptive family donated every year to the agency which facilitated my adoption, and in appreciation, they periodically sent her information. And so I read. When finished, I looked at her and she asked, "Who does that sound like?" Without hesitation, I replied, "Me." It seems my birthmother was barely an inch over five foot, had dark hair, "penetrating" dark eyes, and a "determined jawline". She liked to type, rollerskate, and babysit. But, also contained within those few paragraphs on that critically important sheet of paper was the answer to why horses were so crucial to me. 

My birth family - all of my birth family - was involved with horses. My mama rode and showed, even rodeoed. My grandmother bred and raised horses, and my Cherokee grandfather trained. My "alleged" father was a horse dealer/trader ("thief", as my husband, Craig, would later tease me). And there it was. The reason I was addicted to Misty of Chincoteague, of why I would rush to the carriage horses in Colonial Williamsburg or Mackinaw Island. I was living proof of Nature vs. Nurture.

Here I am, 33 years since I was blessed with my sainted First Horse, Sambora, and I still have to be around them, on them. I need to touch them. Smell them. Care for them. Ride them. I need to talk to them. Listen to them. I need horses as I need oxygen.

In those 33 years, I have been lucky, blessed, privileged, and honoured to have been around, worked with, and owned so many incredible, amazing horses. There have been as many incredible, amazing horse people from whom I have learned so much in those 33 years. Typical of so many adventures, there are stories. Myriad stories. A plethora of stories. May I invite you to sit back and enjoy...