How I Got Horses Stuck on the Brain

One could argue that I have always had horses on the brain. I could say it was ancestral memory, that being part Magyar I could hear the hoof beats of my ancestors from the day I was born. But, unlike most little girls who dreamed of having a horse of their own, I dreamed of race horses. I had a hobby horse and a rocking horse and would run the Kentucky Derby over and over and over again in my head, with me and my trusty steed winning, of course. I read and reread Walter Farley’s Black Stallion books. This was all due to the influence of my grandfather.

This was not a direct influence. It was a subtle suggestion that lodged itself in my mind as I listened to him talk about the horses about to run in that year’s Kentucky Derby, as we sat in my parent’s living room on the first Saturday in May. It was the rare mention of his own horses, of his Shannon’s Hope. These things implanted themselves in my brain. This is how I came to know horses. Racing.

It never occurred to me, like it must have occurred to so many little girls, that I could actually have a horse and ride it. That I could learn to ride. I did have the occasional opportunity to experience horses in some way. I think I was two and a friend of my sister’s had a horse. I remember sitting up way up high on the saddle as this person held me. Later, I remember sitting on the back of my cousin’s race horse. She had just the one. I think I was eight. And I was riding a race horse.

There were a few trail rides here and there. And then nothing for many years.

I did go to the track though. Once. When I was 16. Out in California, at Del Mar. There I was, looking no older than 14, going up to the window and placing bets. I won. Consistently. My grandfather had educated me well.

It wasn’t until I was 30, and my sister was visiting from Japan one fall, that she mentioned she wanted to ride a horse. I needed to ride a horse and be near a horse for something I was writing at the time. Research I called it. This is how I met Scooter. He was an angular 16-plus hand Appaloosa, so mellow that I had to wake him up to put the bit in his mouth. He reminded me of a brown and white cow. All we did was walk. All he wanted to do was eat the hay stacked at one end of the indoor ring. He was perfect.

I took all of two lessons on Scooter. That is all I could afford. Actually, my sister paid for the lessons. They would not have happened had she not paid. But the seed was planted. I would think about Scooter a lot. Still do. But the reality of my taking lessons, of riding, of becoming a rider, had not really settled in my mind as something that could happen. That would happen.

It happened in Hungary two years later. The land of half my ancestors. Out on the Puzsta, the Hungarian Plain where Arpad had led the Magyar tribes over 1000 years ago. Again, it was my sister and I. Again it was fall. She was living in Hungary then. I was visiting. We were staying at Epona, an equestrian hotel out on the Hortobagy. They breed and train Nonius horses there. My sister and I took longe lessons on a small Nonius mare. My sister went first. I watched for an hour as she trotted around and around in a circle learning to post. Then it was my turn.

I know all of about five words of Hungarian and the instructor spoke no English at all. My sister quickly explained the timing of the posting trot: go up when the horse’s outside leg is forward (later I would change this to sit down when the horse’s outside leg is back because that makes more sense to my brain for some reason). The Hungarian instructor, a dark haired, dark mustachioed man, as slim as a whip, tried to explain the same thing with hand motions. He was very reticent for a Hungarian. Most Hungarians will talk your ear off despite the fact you do not have a clue as to what they are saying and they are aware of this. Our instructor was a man of few words. Luckily I understood the two most important: igen and nem. Yes and No.

So I got on the lovely little Nonius mare. She was dark brown and had her winter coat already. I have incredibly short legs for an average sized human female. I will never forget the Hungarian instructor taking my left leg and throwing it over the mare’s neck so he could adjust the left stirrup. There I sat perched on a horse, on the Hungarian plain, w/ one leg thrown over a horse’s neck and the other dangling uselessly down along the horse’s side not able to reach the other stirrup. It was at the moment I knew that, no matter what I did with the rest of my life, horses was going to be a major part of it. I knew I could ride. I knew I would ride. I would work with horses. At the age of 32, awkwardly perched on an old leather saddle, on that patient little Nonius mare, I found my true self.