By EMILY BAKER
This is a tale of two trainers, two horses, and one rider. It is the tale of the struggle so many of us have had in this sport that we devote our entire lives and salaries to—remembering that, in spite of the tears, the injuries, and the dollars spent, we do this because we love it wholeheartedly and with utter abandon.
“How about, instead, you just come out and ride?” Steve said.
I rubbed the ridge of screws jutting from my collarbone and shook my head. “No, I appreciate that, but I just need you to sell him,” I replied.
The him in question was my little white horse, who had just been sent back to me from a lease-to-buy situation which had not worked out. That same little white horse who had thrown me into the ground like a dart, shattering my collarbone, which required surgery and multiple months of recovery (six days after I got my health insurance back, mind you).
I was telling the story through laughter by then, having survived the endeavor and walked away. But scars run deep, and they are often easily concealed by laughter.
No, no, I was done riding. I needed the financial burden that was my horse off the payroll, so to speak. After 25 years, I was moving on; I was going to be a normal person. I would do yoga, or running. Or something.
When I bought Cavalino, (we called him “Vino”, because who doesn’t like wine?) I planned to do the 1.20m with him. Like many riders before and after me, I was always thinking of the next class, the next move up, bigger jumps. And like many riders before and after me, I was failing to live in the moment I was given.
The last time I had been in the saddle, Vino was in a world of his own.
We were trying him on a new grain and at one point, he bucked every single stride down a five-stride line. On the last jump, during the last course of the day, he flipped his back legs straight into the air and sent me shoulder- and head-first into the ground.
The hours immediately following my fall were a concussed haze in the back of my mom’s car, a visit to urgent care, and eventually, to the ER, where they had an X-ray machine to confirm what was already abundantly clear: I had a broken collar bone.
When, two weeks later, I finally went in for surgery, the surgeon discovered it was not just broken, it was shattered. He did his best to pull together tiny shards of bone with a half-dozen screws and sent me on my way.
But, like I said, scars run deep. The bone was slowly mending, but the fear remained. I was done.
Spoiler alert: the picture at the top of this story was taken in June 2024. So it may come as no surprise that Steve got his way.
Feet shaking in the stirrups, hands gripped onto the reins, I did get back on my horse for the first time in nearly eight months. “He’s different,” Steve promised, “he’s a hunter now.”
I scoffed. My 1.20m horse was not a hunter.
It’s an amazing thing, though, to have someone who knows you so well. As I slowly walked, trotted, and eventually cantered around the ring (no, I had not been planning to do that), Steve set up a small cavaletti.
“In case it gets in your way,” he said.
“It will not get in my way,” I declared. And yet, as I circled it more and more, the old, familiar itch crept back up. The one that Steve knew was there: my greatest competition, and simultaneously my greatest obstacle, was myself.
The cavaletti got in my way that day.
For months after, when Steve started my lessons, he would ask me to set my intention. The thing I would focus on in my answer was breathing. I clung to the fear like a lifeboat in a storm. To the tiniest pole, to somehow even tinier cross-rails, and to the occasional small jump, I would line up and I would breathe—in and then out.
A year later, when I walked out of the show ring on my 2’9” hunter (Steve was right) with my first blue ribbon since I was in elementary school, I cried. Six months later, as I hugged that horse in his final moments before the vet put him down, I also cried.
The day had started simply enough.
Steve had called to let me know my horse looked a little off, but it was probably just a hot nail from the farrier. I was not worried. Then he called again.
“It’s not getting better,” he said. “I think maybe we should get the vet out instead of the farrier.”
“Okay,” I said. I trusted him. I was still not worried.
The next call changed my life forever. Vino was not going to be okay. Like my collarbone years before, he had shattered a bone in his leg. It was a freak accident, with no clues as to how it could have possibly happened. He was not going to be okay.
“You have to be able to do something,” I wailed into the phone as I was speeding through the back roads of Parker, CO. As improbable as it seemed for one person’s lifetime, I had owned a horse that had broken his leg before. That horse had recovered—even returned to work. There had to be something.
But there wasn’t. For weeks after, I woke up every night from a nightmare in which I had given Vino a day, two days, and miraculously, he was fine. But that is not what happened. A month later, I had a check in my hand that was more money than I had ever seen in my life, and it felt worthless to me.
As I said, this is a tale of two trainers and two horses. There is no doubt that Steve Johnson saved me from the brink of leaving behind the thing that I held most dear. But two months later, Nicki Wilcox stepped into my life.
Why don’t you ride my horses? Nicki texted me one day.
I honestly thought she was joking. She had grand prix horses, horses that cost more than my house. There was no way she truly thought I was good enough to ride them.
When are you going to ride my horses? She followed up again, weeks later.
I still thought she was joking, or possibly insane, but one did not say no to getting to ride Nicki’s horses twice. With a broken heart and a lump in my throat, I returned to the barn where it happened. I kept my gaze averted as I walked, reins in hand, past the pen where Vino died.
When you’ve had your heart shattered, you feel with a conviction that’s not unlike the most extreme religious fervor that you will never love again. That you are destined to be destitute and alone forever. But we are usually wrong about that, aren’t we?
That first day that I rode Kees was a haze. He was seven years old, gorgeous, and rode like a rocking horse. Tears threatened to boil over the entire time. And yet, as I pulled to a halt at the end of my ride, I couldn’t stop the words from coming out.
“Holy sh*t this horse is cool.” And then, just as Steve had said to me about a different horse, I added, “But I think he’s a hunter.”
The seasons shifted and, as often happens, circumstances far beyond our control took over. Steve moved to another barn, and Nicki tore her ACL. Kees needed a rider, and I was lucky enough to be there for the job. I hacked him regularly, and as Nicki recovered, I even got to take him over some jumps. Slowly, my heart melted. Then, all at once, I was in love.
Not every equestrian professional values love over money—love of a horse or the love of a rider. Nicki Wilcox is one of those rare gems.
When she was faced with the need to sell Kees, and I was faced with the possibility of losing another horse I loved forever, Nicki offered me a deal that very few out there would. She offered me a future in which I could make the horse mine.
I would love to say that every day thereafter was a fairy tale. Of course not. (Did you really think that? This is horseback riding!)
As soon as the ink had dried, I apparently forgot how to ride. I was taking this 1.30m horse over cavaletti, and doubting every decision I made. I felt entirely unworthy of this creature that 30 years in riding told me I was unworthy of (read: couldn’t afford). I also felt entirely unworthy of Nicki Wilcox, the grand prix rider coaching me over speed bumps on what had just recently been her horse.
But as I have said before, and will say again, that is not who Nicki is. She is a light in the darkness of the horse world. When my feelings of inadequacy culminated in a tear-stricken lesson in which I confessed to Nicki that I think she put her faith (and horse) in the wrong hands, she reminded me why we do this.
Sure, we do this because we are competitive: We want to succeed, win ribbons, and sometimes money. We do this because we set goals and want to see ourselves achieve them. We want to see ourselves progress, move up, move on. But that’s not really why.
“We do this because we love it, because it makes us happy. This sport is way too expensive to not be having fun doing it,” Nicki said to me that day. And that is what I’ve done with Kees every day since.
For what it’s worth, I have moved up. I am currently competing in the 3’ hunters (I was right, he made a great hunter!). It’s not the 1.30m or even the 1.20m, but for someone who tried to quit riding a few years ago, it’s more than I ever thought I would achieve again. I have also won ribbons—some of them blue—and even a little money. More than that, I have had fun.
This story started with a picture that was taken just a few days ago. In that photo, I walked out of the ring with an 82 score, and a huge smile on my face. Kees, who has my whole heart and then some, had just given me one of the best rounds of my life.
Somehow, by the coincidences of fate and carefully scheduled ring rotations, the two people standing at the in-gate that day were Steve Johnson and Nicki Wilcox. They, too, had huge smiles on their faces, knowing what I had just accomplished.
The journey to that round has had a lot of highs and lows, and I have no doubt there will be many more. But it is for the people like Steve and Nicki, the rounds where we finally slot in the missing piece, and these incredible horses that we humans will never deserve that keep us coming back.
And also, because this sport is too damn expensive not to have fun doing it.
This was a submission to the 2024 Equestrian Voices Creative Writing Contest sponsored by The Plaid Horse. The goal of the contest is to promote fine, literary prose involving horses and the equestrian experience. This contest is open to writers of fiction and non-fiction, regardless of any previous publications, and awards 16 prizes. To learn more about the 2024 contest click here.
