Girls and Horses
by Joell Dunlap
all rights reserved by the author October 2010

Our answer doesn’t matter because the 1,000 lbs. at the end of the rope is looking softly as he drops his head and follows that girl. He leaves the security of his food and his barn mates and simply follows that little girl. No matter how many times I put girls and horses together, this amazes me every time. It’s one of those little miracles that happens almost every day of my career and sometimes, just sometimes, I make the time to honor it by watching and being amazed. Every horse story is a story about trust in spite of the evidence. Every horse understands that hope inevitably leads to disappointment, but that trust leads to new possibilities.

Some people will tell you that a horse is dumb. He’s a beast of burden that has been bred and broken until he accepts bit and saddle, spur and yoke with a resignation unique to prey animals. That theory melts away when I send out our 22 year-old one-eyed Thoroughbred to teach a student to jump her first fences. He canters lightly to the fence, ears pricked, head slightly tilted to see the jump properly. He knows he could go around. He knows he could stop. But he never, ever does. He slows himself down after that fence and basks in the hugs and pats bestowed on him by the child on his back. She’s got pink cheeks from the excitement and she’s just now taking her first deep breath since the beginning of the lesson. Call this lack of intelligence if you will, I will call it generosity.

There are people who will offer to teach you to teach your horse to trust. They will sell you a book, a brightly colored whip (?) and a weekend seminar. They try to unlock the secrets of the horse/girl bond. But it’s not until a girl’s heart has been broken, until her best friend has moved away or until she’s been shunned by those you thought were supposed to love her that she realizes the depth of effort that it takes for a horse to trust. Only then can she appreciate the fragile beauty of the horse and their power to let us “in.”

People ask me all the time what connects girls to horses. After 25 years of searching, I think I finally know the simple answer;