I was able to ride a horse this summer during our family vacation. It was the first time I was back in the saddlein at least 30 years. My horse for the day was named Freyja, a Nordic name meaning noble woman. Freyja is the Norse goddess of love. My Freyja was sweet and seemed unfazed by my rusty riding skills. Freyja is a Pinto. Olivia our guide for the day corrected me when I called her a Paint. She explained that Freya is a Tennessee Walker and then I remembered that Paints come from Quarter Horses, and Pintos can be any other breed. Paints and Pintos are characterized by their distinct coloring, white with brown or black patches.
We chose to have our family vacation this year in Chillicothe at our home, which we call the DLC (the delightful little cottage). Our children came from South Carolina, Florida, and Cincinnati. Having everyone at our home is affectionately referred to as the Chillication. Our first Chillication was in 2020 during covid. We had so much fun together that we did it again this year. Ultimately to save money for our Cancun trip this Christmas. We did a variety of fun things throughout the week, one of those activities being horseback riding. We love trying new things and having new adventures. During the week we also visited Point Pleasant, WV to take in the Mothman Museum, put that on your bucket list, it’s worth the drive to spend a little time caught up in the frantic fears of the 1960’s.
I grew up on a Quarter Horse farm. We generally had between 5 and 10 horses at any given time on our farm. We had “show horses.” Expensive horses, well trained and sporting equally expensive tack. My teen years were filled with riding my horse daily and showing on most weekends during the season from about April-September. My first horse, Bill, was docile and well trained, in other words, he was old and slow. He was my first show horse. I started showing when I was in the 8th grade, late to the game as 4-H starts much earlier.
Although I grew up with horses always present, I never outgrew my fear. Early on in my life we did not do much with the horses but feed them. Dad was busy traveling with work did not have the time to devote to training them, so they were kind of wild and they scared me. It wasn’t until I was in the 8th grade and my brother in the 5th that Dad decided we would get better horses and learn to ride. I learned to ride on Bill and Chad learned to ride on Mandy. They were both Bays. Bay horses, a distinct color of Quarter Horse that is characterized by a beautiful red brown coat with black mains and tails and black legs. I started riding every day to get ready for the Highland County Fair. We learned a lot along the way but to say we were green would be an understatement.
My father had anxiety, that is probably where mine comes from. His mother, my grandmother was anxious too. In response to the very vocal fears of his mother my dad’s coping strategy was to basically not think things through. I call it the head in the sand approach. He just assumed things would go well all the time. This was fine for him, but it left me always feeling uneasy. I never felt safe with my father. I thought I should feel safe with him because he loved me, but he could fly off the handle at any time and he tended to put Chad and I in less than safe situations. It wasn’t that he intended to do this, he just didn’t think about the consequences. So, I was always afraid. There was no room in our home or barn for fear. I just had to suck it up and do whatever was being asked of me. I don’t mean that he put us on bucking broncos necessarily, but I was an anxious girl who was afraid of the unpredictable nature of horses. We called this unpredictable nature being spooked. Not only was I not allowed to express my fears so that I could work through them, but I felt shame for being afraid. As Dad told us, horses can sense your fear, so if my horse was misbehaving or spooked it was sensing my fear, that landed me in more trouble.
I had Bill for a couple of years and then Dad said I needed a better horse. That is when I got Hank. His real name was Tonto Too. He was born August 10. My birthday is August 11th. I loved him from the start. I would go to his stall on my hardest days and just hang out with him. He loved to chew ice and I taught him to shake his head yes. I loved him so much. I was never going to be a grand champion on Hank, but I was fine with that. Dad, however, was not. I came home from school one day my Junior year and someone was loading Hank into a horse trailer. I watched, bewildered. No one told me Dad sold my horse. Over the years I had buried this pain deep inside. I hadn’t thought of Hank in years. Only recently as I shared this story with friends, telling it the funny way I had always told it did I hear it anew. Kurt and I headed to the attic and a quick search of my small box of high school memorabilia didn’t reveal any photos of him. This memory was too painful. At the time that Hank was sold I was not allowed to grieve or feel bad, Dad said I needed a better horse, and I should feel nothing but gratitude.
Dad purchased me a big 16 hand horse with an impressive pedigree. I never bonded with Champ. I did not have it in me. I rode him but I never trusted him. I didn’t win much either. I tried to be excited and work hard to win for Dad, but my heart wasn’t in it. I missed Hank in private.
During our vacation we arrived at Uncle Buck’s Riding Stable at our assigned time. Pulling into the barn I noticed 8 horses, saddled and waiting for us. The horse that caught my eye was what I thought at the time a Paint horse. My mind flowed effortlessly to Hank, and I thought to myself, “wouldn’t it be cool if the Paint horse was assigned to me?” Shying away from disappointment I put that thought right out of my mind. A skill I developed in my earliest years. Never anticipate, never hope and you can never be disappointed. As Olivia, our guide sized us up she said, “I am going to give each of you a name and I want you to remember it.” When I am asked to remember something, I feel the anxiety rise in me, and just like that I am back in school. Feeling nervous as Olivia approached, she asked me to remember Freyja. Then one by one she assigned us our horses. My son, KJ, was asked to remember, Chunk, my daughter Emmy, Rogue and my husband, The Big Cheese. My son-in-law, Rhodes had Tiny Dancer, KJ’s girlfriend Mak’s horse was named Night, my son Calvin was given Flicka and my daughter Kaylie was assigned Blue.
At this point all I knew was I would be riding a horse named Freyja; I just did not know which Horse Freyja was. Olivia made her way to the barn and started leading out the horses one by one, calling out their names to match the horse and rider. She led out the horse I had eyed from the beginning and called, “Freyja”. I almost collapsed. I found out she was a Pinto not a Paint, but she was perfect and beautiful. During our hour ride I felt so blessed. I was not only on a horse again after 30 years, but I was on Freyja, the one horse in the lineup that reminded me of Hank.
What a ride!