Does it haunt you to give up on something? How many times have you fallen and chosen not to get back on the horse?
One summer I took a vacation to the Ranch at Rock Creek in Philipsburg, Montana. This 660- acre luxury dude ranch offers all my favorite things: skeet shooting, fly fishing, hiking, plus a topnotch chef and spa.
My first morning there, I leap out of bed excited to get going. Every guest is issued their own bicycle to cruise around the resort. After breakfast, I hop on mine and head down the dirt road. I round a corner and my nose twitches: horse poop! A sign points to the stables. I bring my bike to a stop and flash back to my childhood.
I’m twelve years old. My family is spending a week at Warner Hot Springs, a western-style ranch outside of San Diego. At Warner, I fall in love with horses and go riding every day. What I lack in horsemanship, I make up for in enthusiasm. One day I’m galloping across a meadow when my foot slips out of the stirrup, and I tumble off the horse.
Luckily, I escape without physical injury. But I don’t escape emotional injury. I know you’re supposed to “get right back on the horse,” but I can’t. Fear wins that day, and I never ride again.
So here I am 50 years later, and as I replay that day in the meadow, it’s not the fall I’m thinking about, but the end result: I’m still afraid of horses!
I pedal to the stables and walk up to the first wrangler I see and tell her, “I want to get over my fear of horses.”
Ali listens to my story and then says, “Here’s what I recommend. We’ll start in the arena, go over the basics, and see how you feel. If it goes well, we’ll get out on the trail.”
I tell her, “If we go out on the trail, I don’t want to just walk. I want to gallop. If I’m going to do this, I want to play full out.”
Ali gives me a thumbs-up and I schedule a session with her. As I walk away I wonder, What the hell did I just do?
Over the next 48 hours, every time I catch myself thinking, I’m too scared to get back on a horse, I reframe it to, I’m so excited to get back on a horse! This mental gymnastics just barely gets me through.
My morning with Ali finally arrives. I’m going to ride for the first time in five decades and I’m incredibly nervous. At the riding center, a wrangler fits me with a cowboy hat and boots. I walk out to the barn feeling like an imposter and think of Billy Crystal in City Slickers. But still, I walk out to meet Ali and Boca.
Boca is an Appendix Quarter Horse and stands over 15 hands. Ali walks him over to the mounting blocks so I can climb on. I’m now five feet off the ground and clutching the saddle horn with a death grip.
Ali adjusts my stirrups, takes Boca’s reigns and leads us into the arena. She guides me through the basics of sitting in the saddle and using the reigns.
Boca and I walk, then trot. My confidence builds. Boca and I lope around one of the barrels used in the barrel riding competition.
Ali says “Let’s hit the trail!” And we do.
Suddenly I’m twelve years old again. We walk along a river and up a slope. And then there’s nothing in front of us but miles of meadow.
“If we were going to gallop, this would be a great place.
“It certainly would. You ready?”
“Hell yeah!” And we both kick our horses into a run.
We gallop side-by-side for about a half mile until Ali reigns in her horse, and I reign in Boca. My heart is racing. I’m laughing out loud. I bring Boca astride Ali’s horse. “Wowzer! That was so much fun! I can’t believe it! What a rush!”
Back at the stables, I slide off my horse and wrap my arms around his neck. He nuzzles my chest and I whisper in his ear, “Thank you, Boca.”
By getting back on the horse, I regained my confidence. And not just in horseback riding, but in relation to all the other times in life I failed and quit. I learned even after 50 years, it’s never too late to try again. As I walk back to the stables, I still feel funny in my cowboy hat, but I’m definitely walking taller in my boots.