Epona Equine Care Services & Scott Hill Sporthorses

What an amazing gift. And awesome Lindsay got to see it received, so appreciated, and put to good use within her own lifetime.

Imagine if the super wealthy were as generous with some of their mountains of cash.

Unbridled generosity benefits disabled riders - Local Matters A Mahurangi horsewoman has made the largest donation ever received by New Zealand Riding for the Disabled (RDA), following the sale of a rural Kaipara

I posted this photo and got the horse’s name wrong.

Russell Crowe corrected me.

Not because he wanted to talk about himself. Not because he wanted to promote a movie. He corrected me because the horse deserved to be remembered by the right name.

He wrote:

“That white horse is Rusty. He has passed on. George was the dark horse at the beginning of Gladiator. The one Max makes the ‘2 weeks from now I will be harvesting my grapes’ speech, ‘What we do in life…’ etc. George has also passed on. I’ll ride them both again… but not yet.”

I’ve thought about that comment quite a bit since then.

What struck me wasn’t that Russell Crowe remembered the horses. What struck me was that after all these years, all the movies, all the success, all the people he’s met, he still cared enough to make sure Rusty was remembered as Rusty and George was remembered as George.

Horse people understand that.

A good horse is never just a horse.

They become attached to seasons of your life. Certain trails. Certain jobs. Certain adventures. Sometimes they carry you through the best years of your life. Sometimes they carry you through the hardest ones.

Years later, you may not remember what truck you drove. You may not remember what saddle you rode. You may not even remember what year it was.

But you remember the good ones.

You remember the sound of their nicker when they saw you coming. You remember how they looked standing at the gate. You remember the feel of their stride, the little quirks that made them uniquely themselves, and the quiet confidence that came from knowing exactly who was underneath you.

That is why I think Russell’s final sentence resonated with so many people.

“I’ll ride them both again… but not yet.”

That isn’t really a movie quote.

It’s something every horse person who has ever lost a great horse understands.

Here’s to Rusty.

Here’s to George.

And here’s to the good ones who become part of our story long after they’re gone.

I think one of the reasons horses heal people is that horses do not care who you were yesterday.

They do not know your resume.

They do not know your failures.

They do not know your reputation.

They do not know how much money you have.

They do not know how many followers you have.

They do not know whether other people think you are successful.

They meet you here.

Now.

In this moment.

And there is something profoundly liberating about that.

Humans spend so much of life carrying stories.

Stories about ourselves.

Stories about each other.

Stories about who deserves love.

Who deserves respect.

Who deserves belonging.

Who deserves another chance.

But horses seem largely uninterested in stories.

They care about presence.

Congruence.

Honesty.

Safety.

You can stand beside a horse carrying decades of regret and the horse will not ask where you've been.

You can arrive with a broken heart and the horse will not ask what you did wrong.

You can show up exhausted from trying to be everything for everyone and the horse will not ask why you haven't tried harder.

The horse simply encounters the being standing in front of them.

And perhaps that is why time with horses can feel so sacred.

For a little while, we get to step outside the stories.

The old identities.

The successes.

The failures.

The masks.

And remember that beneath all of that, there is something simpler.

A living being.

Meeting another living being.

Nothing to prove.

Nothing to defend.

Nothing to become.

Just this moment.

Just this life.

Just this quiet opportunity to be exactly who we are.

Gold 🌟🤣

Credit goes to Stephen Forbes, but this is so damn accurate. I will be crying in my truck because the wind changed directions. 😂

Dressage is absolutely, unequivocally dumb.

We spend decades and life savings trying to convince a horse, an animal that would rather nap or fart in a field, to perform controlled interpretive dance… while we wear white stretchy pants and pretend we’re not crying inside.

We argue online about nosebands and neck lengths.
We watch slow-motion trot videos like they’re Oscar-nominated films.
We talk about “feel” like it’s a sixth sense, and nod solemnly when someone says, “He wasn’t truly through in the right rein.”

Nobody knows what that means. We just say it so we don’t feel alone.

“Needs more schwung.”
Schwung????
Apparently it’s German for "make it fancy and pray".
We all pretend to know, then throw money at a new saddle pad hoping it comes with free schwung.

Special this month: Every new Solo bridle now ships with 3 ounces of authentic German schwung. Use responsibly.

And we obsess over the perfect halt.
THE. PERFECT. HALT.
As if a square halt will heal our childhood wounds.

We film our rides. Watch them back. Cry a little.
Zoom in. Rewind. Cry again.
"Why is my left leg doing that?!?"

We whisper sweet nothings to an animal that just tried to murder us because the wind changed direction.
We spend fortunes, literal fortunes, so a stranger in a box can frown at us and say: “Tension throughout.”
(You mean me or the horse?)

And speaking of showing.
There's you, before your class, sitting in the front seat of your Subaru, white breeches slightly transparent in the wrong places, eating a granola bar, listening to whale sounds to calm your nerves, and somehow believing this will help you nail that medium trot.
(It won’t. But you keep listening.)

And the wildest part? We take this seriously.
Like Olympic-level seriously.
Like, cry-in-the-stall-because-your-horse-has-a-poo-stain seriously.

But here’s the twist:

There’s something addictively beautiful about devoting your life to something this ridiculous.

To whispering with your body.
To the micro-conversations.
To trying to talk to your horse in French… with your seatbones.
It’s composing a symphony using only your spine, breath, and unresolved anxiety.

But that's just it, the best parts of life are kind of dumb.

Love is dumb.
Poetry is dumb.
Art is dumb.
Pursuing perfection you’ll never reach? Extra dumb.

But that’s what makes it holy.
So yeah, dressage is dumb.

Which makes it kind of genius.