The spotlight on the corner of our patio cast a yellow path through the pre-dawn darkness. I watched my adult daughter, Reyn, stroll through the dewy grass toward the barn. Soft whuffles from her pony, Proper, and a sharp whinny from the exuberant Arabian, Aslan, harmonized with the stirring songbirds. Our miniature horse, Pumpkin, added his high-pitched neigh like a merry descant to the melodic mix.
Reyn flipped on the barn lights, illuminating her four friends. In addition to Proper, Aslan, and Pumpkin, the big Appaloosa, Strider, waited restlessly—the least vocal and confident of her private herd. Her faithful silhouette moved easily from stall to stall, murmuring tender greetings I couldn’t see or hear but knew by heart. From the time she was old enough to recognize a horse, Reyn had heard them calling.
When Reyn was a toddler, her favorite animals in board books were horses, ponies, zebras, and unicorns. She loved to answer the question, “What’s a horse say?” and she squealed with joy in her car seat if we passed one grazing by the roadside or gracing a local sign. When we visited my parents, the first thing we had to do was pet their neighbor’s aging geldings.
In stores, Reyn could find a Breyer horse or My Little Pony like an equine bloodhound. She discovered C. W. Anderson’s Billy and Blaze books at the public library, and we read aloud the whole series. She knew the names of all the Disney horses (much more interesting to her than the princes or princesses who rode them), and she knew the breed and traits of every steed.
By her fourth birthday, Reyn could trot on all fours as well as she could run. She pranced around the living room, tossing her long blond hair around her shoulders and snorting as she pawed the carpet beneath her. The dog gate between our living room and den morphed into a high jump, and she sailed over it regularly while I worried about the development of the bones in her legs.
At the playground, she enjoyed circling the sand pit on her hands and feet to demonstrate a perfect walk, trot, canter, and gallop. Other parents and their kids met our horse-girl with astonishment. Verbally, they offered polite admiration, but I noticed the wide-eyed looks that passed between moms who no doubt labeled Reyn as “odd.”
She was odd. No one in our family boasted an equestrian background. We didn’t know a hunter from a jumper or the difference between a pony and a horse, but Reyn did—before she entered preschool. Her vocabulary brimmed with equitation terms: Morgans and mustangs, saddles and stirrups, duns and dappled grays, the art of dressage. She drank in horses like chocolate milk.
On her fifth birthday, we did two things that all responsible parents do when their children show an abiding interest in something. We gave her the opportunity to pursue it and the tools she needed to do so. First, we signed her up for lessons at a local riding barn. Second, despite the limitations in our suburb, we got her a horse.
Sort of.
The young mare was lovingly created by her dad and grandfather from a wooden sawhorse and the head of a stick pony. Reyn promptly dubbed her “Katy” after her favorite horse in the stable where she rode. Katy lived in her bedroom closet and peered at us through the open door, her chin resting on a length of yarn tacked across the entrance. Trips to the thrift store provided the appropriate equipment and fake feed that Reyn gave to Katy twice a day, every day.
We settled into a routine with our horse-crazed kiddo—regular lessons and occasional youth shows—your basic English equitation fare. The whole thing mystified her dad and me. We couldn’t imagine where this horse-drawn life might take her, but we agreed to lope alongside for the duration.
One morning as Reyn and I walked through the big barn where she trained, she stopped short in her dusty Ariat riding boots and put her hand on my arm.
“Do you smell that?” she asked.
I smelled a lot of things. Hay and horse manure, mostly, not my first choice of aromas. Before I could answer, she continued.
“That’s the best smell in the world,” she said.
Too dumbfounded to reply, I just returned her smile.
A few days after Reyn started kindergarten, our family was invited to attend a local rodeo with acquaintances who were competing in the events. True to form, she begged at the first break to meet the horses. Our hosts led her toward the arena while we stopped by a vendor to purchase drinks. At the sound of some commotion in the big round corral, I looked up to see a large horse tearing around the enclosure with a small child on his back. Our child. Her feet couldn’t reach the stirrups, and she had lost the reins. In what seemed to me a hideous slow motion, she fell from the huge Western saddle onto the dirt surface, landed in a clump, and lay still. By the time we got to her, she sat in a daze—shaking, crying, and bleeding.
The distraught horse owner fluttered around us, stammering apologies and repeating, “I thought she could ride!” I stifled my angry reply as we checked Reyn for bone breaks and basic cognitive function. When we were satisfied that she could walk and talk, her dad lifted her in his arms, and we drove to the nearest emergency room.
Two X-rays and a brain scan later, the doctor released us to go home. Reyn suffered multiple cuts and bruises and a fractured nose (which still features a knotty reminder). The following day, both her eyes turned black like a prize boxer’s. We thought her journey with horses was over.
We should have known better.
Despite her ordeal, she refused to miss her riding lesson (which she used to pet and groom her mount) and demanded to know when she would be allowed to ride again. Her teacher smiled at my amazement, but she understood our daughter. The horses were still calling.
Reyn clambered back in the saddle, and we trotted along for a while without incident—until her dad and I decided to live on one salary and downsize our home. Since we had to move anyway, we ventured into the countryside in a neighboring state. We traded our big two-story house with a tiny yard for a little ranch-style home with acreage.
And an old wooden barn.
Now ten, Reyn researched the cost of buying and keeping a real horse. She presented a shoestring budget plan to us, and we promised to consider it as soon as she could clean out the ancient stalls and find a mount at a reasonable price.
But all horse owners know there’s no such thing as a cheap one. Show animals are expensive. We talked to several people selling their chargers for serious money and concluded that if God wanted Reyn to have a ride of her own, he would have to provide it.
He did.
Through the hippotherapy club where Reyn volunteered, we learned about a rejected perennial broodmare who needed a home. When she “dropped” a solid-colored foal instead of a multi-colored paint, her owner declared her usefulness over because she failed to produce what he expected. He sold her at auction to our colleagues, who discovered she panicked around swinging ropes. Obviously abused in her past, the pony needed someone with time and patience to give her a new life.
The breeder had called her “Prop Wash.” I knew the word from my father, a retired aircraft carrier pilot. As a part of the hazing process, seasoned fliers often instructed new recruits to locate the fictitious cleaning fluid and scrub the propellors. Prop wash is the “dirty” or disrupted air and wind that flows over the wings and through a plane’s propellor in flight. Either way, I thought it a derogatory name to give a filly.
Despite the moniker, Reyn fell in love with Prop Wash, and on her eleventh birthday, she acquired the fourteen-year-old paint for a pittance. The beautiful auburn pony sported four white socks, a white blaze, and a white patch on her belly. She stood twelve hands high, and she seemed to have a quiet spirit. But many introverted horses harbor an explosive side. Our new resident remained calm only if she was left alone.
As soon as Reyn asked Prop Wash to do anything—take a bit, accept a saddle, or change gaits from a walk—she met with resistance, which is natural and correctible in mistreated horses, but we didn’t know that. In a few short months, hope dissolved into fear as Reyn battled daily with a rearing red and white dragon on the end of her reins.
Well-meaning folks said we expected too much, too soon. Others said we expected too little. Reyn needed to be firmer; she needed to be gentler. She should completely break the horse and then rebuild her. But what if the process broke them both? We hired a local trainer, but the more demanding the lessons, the more violent the response. The trainer recommended we consider a different horse.
Meanwhile, Reyn spent hours researching training theories and fundamentals. Desperate to bond with Prop Wash, she read every available book on equine behavior only to find herself mired in conflicting information. Without the skills or the savvy to make appropriate changes, we all thought rider and pony were at an impasse.
Once again, we were wrong.
Reyn heard about a natural horsemanship program that emphasized the way horses communicate as the means to reach them. If we can learn their language, we can access their minds—that was the premise. We attended a local two-day event and were stunned by the transformation we saw in the “problem” horses presented each morning. Reyn bought the first set in a series of training courses, and she went to work.
It helped that her own energy around animals and people is naturally low and tranquil. But the program taught her how to read her pony’s emotions and when and how to be assertive rather than aggressive. As weeks passed, the pair established a connection. Reyn invested her money and effort in something she realized could change her relationship with not just one horse but all horses.
She attended multiple clinics with Proper Partner, renamed to represent their new positive goals. They drew the attention of the renowned instructor under whom Reyn studied. Within two years, Reyn and Proper joined the presentation team performing for the organization at regional events.
But the occasion that showed how far pony and girl had come together took place in a high-ceilinged, glass mall structure that housed a popular network television talk show. Proper and Reyn and her instructor were to arrive at 8:30 a.m. for an interview and demonstration in the multileveled atrium studio.
I knew Proper Partner had an amazing trust in Reyn, built from hours of learning to understand each other. But as soon as we pulled into the downtown parking lot, I spotted our first obstacle. Once we crossed the busy city street, we would reach the entrance to the huge building—clear, double sliding doors that opened automatically when sensing movement. What would our pony make of this unexpected challenge, and how would Reyn lead her across the menacing threshold?
Proper followed her with confidence across the six-lane road, over the curb, and onto the sidewalk in front of the big doors. Reyn gave her a moment to take them in. They watched a couple of people enter the mall and listened to the swooshing noise made by the glass panels. To the diminutive mare, the entryway must have looked like a hungry mouth opening and closing, ready to gobble up unsuspecting equines.
Reyn waited for the pony to blow out a little air and relax before extending her arm with the lead rope toward the doors. As soon as Proper felt the slight movement and saw where Reyn was directing her gaze, she stepped forward. The mechanical maw yawned open, and they entered the atrium side by side.
We spread a tarp down at the filming area to calm the fears of the nervous and excited crew who assumed a horse “accident” must be imminent. I was more concerned that the amplified sound in the big building would spook Proper into calling out for the safety of other horses. I forgot that Reyn was her safety and her leader, a position earned with consistent effort and great instruction.
Proper Partner never made a sound. She stood relaxed, her tail barely moving. She kept one eye on Reyn while she surveyed the new world unfolding before her. The venue was brightly lit by special equipment and screens. Two huge cameras on wheels faced the interview area, and the sounds of voices, machinery, and shoes scrabbling on the tiled surface echoed all around us. The strong smell of coffee and donuts from the corner cafe hung over the atrium like a sweet fog.
Reyn ran her hands over Proper’s withers and leaned into the brushed and shiny coat to breathe in her favorite scent. Three, two, one, and we were live. The morning show host introduced Reyn’s popular instructor and asked her several questions about the training program. He shifted attention to Proper and Reyn, and they performed several tasks on command to demonstrate the effectiveness of their communication skills.
Proper Partner yielded to pressure from her front and hind quarters. She politely raised her hoof for inspection when Reyn asked with a subtle gesture. She flexed her neck laterally on both sides. And, to the surprise of the crew, she never had an accident—not one.
Thousands of local viewers and horse program followers tuned in to watch. But the real excitement happened after the fact when so many natural horsemanship students from around the world tried to stream the recorded show that they crashed the television station’s website.
That day, an unwanted broodmare and a persistent girl demonstrated what is possible between horses and humans—a trusting relationship that bridges two species and benefits both. Reyn and her rescued pony had learned to speak a language older than Xenophon, a language based on mutual respect and love.
Now, as I watched Reyn filling water buckets from the barn spigot, my eyes misted in memories. I recalled her standing on Proper’s back with her arms stretched up to the sky, riding bridleless and bareback with her fingers laced through Aslan’s mane, sitting on the ground while all four horses trotted around her in a circle like planets orbiting the sun. I thought of Proper Partner, almost thirty-six years old and blind in both eyes but still responsive to Reyn’s touch or her voice. Her charges were silent as they enjoyed their morning hay and grain.
But the horses would speak to her again, and Reyn would continue to hear them and reply. When the God of second chances calls us for a purpose, he also equips us to do the work.
Even when he calls with a whinny.