I first fell in love on August 11, 2001, one month before my 16th birthday. His name was Noah and he was in that awkward “still-growing” teenage phase, a little gangly and uneven. His hair was a brilliant red-gold, and he had the deepest brown eyes a girl could ever lose herself in. All I needed was my mom’s consent for us to be together… and four thousand dollars.
Whoever says you can’t buy happiness has never bought her first horse.
Of course I promised I’d ride him every day. And I did that, pretty much. I also said I’d take care of him.
Right. I’d just gotten my driver’s license, had four honors classes and AP Spanish at school, and I ran cross country. I cleaned stalls after school–you think it’s a chore picking up after a dog?! Try 50 pounds of poop. Per day. I also fed him whenever I could, but it wasn’t nearly enough. And you can guess who was picking up the slack. My poor mother was out there every day that I wasn’t, feeding and mucking (a glamorous horsy term for picking up horse manure).
Here’s the bottom line. Horses are a lot of work and cost a lot of money. If he’s your horse and no one else’s, there’s no one else to ride him if you don’t. And if you don’t have the time to care for your horse, you’ll need the money to pay someone else to.
