Horses being physically in my life has only been a thing for just over a year. To read my backstory about horses, you will have to read my about me post. I think it is complicated, but the past year is less complicated but no less interesting.

In 2017 I got to know another mom, who has a couple of kids in the same grades as mine. At the time she had two Irish Cob horses named Shanni and Confusion. Me, having always wanting horses in my life, inquired about them and got to know them. I actually remember the first time going down her driveway and seeing Confusion and thinking ‘that’s my horse’.

This is Confusion. He was about 5 years at the time and had minimal training, but he was and is beautiful. I was in love at first sight.

At some point, I found out that she and her husband had talked about selling him, and we made a deal that I could buy him and we could do it so I could pay monthly, what I could until he was paid off. I was excited! And ambitious. I spent hours watching training videos, and the first day I took him out to do some basic training with him was an utter failer. I had it in my head that I had to do something very specific with him, and didn’t listen to what my heart was saying, which just resulted in us both of us getting frustrated and me getting bit on the shoulder. It wasn’t too serious, no bruising, my confidence took a dive.

Really, I expected too much from both him and myself, but at the time I had 0 actual experience with working with horses. But in the end, it wouldn’t matter. I never got to work with him again. The situation changed quickly. His owner found herself in the middle of a divorce, and Confusion was her husband’s horse, and he was sold a couple of weeks later before we had a chance to make up any sort of contract and before I had made any sort of payment for him.

I stopped by the night before he was to be picked up, and for some reason, we decided that I should try and sit on him. He hadn’t had an adult on his back yet.

He took it like a champ. So at least I got to be the first person to ‘ride’ him.

Although Confusion was never really my horse, he will always be my ‘first’ horse. The couple of weeks where I was able to go around saying my I had a horse really ingrained something in my mind. I really wanted a horse, and I really felt like having a horse was just a part of myself. It is hard to explain, but when I found out that he was sold, I was devastated and it felt like something was being ripped away from me. I also realized that there was a big whole part of me that had been missing, that had been filled by being able to have a horse.

So it all started with Confusion. He was the start of a path, a bumpy one, but one that I am still on.