Tell Me Again!

Have you ever had a horse tell you that they love you?

 It comes with a gentle nudge on a lonely day, or with a valiant effort over a hard jump.  Whispered in the wind whipping through the mane and in thundering hooves.  Chosen to be loved by a horse can be the greatest honor one can receive.

 At my farm I host girl scouts to earn their horse badge.  They run and giggle, excited to see the horses and vibrate with joy knowing that they will be privileged to climb on a horse’s back.  They grab hands and skip to the riding ring.  One young scout stood by herself.  She was slightly overweight and unlike the others, she was hitting puberty early and her round pink face was pushing plump angry pimples.  She interacted very little with the others.  As she moved to the courtyard to learn about grooming a horse, Raise Your Dreams my beloved Thoroughbred cross, gently put his head on her shoulder.

 She gasped, her eyes bulged with excitement and the only smile I saw all day broke out widely on her face.  She asked me what the horse was doing.  I stopped the grooming lesson to tell her that she had been chosen by a horse, and few had ever been chosen before.  Raise Your Dreams had chosen her out of everyone to be loved by him.

 She then turned around and faced this brave, bold, and magnetic horse, and whispered, “Tell me again!”

 Later that day, I heard her excitedly talking to her mother on the phone.  I could hear her mother’s voice shriek, “A horse told you that he loved you?”  She told her mother that out of all the scouts, she had been the only one chosen to be loved.

 Losing touch with her over the years, I am pretty certain that this story has been told by her like a badge of honor.  A trophy that is unattainable, but to her it was an easy win because she had what it takes to be loved by a horse.