Why I ride—the selfish version of events.

There’s something really fantastic about the way horses smell. I love pressing my face into my horse’s side and drawing in a deep breath. The smell of her calls up visions of sweeping grass, wet dirt and the sheen of clean sweat on her body as she runs. This memory-connection I have in my brain sends a shiver of delight down my spine every time. Those smells, sights, sounds and the feeling of a powerful steed moving underneath you are all behind my associations of "freedom".

I first felt "free" on the back of a horse. It was a moment when we were running and something clicked inside me: I could feel that equine power coursing through ever sinew and muscle of my body, energizing me. That feeling of physical ease and confidence is something I can never get in my own awkward human body. I get the feeling that horses live closer to the earth (and further from it) than any human ever could. And it’s an addiction. Those of us who ride for this reason—the search for being complete and connected —don’t get this feeling every time we ride. But that does not mean we stop searching for it. It's one of the reasons I ride Dressage, which at the sport's best, focuses on rider-horse connection. And when we do have those moments it makes our lives better from that moment forward.

For me there are some individuals in which this feeling is easy to find. There was one horse whom I knew in two different situations—one in the Trinity Alps, and one in this sordid dust-choked town in central California. She was nothing special to look at and had no competitive talents, but she knew me intimately from the moment I climbed on her big broad back. As romanticized as that sounds, a horse that knows you isn’t going to do everything you ask with the lightest touch. This horse was lazy and as stubborn as she was smart—not difficult to ride, just difficult to understand and get fine-tuned control out of her.

Now, there were days when I was deep in the hole, feeling like the world was pressing me down so that I squished into the cracks in the concrete, in which I could hop on this particular horse and fly away. It wasn’t allowed, but I would close my eyes, give her a loose rein, and she would canter on and on. The steady drum of her hooves and the movement of my own body in concert with her would free me from all my hurt.

Horses ground me and lift me up simultaneously. The smell of their sweaty bodies and the sound of the muffled shrunch of them eating their hay, reminds me of better days when I could see the world with the same clarity that a horse does. My horse reminds me that when things are bad and I can't take one breath without anxiety filling my lungs I need to just stop and be a horse.

Someday I will have land, and on that land I will make a place for the horses. Not just for my horse, who is going to be with me for the remainder of her natural life, but for other horses that need help being horses again because of the abuse and neglect they have suffered under human hands. We humans are not humane, but I think I can help heal some of the damage my fellows have done on the non-human people we consider property. Horses are complex creatures—socially, physically and mentally. But what they want is the same as any person — to be healthy, to have friends, to have food, water and space to run. In other words: freedom.