Wrangler Dani

I’m 9 years old. I’m at a dude ranch with my SoCal family, trying to keep up with wranglers, so self-assured in their chaps and jeans, lifting saddles easily onto horses’ backs and giving me a grin as they help me aboard. I’m instantly smitten, quickly learning the names of every four-hooved critter who comes near me and barely noticing my incredibly sore legs at the end of every ride.

I’m 11, and we’ve graduated to a simpler ranch this summer, one who employs no wranglers and has no fancy free-time games, just a sheep rancher who is willing to take us for miles and miles every afternoon on horseback. Again, I’m in love, burying my face in flowing manes and relishing dreams of “Man from Snowy River” derring-do.

I’m 13, and have my very own steed, no longer fenced in by pavement and a California zip code. Perhaps unwisely, before we really knew anything about owning horses, (before we even had a house for ourselves) my parents bought us an older Arab/Quarter Horse mare, Majesty. She was probably the least majestic little horse that’s ever lived – short and rotund, with a long elfin face and tiny, comical ears.  She turned her face to me as I tacked her up, giving sighs and stares at my ineptitude. But she never bit, never kicked, never did more then give me her signature “look” down her long, wise face.  She also taught me the wisdom of a breast-collar on short, fat horses, as riding underneath them is not as cool as it looks in the movies and ends a great deal quicker.

I’m 15. I’ve “graduated” from Majesty, at least in my own mind, and am now riding Melody, a tall, high-strung and ridiculously bratty Missouri Fox Trotter.  She is my soul-mate. She is my secret-keeper, my dearest friend, my partner in crime, my escape from teenage woes.  She regularly crow-hops and faintly bucks, much to my mother’s chagrin, and I fearlessly bolt her down logging roads, over logs and through badger-hole-dotted pastures, not without accident. It’s a miracle we both survived. She nickers when she sees me. She only behaves for me (using “behave” loosely) and I love her passionately.

I’m 19. Last year I tearfully sold Melody in preparation for an out-of-state college experience, but I’m back on the ranch for the summer. Multiple foals have now been born to us, and I am taking it upon myself to train them. I get tired, dusty and bruised, and I generally have no idea what I’m doing, but I stick with it, trying to train them with my scant knowledge gleaned from DVDs and dog-eared magazines. Gradually I start to understand, and with the help of a weekend training and outside wisdom, start to figure out what horse-training is all about.

I’m 20 and move to Wamic, Oregon to work as a wrangler for a horse camp. I take Hawkeye, my gargantuan 5-year-old gelding who labors under the delusion that he’s either a person or an over-stimulated puppy. I’ve trained him from a foal and share a significant bond with him, but he is genuinely HUGE. I have no idea how strong he is until he does a few very stupid things and gives me a good scare. But I press on. I spend my summer riding somewhere between 20-30 horses, working the ranch, leading trail rides, and training Hawkeye. With our grueling schedule and his unpredictability, however, he doesn’t get nearly the workouts he needs. After a particularly interesting (read: death-defying) ride with him, my boss convinces me to farm him out to a local cattle ranch to see if consistent “wet saddle blankets” will calm him down. I bury my face in his mane and he nickers at me as bid him goodbye. He’s much happier running the miles of range all day everyday, but I miss him.

For the next several years, I go back to the ranch every year, always looking for that elusive first summer – when I tacked up 15 horses by myself and when Ami and I were the only help, out checking on horses by moonlight and moving irrigation pipe before the sun was up, knowing every horse by name and temperment, understanding their every move instinctively.

After college, I say goodbye to the ranch. I try to move on. I get a professional job in a professional office, writing about horses in my free time, trying to explain myself to a concrete world that will never understand.

I’m 25. I’m newly married, newly jobless, newly tearful over missing the ranch, missing horses, needing wind in my face again. By the hand of God, I get a job as a Therapeutic Riding Instructor. I pass NARHA certification, I continue to learn about teaching, I am blessed by my students every day, and I get to bury my face in horse-manes once again when the world gets crazy, a therapy I had long missed.

I’m 26. Just today, a student thanks me for being “the best ever, and so good at horses.” I commiserate with a mom over her horse-crazy daughter. “I understand,” I reassured her. “She has the burning heart, and it’ll never let her go. Look where it got me!” We laugh. I teach a volunteer how to fit a saddle, a 11-year-old boy how to neck-rein, a 5-year-old with autism how to point out where he needs to go and direct his horse there. I’m learning how to ride English, thanks to patient instruction from my co-workers. My volunteers and I clean stalls, brush out shedding coats, laugh at the crazy things our students say and the personalities of our four-hooved friends.

I can’t wait to see what happens next.