Personal Narrative: My Experience With Horse

Since I was four years old my most prominent memory has been of horses. I remember my first encounter with a horse, I instantaneously developed a deep fascination with the animal. I devoted my life to horses. My thoughts were entwined with anything horse related. I used horse terminology as a way to critically think and solve arithmetics in school. Twelve years later my infatuation with the animal proved true when I was asked by the University of Virginia Riding Team to join them as a sophomore in highschool. Horses were my escape from life at home as drugs or alcohol are to a depressed teenager trying to escape from reality. The barn was my sanctuary and the other riders were my family. Though my purpose for going to the barn wasn't to escape ,it was simply a coping mechanism. I was coping with my mother’s grave illness — bladder cancer. Horses had already …show more content…
I started to gain a larger respect for the art itself and the commitment and dedication to be able to build a team with a horse. I grew apart from my barn; but I still kept the family I made by riding there. I slowly started to distance myself from the show atmosphere at the barn and started to go to a small family barn instead. The barn was nestled in the Blue Ridge foothills in Sedalia, Virginia. I grew an admiration for the towering appalachian mountains that acted as my ring borders instead of pieces of stained oak. By making the change to the isolated barn I also changed the type of horses I rode also. I went from riding grand prix hunter derby horses and medal winning ponies to rescue “project” horses. I was hit by many epiphanies while adapting to the new barn life. I was less fond of the “made” picture perfect show horses and had a larger admiration for the horses that were rougher around the edges. There was something about their uneven manes, sunbleached tails, and hoarse neighs that beckoned me to take an interest in