October 8, 2025 
I’m celebrating a new horse today. Her name is Kaya, a teenaged quarter horse-cross mare. It’s an experience; at age 72, I’m brimming with excitement and eager anticipation of what the future holds for us.
But that’s not the real story.
Kaya is quite different from any other horse I’ve had. As an adult beginner at age 45 (and arguably, somewhat of an overachiever), once I had established a good seat, I prided myself on being the one in my group to ride the horses that others didn’t want to. If you were reluctant to ride your horse, let me get on!
It was just as much ego as ability (probably more) and I was lucky that I never really got in over my head. My subsequent horses after my first (Buddy, a senior who taught me the ropes) were young, and some combination of being bold, quick, nimble, athletic, and challenging.
That was my thing. Steady-Eddies were for others.
Once, I was reluctant to ride a jumping lesson horse because his name was “Gentle Ben.” My trainer jokingly put a paper over his stall plate and scribbled, “Tornado.” Yes, that’s the middle-aged rider I liked to think of myself as. Then I met a horse that taught me otherwise.
In 2023, Molly Malone was a then-6-year-old OTTB unraced mare that presented more as a warmblood than a thoroughbred. My daughter, Sam, had acquired her as a 4-year-old, and had been working with her for a few years and leasing her out to a student. She was a striking dapple grey and she was reasonably well behaved, as she was in a program and got regular exercise.
The student was unable to continue the lease, so Sam casually put the feelers out to offer her for sale. I had just about recovered emotionally from the loss of my event horse, DannyBoy, and was feeling the pull to fill the empty stall. So in the spring of 2023, Molly walked into that stall.
I had never even ridden her at that point, but I was confident I could handle whatever she threw at me. I believed I was being quite prudent by hand-walking Molly around the arena before attempting to ride her. I wanted to show her every square inch so that there were no surprises… when I was surprised by a cow-kick that sent me flying 15 feet away without my glasses, and unable to get up.
That was my first indication that I was, indeed, not invincible, as I had always assumed.
I ended up having some unrelated cardiac issues, so I wasn’t doing a lot with her until that got sorted out—just walk-trot, and even at that pace, she caught me unawares a few times. The last time, she spun a quick 180 without warning, dropped a shoulder, and landed me bruised and breathless on the arena dirt.
Was it age? Was I losing it? Had I finally met my match?
I stayed off for a month as I healed, as I didn’t want to risk injury before my trip to Ireland. My Ireland trips are usually intense riding vacations with 5-6 days of 6-8 hours in the saddle. Not so this time.
This time, we were taking a tour so that I could show my wife, a non-rider, the magic I had experienced on the Emerald Isle. By day three, I took our tour guide aside and asked if there was any way he could get me on a horse for a few hours. “100%,” he replied, and he worked his magic to get me on a horse in the hills of Dingle for an afternoon while he kept the others on schedule and returned to collect me in a few hours.
When I got on Práta (okay, they called him “Potato,” but it sounds much cooler in the Irish language), a stout black and white Irish Cob, I felt something strange. I was instantly comfortable! I actually didn’t feel like I was sitting on a keg of dynamite, knowing the fuse had been lit, but not knowing how long it was.
We didn’t do all that much, just walking and trotting in the magnificent landscapes of the Dingle Peninsula. But I had a revelation of sorts…. I became conscious that this was the first time I had been able to relax on a horse in two years.
I hadn’t lost everything; I had been trying desperately on a horse that was **shudder** beyond my riding ability. I had never grasped that.
But in the hills of Ireland, where I had experienced so many breakthroughs in my riding life, I had just experienced one more.
When I came home from the trip, the universe took over. Sam told me about a teenaged black and white paint mare that was a super-safe horse, belonging to the mom of a teen hunter/jumper competitor, and they were no longer able to keep her.
We spent the summer texting, dealing with each other’s busy schedules, doing a few test rides (I cantered her so naturally not even recalling that it had been two years since I last cantered a horse), arranging the inspection of our farm that was requested, and several false starts on a pre-purchase exam.
Two months later, yesterday happened. I brought Kaya home to our barn and introduced her to everyone, observed the herd working out their new pecking order, and sat down next to her stall, breathing a deep sigh of relief.
I still had my skills. My balance isn’t as sharp as it once was, but I can still sit a horse. I just didn’t feel the need to prove that I could ride any horse because I can’t, and I don’t need to. I needed to find the door that opened when I turned the latch.
I needed to find my door. And I did.
