December 9, 2025 
For a couple of years in college, a fellow horse-crazy buddy and I volunteered at a guest ranch, helping at their fall festival. We tacked up horses, helped manage them. We were, all in all, just an extra pair of hands for whatever needed to be done. In between, there was a lot of goofing off and wild gallops through the woods.
Other than my friend and me, it was a family affair. The parents of both the ranch owner and his wife helped cook, babysit, and tend the campfire where guests could roast marshmallows.
There was a big election one of those years, and as we sat around the fire, the owner was complaining about the candidates. His father-in-law spoke up. “Let’s talk about something else,” he said, gesturing to us, “these ladies here might have voted differently than we did. Now they are here working hard, and we want to make them feel welcome.”
It’s been almost 20 years since that day, and I still think about it a lot.
That man’s voice often pops into my head when I think about how politically polarized the United States has become. As a nation, it has gotten harder to talk about things we disagree about—the stakes are higher, and the emotions even more so. We would like to think that the divide is rural and urban, but it is more complicated than that. The chasm runs straight through families, friend groups, and coworkers.
Recently, I asked a friend whether she would rather get on a green horse she didn’t know or talk politics with people at her boarding barn. She chose the green horse. I can’t say I blame her. I have lost relationships because our differences just seem too big.
For me, though, I would choose the latter—after all, trips to the emergency room are expensive. Mostly, though, I choose to talk about what is going on in the world because I think we should do it more often. In fact, if there is one group that is still bridging the gap between urban and rural, right and left, conservative and progressive, it is horse people.
Now, before we all start polishing our halos, this bridge crossing is partly out of necessity. The vet’s politics matter a lot less when they answer your emergency call in the middle of the night. The horse world is small and, to exist in it, we need each other. If we want people to compete against, go on trail rides with, or just talk to, it is statistically unlikely they are all in the same ideological bubble.
The skillset required in the horse world is also rather niche and takes a lifetime to master. I know that people I deeply disagree with politically have put up with, and even liked, me because I can catch a horse unsupervised, and I am not afraid of mud. Good horsemanship is good horsemanship and that’s a shared value on which we can find mutual respect.
Horse people also have the luxury of starting out on common ground. We all care deeply about the equines around us. Most of us lose sleep over rising costs and the fear of being priced out. Most of us worry about how climate change, like extreme temperatures and more frequent natural disasters, will impact our animals.
Perhaps most importantly, we have a lot of practice disagreeing with each other and then figuring out how to still work together. Bits, shoes, feed, blankets, breeding, the ethics of certain disciplines, equestrians have had knock-down, drag-out fights about all of these things and more. We are an intense bunch with strong beliefs, and those beliefs can clash. If you don’t believe me, go ask a group of five or more horse people to share their thoughts on blanketing or proper turnout. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
The beauty of our intensity is that we frequently find a way to get along and even see the value in the other person’s perspective. I disagree with all my horse friends about something. But I know they would all show up in a crisis if I asked.
This essay, dear reader, is not an invitation to go into the barn swinging with your most controversial hot take. Choose your battles, wait for the right moment. Just like horses, hard conversations depend on timing and the strength of the relationship. The point is to have them, not needlessly put yourself in danger because you chose the wrong moment to run your mouth.
Around Thanksgiving this year, Mel Robbins wrote an op-ed for the New York Times entitled “Life is Too Short to Fight with Your Family.” I agree with bits of it.
Yes, she is right, we should find grace for people we struggle with. Her advice to stuff down our feelings and ignore bigotry, though, is a load of crap stinkier than the stuff my gelding makes when the hay has too much preservative. We cannot trade the humanity of others for the hope that it will bring peace—it never works. We need to be like the father-in-law at the campfire: look for the common ground and stand up for those being dehumanized, but do so with tact and respect.
As someone who calls Chicago home, I’ve been having trouble taking my own advice lately. Talking to those I disagree with has become harder. Harder than I ever imagined it could be.
From early September to the middle of November this year, ICE or Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers terrorized my neighborhood as they tried to fill their deportation quotas. The agents took a landscaper at the end of the street. Then they took parents picking up their kids from the school down the block. Next to the apples I packed for the horses, there is a whistle in my bag. I know the code to blow if ICE shows up and the other if they start kidnapping people.
The official narrative from ICE is that they are going after the worst of the worst of those who have come into the United States illegally. The reality tells another story. Between September 8 and October 15, 66% of people detained in Chicago had no criminal record. They also detained citizens, those with proper documentation, and bystanders who were filming what was going on.
The courage of my fellow Chicagoans to deter ICE has been awe-inspiring, but I don’t talk about it much, especially when I am with my horses in a town an hour away. The experience, even from my privileged distance, has been terrifying, and I am not sure what to do with my anger.
I know, though, that silence is injustice’s favorite meal. Just like learning to two-point, or to sit back around a barrel, progress is always uncomfortable. When I find the right moments, I am trying to speak up more.
If you have made it this far in the essay, you might be saying, “Yeah, Gretchen, this is cute, but no one ever actually changes their mind.” To which I will smile and happily contradict you. We don’t have to agree to learn—and be better—from the conversation. But we can’t do either without having one in the first place.
