Cowboy Mom: A True tale of how an unbroken horse taught me to be a better parent and person.

by Cara Sue Achterberg

 Chapter 1

GAMBLE: To bet on an uncertain outcome; to take a chance.

Lying in the sticker bushes, butt and pride bruised, I considered whether I wanted to get back on this horse and if maybe I was nuts to be riding him in the first place. True gazed down at me with his doe-like eyes, all innocence and surprise. It was the first time he’d bucked me off. It would not be the last.

I cursed under my breath and shouted to my riding partner Kerri, “I’m fine!”

True’s reins dangled near my face and I grabbed them. I was decidedly not fine, but no sense in worrying anyone. I suffer any number of indignities at the hands and hearts of my children, why not the horse too?

Riding home I was quiet, pensive, sifting through the emotions shuttling around my soul. Could I do this? What was I so afraid of? And for God’s sake, couldn’t I do anything right?

I grew up a competent person. My report cards shone. My singing voice brought applause. I was a sought-after babysitter. This even after I put a diaper on an infant backwards the first time I babysat him because I couldn’t bring myself to tell the parents I’d never diapered a baby before. I remember holding the child up with both hands and staring at the diaper on the changing table. “Do the tabs go forwards or backwards?” I asked Dougie, whose penis dangled near my shoulder. Finally I decided that thing needed the greater coverage and strapped on the diaper, tabs pulled towards the back. His parents never said a word, but his mother did ask the next time I babysat, “Have you sat for a lot of babies before?”

As an adult, I may not have held impressive job titles, but I excelled in my work. I was appointed to committees, mentored troubled teens, and worked the polls on Election Day. I was a capable person. People trusted me as a teacher and community leader. How was it that three children and one overgrown Quarter Horse had reduced me to such incompetence?

Buck Brannaman, the real-life horse whisperer who advised Robert Redford in his infamous film, says that horses are a mirror for our souls. If that’s the case my soul was pretty unsteady and unpredictable at the moment.

When I first met True, I believed he had a good heart, but I wasn’t sure if I could trust him. He probably felt the same way about me. It was clear to me that he was smart and curious. But there was no way to know if he saw me as someone on his side or as an adversary. Maybe I didn’t know which he was to me either.

I didn’t need True in my life; at least I didn’t think I did. He was an impulse buy on a much different level than the box of tic tacs or the new lip balm at the check out.

Perhaps bringing True home was some kind of consolation prize for my inability to do anything else right in my life. Horses I could handle. Kids? Not so much. I was struggling as a writer, a mother, and certainly as a housekeeper. Most of my frustration grew from my own expectations of parenting. My two boys exhausted me, tested me, but what you see is what you get. I loved their rough and tumble, messy, loud selves. But my daughter was a completely different creature. At nine her tantrums and anger had begun to scare her father and I. My heart broke on a daily basis.

When Addie was born, I thought I was the luckiest person in the world. Lying on the operating table after the C-section listening to her cry, I shivered with happiness. I’d always dreamed of a daughter. She would be my best friend. We would laugh and sing and ride horses together. Now she was ten years old and preferred the cat’s company to mine.

“I hate you! You are the worst person in the world!” she screamed when I turned off the television. “You are so stupid!” she bellowed when I insisted that she’d need to brush her hair which had begun to form dreadlocks. When she shouted, “I AM SO SICK OF YOU!” and slammed the bathroom door in my face, I whispered, “Not as sick as I am of you,” before shaking off the tears and retreating to the barn.

Shoebee nickered to me as I pulled open the door. “Hey Buddy,” I called and breathed in the heavenly aroma of hay, horses, and leather. I uncovered my saddle. It was coated in a layer of mold. I sighed and pulled out the saddle soap. My barn housed our two ponies – my retired Arab Shoebee (short for “Shoebeedoowa the Wonder Pony,” his formal name), and Dolly, an adorable, grumpy little mare who stood as tall as my waist and tolerated countless hours on the end of a lead-line entertaining toddlers. Dolly caught sight of me in the barn and immediately slunk away out of reach, not making eye contact the way students do when they don’t want the teacher to call on them. Shoebee hung his head over the gate and nickered for a treat. I dug a handful of grain out of the feed bin and waited as he licked every last grain off my palm. Then I wiped my hand dry on his neck and turned back to my saddle.

As I rubbed at the neglect on my tack, I wrestled once again with the challenge of my daughter. We’d tried everything – keep her busy, give her more space, ignore her tantrums, take away privileges, try a hobby together, feed her better food, we’d even removed her bedroom door from its hinges when she slammed it so hard the pictures fell from the wall in the hallway. She’d started riding lessons the previous year at a nearby farm after the last lesson I attempted to give her resulted in Shoebee dumping her. Maybe she would listen to someone else I thought. She certainly questioned every direction I gave her. But the lessons only bored her, and truthfully they bored me too. I longed to teach her to really ride – to gallop and jump over fences, but the instructor only allowed her to trot slowly in circles in the dusty ring on a pony who looked as bored as Addie.

Finally one day she said, “I don’t want to ride horses anymore.” And that was that. The end of my lifelong dream of us riding together. She would never ride Shoebeedoowa the Wonder Pony in a horse show. Ever the indulgent and desperate mom, I asked if she wanted a pony of her own. “Horses are boring,” she said simply and shut the door on any future possibility. She turned to nail polish and all things girl. She discovered the internet, and began singing in a rock band at our local music studio. She didn’t give a backward glance to the ponies in our pasture.

The next spring found me nursing a horse-sized hole in my heart. With Addie’s decision to give up riding, the spot in my pasture I’d been saving for that perfect little show pony was suddenly freed up. I began thinking of my future horse. While I loved both my two ponies, neither satisfied my horse-need anymore.

I tried to rationalize my desire for a horse, but from any angle it made no sense. Unable to help myself, I perused the livestock classifieds, and came very close to attending a local mustang auction. I’m an intelligent woman; I knew that I had no time for a horse. I barely had time to comb my own hair. My life was consumed by my three children, our small farm, several part-time jobs, too many volunteer commitments, and a traveling husband. 

And then there was my excuse for not getting a real job and dropping my kids in daycare – I’m a writer. All the writing books say to proclaim yourself a writer even if you’ve never made the bestseller list and most of your efforts result in ever-shortened articles in magazines people don’t have time to read anymore. I write, therefore I’m a writer. Or something like that. Writing is a discipline that requires a thick skin, abundant energy, and endless hours spent re-writing every word you ever write. But mostly it requires that you keep your butt in the chair and your fingers on the keyboard. I had no time for a horse.

But one bright summer day, as I surveyed the tomatoes that may or may not have had the beginnings of the early blight, my phone rang. It’s never good when a friend starts the conversation by saying, “Tell your husband not to kill me….”

Nick is my ever-patient husband who did not envision living life on a farm. He’s an engineer by training and allergic to horses, cats, hay, pollen, and pretty much all the things that I hold dear. But he’s a good man and he’s smart and he loves me very much, so he’s allowed himself to be turned into a wanna-be farmer working right alongside me as we attempt to raise organic vegetables, fruit, chickens, and children. We haven’t had much luck with the peaches or cherries, and the children are a big work-in-progress, but I’ve gotten pretty good at growing tomatoes and most weeks we have eggs coming out our ears.

“Why would Nick want to kill you?” I asked.

“Because I’ve got a horse for you.” This could potentially raise the blood pressure of my ever-tolerant husband. I laughed and listened as my friend told me about the hard-luck situation of one of her physical therapy clients. She desperately needed to find homes for several horses. Young horses. Unbroken horses.

I won’t lie and say I wasn’t immediately excited by the prospect of a new horse. I missed having a “real” horse to ride. My current horse interaction was limited to leading people on pony rides and posing for pictures with toddlers and relatives.

I’d accepted this as a stage of my life. The non-riding stage. I focused on my children, my writing, and our farming efforts. I didn’t need to go and do anything else that would underline how nuts my children already thought I was. I was that crazy mom who didn’t allow her kids to watch TV and forced them to eat things like flax seed, brazil nuts, and vegetables. I never stopped at McDonalds, made all our food from scratch, and admittedly was a bit obsessed about avoiding soda and food dyes at any cost. I devised chore systems, created holiday rituals, forced my children to write thank-you notes, and documented their every move in a scrapbook that is so heavy it takes two people to move it. Bringing home an unbroken horse would make me not just the crazy-hippie-mom, but the crazy-hippie-cowboy-mom.

But that empty spot in the pasture was burning a hole in my resistance, so I dragged my neighbor Sally who is a horse dentist and dear friend, and my daughter, the newly minted non-rider, on a 45 minute drive to a beautiful farm overflowing with horses and meticulous care. Somebody had some money. It seemed dubious that there could be any hard-luck cases here. The endless board fencing, automated waterers, pristine barns, and weed-free gravel walkways testified to some serious money.

Over the phone the night before, the owner explained that she needed to find good homes for several of her horses. She didn’t want any money for them. Somehow in that equation I assumed this would be a desperate situation. When we arrived, the woman I spoke to on the phone was nowhere to be found, so the farm hands showed us the horses.

The horses in need of homes included several two-year-old Thoroughbreds, a Draft horse that wouldn’t come near us, a skittish pony with a wall-eye, and a buckskin Quarter Horse turned out with the yearlings.

The thoroughbreds were gorgeous and exciting but too much for my out-of-shape, out-of-practice riding abilities. When I was younger I taught riding, broke yearling race horses, and would jump on any horse, the crazier the better. But now I was a mother with a husband and three kids who depended on my ability to orchestrate their lives, or at least drive them to practice, cook them dinner, and occasionally clean the house. Best not to gamble on a young thoroughbred; I certainly couldn’t afford to get hurt.

When we walked into the yearling field, friendly faces swarmed around us. They were beautiful, sweet and curious, but before I could greet them properly, the sea parted and a big golden brown horse claimed us as his guest. The others backed away. He was obviously King of the Hill. And I was smitten. He was friendly and sweet and gorgeous. He searched my pockets for treats. He rested his muzzle in my palms, blowing his sweet horse breath. He followed me around as I pretended to not be already picturing him in my own pasture. I tried to take his picture but he crowded so close to me that all I got were some great shots of his ears and his muzzle and a few of his feet and legs.

His feet, though cracked, were huge for a Quarter horse. Quarter horses are renowned for their tiny, delicate feet which look adorable but create untold problems down the road in terms of lameness issues. I’ve never understood what breeders saw in designing little bitty feet to support such spectacularly muscular bodies. This horse’s feet were big like his thoroughbred heritage, but cracked and crooked like his quarter horse side. He had a noble, expressive face and a scar running down one ear. There was a tiny speck of white in the center of his forehead. His coat was sun-bleached brown and he certainly didn’t look buckskin. His dorsal line would argue that he was actually a dun, despite his papers. And he was big - especially when you were standing downhill from him in a field of yearling Quarter horses.

I wanted to be smart about this. It wouldn’t be wise to take an unbroken horse no matter how gorgeous, so I went back to look at the others and reason with myself. What the hell was I doing here? Addie liked him. He wasn’t quite as interesting to her as the chickens that were running loose, but out of the ones offered, she’d pick him. Not that it mattered since she had given up riding anyway. Sally liked him too, but she’s partial to Quarter horses and pretty ones at that. No matter, this was to be my horse. So it was my decision. And I’d have no one to blame but myself.

I’ve always been the kind of person who likes action. Just do it and we’ll figure it out as we go. I hate sitting still to hear the directions. I never read the tags. I’m all about making it happen. My gut and my heart were ready to load up that big brown horse right then, but my head was putting up a fight. Good thing I hadn’t brought a trailer. I didn’t need a horse. I was not a financially contributing member of our family, so I shouldn’t be bringing home another mouth to feed. I was trying to launch a writing career on less than two hours work a day. I had gardens, fruit trees, and chickens in need of attention. My kids’ demands for my chauffeuring, laundress, and chef services gobbled up any spare hours. And beyond that – I was an old lady. I hadn’t broken a horse in fifteen years. The ground was likely to hurt a lot more than it used to when you encountered it unexpectedly.

Wandering around that picturesque farm while Addie played with the chickens and Sally gawked at the hundreds of beautiful horses, I tried to reason with myself. This opportunity would come again. Free horses are everywhere. This is true to an extent, but free horses are free for a reason.

I knew why people give horses away. They can’t afford them or they’re tired of them or there’s something wrong with them. And sometimes they just didn’t know what they were getting into when they bought them. But none of these explanations made sense in this case. And besides you didn’t give away a horse this nice. When the farm owner finally appeared to seal the deal, I asked her why she wanted to give this horse away. She said, “He’s just being wasted out here. And I’ve got too many horses to feed.”

I couldn’t argue with that. But she could get money for him. Why give him away? Glancing around at the spotless barn and the gorgeous green bales of hay that look good enough for me to eat, I realized she didn’t need money. As if to answer my question, she said wistfully, “I just want them to get good homes.”

Every logical cell in my body said get back in that car. Go home. Walk away. Walk away. Walk far away. But like a drunk in need of a drink, the temptation was just too great. There was not only a hole in my pasture, there was a horse-shaped hole in my heart. I needed this horse.

On the drive home, I found myself repeating that this horse was “too good to be true.” My daughter piped up from the back, “That’s a good name for him – True. Too Good to Be True.”

DUMB QUESTION: What’s a yearling?

A yearling is a horse between the ages of one and two. That’s the technical definition, but it gets kind of fuzzy when it comes to purebred horses or breeding farms like the one we visited. The “yearlings” were all the horses born last year, which means some of them might not be quite one yet. Thoroughbreds, at least ones that race, have an official birthday of January 1. So if a thoroughbred is born on December 15, after New Year’s he is legally one, the same age as a horse born the previous March.

DUMB QUESTION: What’s a “wall-eye”?

There are many definitions, but mine is an eye that shows more white around the edges all the time, as opposed to a normal horse whose eye will only show white when he is panicked. This creates the appearance that the horse is completely freaked at all times. Although that’s probably not the case, it would stress me out.

DUMB QUESTION: What is a buckskin?

A buckskin horse looks like the classic western horse with a deep golden yellow color and black mane and tail. True is actually a dun because he has “dorsal” or black stripe down his back from mane to tail. He is more brown than yellow, but technically he is dun.

DUMB QUESTION: What is a Quarter Horse?

A Quarter Horse is an American breed of horse known for its great speed over short distances. They are bred to be muscular and compact. They are traditionally used in Western sports and Ranch work. True is an Appendix Quarter Horse which is a horse that is 7/8 Quarter Horse with one registered Thoroughbred ancestor.