think back to when you were 11 years old. When you are 11 years old is when you knew and expressed what you were meant to do.
When I was 11 years old, I saw the Disney movie "Miracle of the White Stallions," which told the story of General Patton saving the Spanish Riding School horses from the Nazis.
Like many little girls, I was already in love with horses. When I saw those dancing white horses, I knew that is what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the first girl to ride at the Spanish Riding School. I wanted to dedicate my life to horses and dressage.
I started as a self-taught rider. At 14, my best friend and I went to work at a local barn cleaning tack in exchange for riding. The new barn owners had brought in a large number of thoroughbreds straight off the race track, and we were each "given" a horse to re-school for showing. After they saw me ride, they took me off tack cleaning duty and gave me 5 horses to ride. While we were riding, various kids would come to me for help if they were having problems. Every day after school, I'd end up riding 6 horses, plus I'd get get on the other horses for a few minutes here or there to work through issues. So I sat on up to 12 horses/day pretty much every day. I'd get home by 10pm and do my homework then.
When I was 16, my sisters decided to take riding lessons together for fun, and asked me where there was a good lesson barn. I saw my chance...a very large facility about an hour and a half away had just brought in a national 3-day event champion as manager and resident trainer. So I recommended they go there, and then my parents let me take lessons too, so my 2 sisters and I formed an official group lesson. One day, about 2 months into our lessons, we were having a jumping lesson indoors with one of the assistant instructors. We started with gymnastic jumping (e.g., sequences of low jumps that are 1 or 2 strides apart, or even no strides between called 'bounces') and she took notice of my riding. She pulled my sisters aside, and raised the jumps. Then raised them again. And again. She had me jumping over 4', myabe up to 4'6", when she ran and got another one of the assistant instructor to come watch. They talked to my parents after that lesson, and I got moved into the top pony club group,and a 2nd group of professionals, both lessons with the chief instructor, Lockie Richards. Lockie had already one the national 3-day championships at that point. Originally from New Zealand, he had trained in dressage with Oberbereiter Franz Rockawansky, former chief rider of the Spanish Riding School, and was a fellow of the British Horse Society. His own students in the UK had included Princess Anne, who was on the British Olympic team.
I rode with those 2 groups for a year, finally getting the foundation for my dream. After 1 year, my parents decided to get me a new horse and that is how I got my Teago. He was a super talented horse, and we bonded very closely. There were problems in the local barn where we were boarding, however, caused mostly I think by jealousy. The farrier told my father we should move my horse because a horse of his quality didn't belong in a barn like that. My father blew him off. We went through a solid month, shortly after Teago arrived, where he wouldn't let anybody touch him. I knew something was being done to him and begged my father to let me move him. He blew me off. We came home from a 2 week vacation and I found Teago had saddle marks in his fur, showing he'd been ridden and not thoroughly washed off. I told my father, and he told me I was lying. A space opened up at the local pony club barn and I begged again for him to let me move Teago there. It was only $5.00/month more, and we'd be able to do pony club events and lessons there. He told me again I was spoiled and refused.
I should have just made the arrangements and moved him, and then told my father after the fact. But I was too obedient. 
Soon Teago and I would be going away to college, so we just had to hold out a little longer. Lockie had been made the Principal of the American Dressage Institute, which shared riding facilities with Skidmore College. To satisfy my mother's insistence that I get a college degree, instead of the riding instructor certification that I wanted, I applied and was accepted at Skidmore.
3 weeks before we were to leave, I had a nightmare. It was unlike any dream I'd ever had before or since. I felt like I was "outside of time." First I was hovering outside of the barn and everything was eerily silent. Then I was hovering in front of Teago's stall. The door was open and along the wall by the door stood the barn manager, her niece and 2 nephews. Teago was lying down in front of them and facing the door. And then he stood up, and his left hind leg ended in a bloody trail. I woke up.
And then, 11 days before we were to leave, I got a call from the barn. Teago was "hurt bad." I raced to the barn and when I got there, I found him in his stall. Along the wall stood the manager and her 2 nephews, but not her niece. Teago was standing facing the door, covered with lathery sweat, holding his left hind leg off the ground. I examined his leg, running my hand down to feel heat and swelling. The was a cut at the hock, with a trail of blood running down his leg.
His hock, a major joint in his back leg, was mysteriously broken when he was supposed to be in his stall eating breakfast. The manager claimed she found him wandering in the paddock. Bullshit. Instead of going away to college with me, where we would realize a major step in my dream training in dressage with Lockie, Teago had to be put down. A day has not gone by that I have not wished it had been me to die instead of him. He didn't deserve any of the shit those bastards did to him.
After I was away at school, other boarders started coming forward to my father with stories of what they'd witnessed, in case he wanted to sue. Instead, he tried to blame them for not coming forward sooner. They responded that they thought I'd told him. He told them well he'd assumed I was lying. So they told him they were sorry he didn't communicate with his own kids. I heard this from my best friend, Scotty, who was a fellow boarder.
Since then, it seems I've always been cursed when I try to rebuild my riding life. I've had multiple re-starts and fresh starts, with more setbacks than anything else. In between, I've lived with substitutes and smaller, mini-dreams. I was nearly killed once when either a barn owner or resident trainer spiked Algiers' food and he flipped over on me. When I bought this farm, it was to finally be free of boarding out. I have worked and worked and worked, trying to repair the damage done, but people sabotage me faster than I can repair. I was defrauded when I bought this place, which is half the acreage it was supposed to be. Then the contractor trashed my place with his bulldozer just 3 weeks after I moved in.
For me, this is it. I always wanted my own farm; I have one (sort of). I always wanted a dog; after having birds as substitutes for 15+ years, I now have my 2 dogs.
But I'm suffering from PTSD from the fall I had with Algiers, and I don't know how to move forward. I started Dahli so carefully last summer, and everything went perfectly until the day she turned bronco. The thing is, it wasn't a couple buck because she felt good. She intended to dump me and kept going until she did. So I've lost my trust in her and don't know if I can ever get it back.
I keep telling me the universe doesn't give us anything more than we can handle, but I feel like this time it has. I don't know how to move forward with her alone, and there isn't a horse person in the world, or at least in my local world, that I can trust to help me and not either be hopelessly incompetent or viciously sabotage. I called a local barn about lessons and they immediately, and I mean immediately, started trying to sell me a horse. 
For me, this is the bottom line. Ride or die. I'm just praying for the strength and guidance. It all just seems so incredibly unfair... It is too much. I was born with Saturn at 0 degrees Scorpio, so am going through my Saturn return on top of everything else.
This is all I've lived for. I just want to be able to sit on a horse again and feel joy, instead of PTSD panic.
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