I was about five years old when I touched a horse for the first time. Some neighbors brought in a spotted pony from a relative’s ranch and invited all the kids to come take a ride. I remember being lifted onto the pony’s bare back and told to hang on tight, and the next thing I knew we were travelling at warp speed (or maybe just a moderate trot) in a circle around the yard.
It. Was. Terrifying.
But somehow I managed to stay on, and two or three minutes later the pony was halted so the next kid could ride.
That’s how they get us, those damned sneaky horses. For those of us who are susceptible, it just takes one tiny taste and you’re hooked for life. There’s no cure, and you probably wouldn’t take it if there was. By the time you realize what happened, it’s already in your bones and your blood and your breath. It’s part of who you are.
I was about 11 the next time I rode a horse, at a rent-by-the-hour stable my Dad took me to. (Best day ever.) By that point I’d read every horse book in the library and owned an army of toy equines. The infection…err, obsession was at full strength.
The following year, miracle of miracles, I got a horse of my own. And so horses occupied a huge part of my real life, not just my dream life, for the next decade and a half.
But, as legions of other horse girls have sadly learned, adulthood eventually starts getting in the way. I continued to own horses, but it became mostly passive ownership—providing resources and occasional visits for a string of “pasture pets.”
When the last of those (my heart horse, Rhona) passed away in early 2022, I thought I was done with horses and riding. After all, I was 49 years old, ridiculously out of shape, and had ridden only a few times since my early 20s. Besides, I still had two adorable donkeys to scratch the equine itch, and over the years I’d found that they made more sense to me than horses did anyway.
But life threw me a curve ball in June 2022. Within a single week, I caught COVID and broke my ankle in three places. I spent most of the next two months in bed, which gave me a LOT of time to think. And what I thought about, mostly, was how quickly life can change. A wrong breath, a wrong step, and suddenly you can’t do the things you love anymore. So you sure better enjoy them while you can!
And it slowly became clear to me that the thing I loved and desperately wanted to do again was ride.
Not like I did in my 20s, though, when I’d happily climb up on (and sometimes get bucked off) any horse that came my way. I can’t take a fall like I used to, and I’ve gained a LOT of fear since then. And, being self-employed, I literally can’t afford to hurt myself too much.
I wanted to ride something I could trust to be sane and calm and slow. And so, as I had MANY times over the years, I found myself looking at my donkey, Jeep, and wishing she was a foot taller.
Unfortunately, large saddle donkeys were way out of my price range, as were my second choice, Belgian draft mules (Belgians being, in my experience, the calmest and sweetest of horse breeds). And they very rarely came up for sale within 1,000 miles of me anyway.
So I was pretty surprised when I saw a Belgian molly pop up on Facebook one day. It was love at first sight for me, and her description matched my wishlist exactly: middle-aged, healthy, friendly, a little lazy, and calm enough for even the most timid or inexperienced rider.
Her asking price was more than I could afford, though, so I eventually forced myself to keep scrolling. But I kept a screenshot and daydreamed about her for the next couple of weeks.
Then I logged in one morning to see her ad at the top of my feed again. Only this time, the price was reduced to the amount I’d budgeted (which was a STEAL if her description was accurate), and the ad was only one minute old. No responses yet.
So I took a crazy leap of faith and did something that nobody in their right mind should do: I agreed to buy her right then and there.
I was still hobbling around in my boot cast when she was delivered a week later. And thus began the adventures of a middle-aged woman and a middle-aged mule.
The Midlife Mule 