There is a very specific kind of nostalgia that only former horse girls will ever truly understand. It is a memory written not just in mental images, but in texture, sound, and a deeply ingrained, sensory geography. If you grew up in a barn, you know the feeling. Living in a city now, the closest I usually get to that world is driving past a pasture on a highway, spotting a pony in the distance, and doing what every single one of us is biologically compelled to do: exclaiming "Horses!" out the window. But beneath that casual commute reflex lies a childhood spent entirely under the spell of the equine. From about nine to my early twenties, I was hopelessly, head-over-heels obsessed. And it wasn't just the glamorous,movie-montage version of riding; I loved all of it.
Long before you even set foot in the arena, the horse barn greeted you with a scent profile that I will maintain to my dying day is absolute magic. It’s a rich, delicate, instantly recognizable perfume equal parts sweet alfalfa hay, leather saddle soap, fresh wood shavings, dusty air, homemade fly spray, and manure. Divine. To an outsider, that might sound absurd. To a barn kid, it was pure comfort. The auditory landscape was just as sacred: the low, rhythmic rumbling of a horse nuzzling through its grain, the heavy thud of hooves on wooden barn aisle floorboards, the sharp click of a brass snap onto a halter, and the sudden, explosive snort of a mare settling into her stall.
Half the joy of being a horse girl was the sheer amount of work it required. We were tiny humans willingly opting into manual labor because every task felt like a privilege. And I do mean tiny; I started out riding English (and continued that way because it’s clearly the best - I said what I said) in part because I could barely lift the postage-stamp-sized saddle onto my pony’s back unaided, being far too short and noodly. But before the saddle, before you could even brush a horse, you had to retrieve them. There was an entire art form dedicated to wading into a muddy pasture, lead rope in hand, attempting to convince a fat, grumpy gelding that coming inside to work was a superior option to grazing. It involved gentle bartering, strategic peppermint offerings, and slow, indirect steps so as not to set off a casual drift in the opposite direction. The part that came next was delightful. Nothing beat the tactile satisfaction of grooming, nor digging into a toolbox overflowing with curry combs, mudrakes, soft brushes, and rubber shedding gloves. The rhythmic, circular motions of the curry comb bringing up dust you didn't know was there; picking hooves with meticulous care and getting that deeply-embedded pebble out in one go; feeling the impossibly soft velvet of a horse’s curious nose sniffing your coat pocket for treats: delightful. All delightful.
Depending on your horse’s mood, putting tack on could be a bit tougher. Some of it was fine; some of it became a battle of wills. The girth (the strap that holds the saddle on and goes under the belly) can be quite difficult to secure properly if your pony is purposefully filling his lungs with air and ballooning out his belly, leaving you with a girth that is woefully too loose when you get the arena. And baby me found the moment of sliding the bit past a big pink horse tongue, and more crucially, big horse teeth, a little scary. The trick is to find the space in their mouth where the teeth stop, and put your finger in there, which encourages them to open their mouths. I wrote that sentence just now, dear reader, and then thought, “what? I used to do that? How?” And afterward? The meditative ritual of cleaning tack. You rinse and clean the bit, which is now disgusting with grassy horse spit (yuck) and then sit on a tack trunk with a damp sponge and a tub of saddle soap, working up a lather until the leather supplely shone, learning to appreciate every buckle, billet, and inch of stirrup leather.
Part of the obsession was intellectual. We weren't just riding; we were amateur anatomists and equine historians. We devoured books, cataloged every bit of trivia, and memorized the horse’s body like a map. We could point out the poll, the crest, the hock, the stifle, the frog, the fetlock, and the pastern with academic precision. We knew the difference between a chestnut and a bay, a trot and a canter, a snaffle and a curb. Aren’t these words delicious? Just saying them outloud gives me a little jolt of joy.
But let’s be honest: horses are large, unpredictable, powerful creatures with minds of their own. A lot of them are afraid of things like empty plastic bags, or the other side of a fence they’ve seen every day of their lives. Part of the thrill was navigating that inherent element of danger. I was always far more keen on flatwork than the adrenaline-pumping, heart-in-your-throat suspense of hunter-jumper courses. Give me a quiet session working on transitions, bending, and a steady rhythm over a line of fences any day. But even when things got scary - when a sudden shadow made a 1,200-pound animal leap sideways, or a ride got a little too fast - that fear had an electrifying edge. It demanded total presence. You couldn't worry about school or normal life when you were engaged in a subtle, silent dialogue with an animal ten times your size. Even the worst work—mucking out heavy, damp stalls in the freezing cold or scrubbing water troughs—felt like a badge of honor. It built a specific kind of resilience, patience, and deep, quiet empathy.
I haven't ridden in years, but that horse girl foundation never really leaves you. It stays in the way you automatically scan every field along the road, the way you appreciate fine leather, and the nostalgic warmth that hits you whenever you catch a stray whiff of dry hay on a summer breeze. It was a sometimes - chaotic, muddy, beautiful way to grow up—and I wouldn't trade a single second of it.
Jennifer