If Wishes Were Horses: Letting Daisy Go

Daisy came from an old farmer friend’s stubbly hay field. We bartered her for a stone retaining wall my husband built. She was the second-to-last filly to come from a quiet mare named Cricket, one who had been over-bred by any stallion that jumped the barbed wire. Daisy was, what fancy-horse-people call: “backyard bred.”

I had ridden plenty of horses in my life, preferring a challenge to a lazy plug any day, but I stood now wondering exactly who had control over whom. I had no idea how to train a horse from the ground up. “Give her friendly lessons,” my husband said. I began simply by brushing the burdocks out of her matted mane. Over seven years, Daisy blossomed into a fine-boned, brave beauty of an event horse. A dapple brown bay with long, delicate legs, she jumped anything we put in front of her, loved a good flat-out gallop across the neighbor’s cornfield, and judging by her misbehavior in the ring, she agreed with me that it’s like running on a treadmill. We both prefer boundless fields and blazing our own trail.

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Daisy. (Photo Credit: Megan Galbraith)

Last March, I learned I had been accepted into the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore; I knew Daisy would be replaced by something I loved even more than horses — words.

The thought of spending July at Skidmore to work on my nonfiction book, The Guild of the Infant Savior, both excited and terrified me; the same feeling I got at the apex of a full on gallop through a verdant field, when all four of Daisy’s hooves left the ground and we hung poised, together, above something unknown.

But at 45, I planned to get as much as I could out of this experience. Even though I lived close by, I did not want to pierce the blissful membrane of this rarified air by commuting.

It didn’t seem fair for Daisy to weather the summer with me barely riding her. She was too smart and talented to be wilting slowly in the field forgetting the hard work we’d done together. Plus, I had to come up with the money for tuition, room and board. I would sell her, but only to the right person.

Riders spend a lifetime perfecting what’s called a “balanced seat,” the ability to relax down and sit into the saddle. When top-level riders achieve this, it looks as though they’re doing nothing; like somehow rider and horse are effortlessly gliding, disappearing into each other, becoming one — a Centaur. In jazz, they call this feeling the “blue note.” In human relations, they call it “love.”

That’s how Daisy and I learned to moved forward together. Falling off and getting back on; making mistakes and dusting ourselves off; challenging each other continuously to simply move ahead. That little mare helped me find my balance. In preparation for my month at Skidmore, I sold everything; jumps, a trailer, riding clothes, saddles, horse blankets — trading one dream for another in the hopes that the same hard work could, possibly, net me a positive result as a writer instead of a rider.

And then there were the horses. One Sunday in late May, Shorty (my placid, doe-eyed buckskin gelding) walked quietly on to a friend’s trailer, bound for a blissful life on a mountain ironically named Misery. Daisy, on the other hand, would not budge.

Like me, she doesn’t like to be told what to do so she pawed at the ramp and snorted at the dark, scary cave of a trailer, getting half in before backing out again for the umpteenth time. All the while Denise, the women to which she had been sold, patiently rewarded her for the forward motion and made her move her feet when she backed up or balked. Daisy’s hooves carved a dirt semi-circle out of the grass at the base of the trailer ramp. She kept one eye on me constantly as if questioning, “Really?” Yet finally and firmly, she loaded herself and stood quietly. I trailered her to her new barn a few miles away, choking down a lump in my throat.

The events of the past two years of my life had threatened to swallow me had I allowed them to: I was laid off, my eldest son was suspended from high school, I lost a beloved brother-in-law to AIDS, I accepted a regrettable job that I soon after got laid off from. But throughout it all, my plucky little Daisy – the one who let me be the first to put a bit in her mouth and climb up on her innocent back — always demanded the best from me, even when the best I could muster was a pat on her muzzle.

Later that day, I stood in our horseless field looking at the barn, now overtaken by my sons’ cows and chickens. I was unemployed in the midst of an economy doing a steep downward-facing-dog, I was again ready to find my balance; ready to decide for myself whether to move forward with confidence into a scary place or retreat.

I know Daisy will teach her new owner Molly, Denise’s eight-year-old daughter, everything she taught me, which includes letting go instead of holding on too tightly to something that feels safe.

Tell Us in the Comments

What do you think?

8 Responses

  1. Julie Walawender

    Beautiful essay. Daisy is an awesome horse and you always did right by her.

    Reply
  2. Margie

    So touched by your ability to let go so graciously and to move ahead with such commitment. Looking forward to reading your book and future writings!

    Reply
    • Megan Galbraith

      Thanks for reading, Margie! It made it easier to let go knowing what good hands my little horse would be in. My trainer Denise and her daughter Molly just love her to pieces, and she is only a mile away so I can visit whenever I want.

      Reply
  3. Abby Sher
    Roberta

    Beautiful story, just made me cry a title.

    Reply
  4. Abby Sher
    Roberta

    Beautiful story, just made me weep a little. So touched. I rode horses as a kid and would love to pick it up again. Such amazing creatures.

    Reply
  5. megan

    @Roberta Thank you Roberta. I highly recommend riding and you can always pick it up again. Go for it.

    Reply
  6. Cheyenne

    Moose #53: You’ve just proven my point. It’s very easy to talk about how the unemployed (many of whom have paid in just as much as you have) should go pick lettuce for seven cents a head, but if YOU are ever in that position, YOUR unemployment is somehow &#2d30;2ifferent”⁘and you DESERVE your UC, as opposed to THOSE OTHER people. Who are those “other people” anyway? And if you lost your job and no one would hire you because you were over 50 and overqualified for grunt work, would you put yourself in that category? I didn’t think so.

    Reply

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