This Life with Horses: In Praise of Horse Husbands

It would seem that I don't have a biological clock per se.  But I do have an internal timepiece which apparently is a Rolex, for at the stroke of April every year my heart yearns and thoughts turn to Lexington.  I'm compelled by some sort of migratory instinct to spend late April at Kentucky Horse Park.

My horses have an internal timepiece as well, also set to April.  For three of the last six years, three horses have injured themselves in the week prior to the Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event. First, there was the gelding who ended his jumping career by blowing a hind suspensory ligament while turned out in the pasture.  The very next April, an aging mare slipped on wet grass after rolling and fell hard on her right shoulder.  I saw her struggling to rise and went to check on her and to my horror discovered she was having a seizure:  eyes rolled back, legs twitching, erratic breathing.  Bless her heart she recovered and lived several more years.  Last April one of my geldings lacerated a sole while frolicking in a fresh spring pasture.

After every one of these incidents, as soon as the vet has driven off, I've looked to my husband with teary eyes and blubbered "I'm staying home...I can't leave with all of this going on" and every year he has put a steady hand on my shoulder and told me "You can go.  I can handle this."  And he has.

My husband was drafted  into this life with horses with absolutely no preparation.  He has been my show mom, my groom, my hand-walker, my driver.  He has taken care of geldings made cranky by injury and stall rest and has patiently hand-grazed them and mucked out their stalls and cared for them just as I would have.  He has been there to pat my back after a good class and he's been there to rub my back as I sob over a fresh grave.  He takes vacation time from work every year to care for the horses so that I can go to Lexington.  All of my horses have loved him and probably for the same reasons I do:  he is calm, steady, reliable, easy-going, and upbeat.  He makes me laugh.  He scratches their itchy spots.  We all feel more secure in his presence.

And so as official Rolex time pings louder and louder in my thoughts I realize how lucky I am to be able to enjoy time away in the company of others' horses because I share my life with a man that can ably look after mine whilst I'm gone.  I couldn't do this life with horses without him.