Why Girls Love Horses

It’s common knowledge that the average five-year old girl dreams of having her very own horse.  Her fantasies are filled with a pony that’s fluffy and cute (preferably pink) with a desire to be dolled up and covered in sparkles.  It’s less common knowledge that of the few girls who get their wish, even fewer are bright enough to see their pony as a friend, not as a guinea pig for their hairstyling experiments.  It’s hardly knowledge at all that a horse can be more than a pet, but as a small number of girls can tell you, that theory is entirely true.  For a select few, a horse can be the truest love one will ever know.

Already as I write that first paragraph I have tears in my eyes.  These tears are not all that different from the tears of a mother crying over her beautiful, healthy firstborn, and the love is much the same.  It may seem absurd that a so-called (mistakenly called) “dumb animal” can inspire that kind of feeling in someone.  Sometimes, it seems silly even to me, a horse lover for nearly my entire life.  But when you get to the root of the love, it really isn’t all that strange.

This is not a story of how one horse saved one girl, or how one girl’s life was changed by one horse.  This is a breakdown of the bond a horse and a girl share, because to me, there is no stronger bond.  My parents will be hurt at my saying this, but my devotion to horses is just as, if not more, powerful than the relationship I have with my family, because horses can give me something that no human ever could.  It’s not something I can name, but it is something that I hope I can describe.

As I start off, I should explain why I am focusing on the love a girl (or woman) shares with a horse.  To be entirely frank, it is partly because I am a girl, and proud.  But there is also the fact that the fairer sex is often anything but fair.  As girls, we are socially programmed to act delicate and proper, but inside, we share the same emotions as the less meek male gender.  Since we are trained to keep up appearances, girls are forced to be sneaky, petty, and backstabbing in our maliciousness.  My enemies are guilty of it.  My best friends are guilty of it.  I am guilty of it.  So it comes as inevitable the psychological damage we wreak upon our peers.  There is a reason so many girls are depressed, or anorexic, or suicidal.  There is a reason our stereotypes include the bitch and the slut.  It all boils down to each and every one of us girls feeling insecure about ourselves – it’s a ping-ponging, twisted web that has us all struggling against our constraints.  As such, it is only natural that a girl will self-destruct – or find something in her life that will ultimately save and change her.  For the self-proclaimed horse lovers, that something is pretty obvious.

* * *

People who have been in love will have some idea of what the girl-horse relationship is.  However, compared to inter-human relationships, a girl’s bond with a horse is utterly pure.  This may come across as slightly offensive to those who have that “special someone” in their life, but consider the biggest mistake people make in looking for their love:  Too often, we mistake physical attraction for “rightness.”  With a horse, it’s a little less likely to make that mistake.  There are no racing hormones when it comes to loving a horse, just true and simple love.

I have heard theories that there is no “love,” just the physical passion people feel for one another, and the fact that they don’t exactly resent their partner’s company.  But that doesn’t explain why people do charity, or why a mother would give up everything for her child.  Love does explain it.  And there are many ways to describe the love between girls and horses besides “pure” and “true:”  Elating, mind-blowing, wanted, needed.

It’s the needed part of the love that explains the why part of the love.  You see, as we girls are tearing each other apart because we are already torn up, and being shredded even more by our broken fellows (only not fellows), there is a hole created inside of us.  It may sound cliché, but it’s like there’s something missing.  As we are desperately seeking approval, we lose respect for ourselves.  That damage can be dangerous.  There’s a reason so many teenage girls write angst poetry about how razorblades are her friends, how she can’t stand to live because there’s nothing worth living for.

But a horse can definitely be worth living for.  It’s not always a decimated nag that shows a girl that everything is relative (that her life might not be so completely hell bound after all).  Sometimes it’s just knowing that there is someone there who will always be there for you, providing the extra love that girls like us need.  Because a horse can give a girl things that no human could hope to provide:  Horses don’t insult or spread rumors.  If you tell them a secret, there’s no chance that they will let it slip.  There’s that subconscious trust a girl has for her horse, and the trust that a horse has for his girl.  If the horse gets mad, the girl can’t do anything but forgive him, because a horse’s morals are so simple, she just knows that there is no ill will in the horse’s crankiness.  Now a girl could, of course, share these things with any other kind of animal.  There is a reason dogs are “man’s best friend.”  But as counselors and confidence-boosters, horses are irreplaceable.  There is something wondrous in the fact that an animal so beautiful and so powerful will trust someone as physically weak and emotionally delicate as a psychologically distressed girl.

* * *

Close your eyes.  Imagine a warm breath on your neck, and the gentle tickle of lips below your ear.  Picture a warm, solid body standing next to you, simply relaxing and enjoying your company.  Lean against that body, against that solid wall that protects you from the world and its cruelties.  Imagine looking into large brown eyes, and seeing a trust that runs deeper than the earth’s molten core.  Think about how this love will never be betrayed, your heart never broken; there is no chance that this love that you share with this horse will ever die.

* * *

To be perfectly honest, I had thought that it would take thousands of words to describe the girl-horse bond.  But now I have reached this point, and I don’t know what else I can say.  Maybe true love really isn’t something you can describe.  Maybe it’s more than being saved, more than being needed.  Maybe it’s not just knowing that your heart is now whole.

The love girls share with horses is all of these things.  I’m certainly not saying it’s not.  What I’m trying to say is that love is such a faint feeling, you hardly realize that you have it.  All of a sudden, one day, you find yourself driving in the car on a family vacation, craning your neck in every direction just to catch a glimpse of a horse in a pasture off the highway, and you realize, I’m in love.

We horse lovers ask you to ask yourself:  Are you loved?  Because we are.  We ask you to ask yourself:  Do you love?  Because we do.