“One of the earliest religious disappointments in a young girl’s life devolves upon her unanswered prayer for a horse.” –Phyllis Theroux

Every young girl goes through a so-called Horse Crazy phase. It comes somewhere between Barbie and sparkly lip gloss, and most of the time fizzles out faster than a celebrity crush.

But once in a great while the little spark of. . . something sticks with a child, and she grows up worshipping a four-legged god. She goes to summer horse camps, devours horse books, and reads The Ultimate Horse Book religiously, memorizing over and over the section entitled You and Your Horse. Just in case. . . she thinks, and always puts “a horse!” at the end of each year’s Christmas list—only half joking, reminding herself that it never hurts to try.

When she grows too old for summer riding camps maybe she will begin riding lessons. Grudgingly her parents make the forty-five minute trek out of the city to a barn once a week, where she eagerly learns to ride all types of horses, from stubborn and slow to eager and fast. She comes home tired, hungry, sore, but ecstatic.

When she grows old enough to work, she begins to volunteer at a local zoo with the ponies, helping to run pony rides in the summer and to clean and care for the herd in the winter. Many days she comes home tired and cranky, having been bitten, kicked, stepped on, and pushed around by the animals she has worshipped ever since she could talk. Still, she is willing to shovel manure, hose down mats, and walk in circles for hours in the summer sun, just to be near such creatures. She is the first to admit that her job is far from easy, and often questions her own commitment.

But somehow, she realizes, every day she works has a moment. Maybe it’s when she opens the door to the pasture and all the ponies – even the old ones – take off at a canter for the green grass. Maybe it’s the day the most volatile pony relaxes through her entire shift, allowing the girl to enjoy the sun and exercise rather than worry about getting bitten. It could even be the day she and her fellow leaders gather to weep for a pony whose unexpected, unexplained death has suddenly made certain that their job will never be the same again. These moments, beautiful, exciting, poignant, or sad, make her job worth every bit of labor and every sore muscle.

The girl now knows that she will never own a horse as a child. The combination of too much money and too much responsibility has taken care of that. She has learned that all horses aren’t cute and cuddly and purple like My Little Pony—they are exasperating and maddening and sometimes painful. But she also knows that the goal of having a horse will be something she works toward and prepares for her entire life. She will never give up the dream of owning her own horse, because to give that up would be to abandon a part of her that has stuck with her through thick and thin. It may be – has already been – one of the hardest things she has ever done. But someday, that last Christmas wish will come true.

Katie Apfel, Garfield High School, Class of 2006

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