The Horses of my Life - Early Days Part 1

Horses.
Just the word brings a heart full of joy and excitement to those of us who have been blessed with this obsession.
Ask any horsewoman. She will tell you that these animals have a special power to shape us human beings.
I believe these creatures make us better people, whether we want them to or not. These stories are inspired by the horses of my life and how they shaped me.
Horses have been a part of my life since the moment of my conception. Their rhythmic gaits knitted into the very fabric of my being.
Having been born in the city, we didn’t have a horse-friendly backyard. Soon my parents found that babies were rather pricey leaving my mother to choose between board for her horse or keeping her new baby. Lucky for me, she decided to sell the horse and keep the baby.
My first horse memory is a hazy one. A memory that feels more like a belief; as if it were a story I have been told instead of a clear and concise vision.
I was young. Too young to know how old I would have been, but old enough to remember that I called the pony Silver. Although Silver was definitely not his name, he was and always will be Silver to me.
If my memory is telling me the truth, then Silver was a Welsh pony that we went to visit on the weekends. Those weekends fed the seedling of the horsewoman I was destined to become.
Weekends with Silver ended when my parents decided that a brother and sister would be fun. With our family expanding, horse time shrunk. My mother’s insistence on us children having horse experience did not.
She found us a nice riding outfit outside the city and booked us a horseback family vacation.
After weeks of waiting and a long drive, we finally arrived at the day. It was warm, and the scent of pine trees floating on the heat of the air still lingers in my memories.
Filled with excitement, 8-year-old me entered the barn with my family. This was going to be the first time I would ride a horse on my own. I walked down the aisle, admiring the horses as the sun spilled onto them from the openings in the barn.
Near the end of the barn, we came upon a group of people preparing our mounts. They introduced themselves and the horses.
They explained to us that my mom would be riding with my sister, who was too young to ride on her own. Erich, my little brother, got to ride the brown and white pinto pony, and my horse was not yet ready.
“Who would you like to ride?” someone asked me.
Or maybe I wasn’t asked. I only remember that I knew what I wanted, and I wasn’t afraid to ask for it.
“I want the biggest one,” I said, smiling from ear to ear, thrilled at just the thought of riding the biggest horse in the barn.
Horrified, my mother threw a worried look at our guide.
“The biggest one is a good horse for her.” He reassured her. And he big dark bay did not disappoint.