Ann Dare EC Licensed English Level II Coach 45 years experience
02/11/2025
Oh how we have all been here!! Thinking of you Sarah Roney....
Heartbreak with horses, it's pretty much built in.
I have been chatting to a couple of horse friends recently about our shared desire to avoid future heartbreak with horses. The fear of having to experience grief - in the many forms that it can come with horses - can feel so painful we may decide never to walk through that particular valley again.
The last time a horse of mine died I was told over the phone by my friend, just as I was about to board a plane home. This was in a six month period where my Mum and dog also died. It turns out becoming familiar with grief doesn't in any way lessen its impact. I sat between two other passengers, people I have never met, and cried (and I mean really cried, that not breathing, snotty sobbing, water pouring from your eyes crying) all the way back to the U.K. Neither of them looked at me or spoke the whole way back - our collective ability to know what to do when someone is upset being as highly tuned as it is.
I continued to cry like this all the way across the underground and then all the way from Paddington to Exeter, and then in the car back to Dartmoor. Then for the next few days. And then sporadically for months. Years later I still feel my heart go a little sideways when I see a picture of Tycoon and sometimes have to take a quick, short breath to re-steady myself. I have become something of an expert in death and have some understanding now of how it plays out. That adage about it not going away, but other things coming back around it - well that's pretty much the truth. From my perspective anyway. It's always there, life just reappears to surround it.
And that's not the only heartbreak that can result from a life with horses. They can get injured and we have to retire them, smashing dreams of camps, and fun rides and clinics. We may discover the young horse we were all full of optimism and hope for has something physically challenging which means the future we had mapped out will never be possible. Maybe that day comes when your trail riding friend of many years tells you those hills are too steep, and please can you hang up their saddle for the last time.
Each time, it breaks our heart.
And.
WE DO IT ANYWAY.
It is likely that most of us will outlive the animals in our lives. I sit here typing with two cats and two dogs next to me (there is never enough room on the sofa), all of whom I am likely to outlive . I can look at that future sadness and feel the spikes of pain and wonder if I will cope. But, if the alternative is not to have them in my life, I cannot choose that option.
The only way to guarantee there will be no potential heartbreak with horses, is not to have them. We can negate that certain future by walking away from the present possibility. And I do know people who have made that choice - we all have to come to our own peace about it.
However, for me, and many of the people I know, we take the heartbreak - because we know without it there will be no joy. There will be no companionship. If we want the gallops along the beach we also have to take the grief. It's really, of course, (no one here needs me to spell this out) what all of life is about. You don't get to choose just one side of the coin.
As I contemplate decisions about future horses who might join our herd, along with that comes the absolute certainty of future good byes. That bit is the given.
And yet, we choose it anyway.
It will never be enough time with a horse we love, but I would rather have that too short time, than not have it at all.
