10/21/2024
Why would anyone give a strange little sawed off, horse crazy 9-year-old kid weekly horse riding lessons for free?
Even with an “understanding” that a kid would “work” for their lessons, I mean honestly, how much real work can a 9-year-old dreamer do in a barn? 1) very little, and 2) not much that doesn’t require the supervision and investment (time, energy, instruction) of an adult.
But that’s what someone did for me. I was the strange little sawed off horse crazy 9 year old.
Looking back, I can see it’s one of the biggest pictures of grace (completely unmerited favor) anyone has ever done for me. And the ramifications of that grace were literally life-changing and life directing.
Let me tell you about the person that did this for me. But first, a little bit of background as it relates.
I was the youngest of four kids in a pastor’s home in Florida. We were not in any way destitute or without - although some of the creative meals we got at the end of a paycheck are still part of family lore - but we did not have the kind of money it often takes to be in the horse world.
We always had animals around us – none purchased, all chose us or we rescued – cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, and even a baby flying squirrel that had fallen out of a tree nearby. I loved animals – but I was crazy about horses.
My mom tried to tap any resources who might let a kid come see their horses or ponies, and several times people humored us and let us come.
On a whim, one day, my mom stopped by a local tack shop and struck up a conversation with the clerk, asking if there were any places I could come feed apples to horses. They said, as a matter of fact, one of their regulars had mentioned looking into having an apprenticeship program, and gave mom contact information.
My mom reached out, and this lady said I could come.
And that’s your first tip-off to the heart of this lady named Cindy. Some random person calls you about a horse-crazy kid, and Cindy is willing for them to come into her property and barn, with a posture of “give” from day one.
From the first hello she started teaching me. The first day, we lunged a horse name Colorado. A rescue. All of her horses were rescues. And she gave me a stapled set of papers on types of bits and tack and I was going to be quizzed on it next time.
We cleaned water buckets – because they needed to be clean enough for us to drink out of, if we were asking horses to. And ladies and gentlemen, that was no small feat at a barn in Florida whose water source was a sulfur well and the temps were almost always over 85 degrees. The buckets smelled like egg and were about that color inside. But scrub we did!
I would do chores (as much as I was able), cleaning stalls, trying not to turn over wheelbarrows, cleaning water buckets – and she taught, and mentored, and expected excellence. The work was hot and hard, but cutting corners would earn you a set of pushups.
But after chores were done, we would tack up one of the horses, and she would teach me to ride. Private lessons, because on Thursday afternoons (which instantly became my favorite day of the week), I was the only one there.
She worked an office job, but her free time was given to volunteering with Girl Scouts, managing this barn of rescued horses with her own meager funds, and running a lesson program, called Saddle Hoppers, for a bunch of little barn rats just like me. Several were from her Girl Scouts troup. I would meet them eventually on Saturdays when they all met and had their riding lessons.
Cindy always did more than was required of a trainer for us, on less funds than most people have to run a facility. She took in horses when she probably bought fewer of her own groceries to do so. She took on students who probably couldn’t pay the lesson fees (and she never once referenced that I was getting lessons for free- to me as leverage or to anyone else).
After a while, we had a “barn show” where we put on show clothes and had friendly competition between the students. I didn’t have show clothes. I didn’t even have boots, and the helmet I wore belonged to the barn.
One day I came to the barn, and she had a boot box there. She and her then fiancé had bought me my first pair of boots. They were tall and rubber, and she showed me how to “spit shine” and use Vaseline to get them shiny for a show.
As the show date approached, I still didn’t have any of the English show habit. One afternoon, she showed up at the door of our house with a bag of clothes, hand-me-downs from other girls, for me to try.
And after that first show, we started to do local open shows. Who paid my show entry fees? She and her fiancé. All she asked was that I send a thank-you note to her fiancé each time. Who does that?? They weren’t wealthy. Their truck and trailer were years old and showed the wear and often needed the work.
She was “paying it forward” into our lives before that phrase had ever been coined. And in a critical time in our lives as young girls when school p*er pressure was strong and bullying present, we had a place to go where we worked hard, were appreciated, and were taught excellence and what it means to be kind to others and to the animals in our care.
I have a vivid memory of us all milling around in the barn one Saturday doing all the things, and someone ran up to Cindy and whispered urgently in her ear, and they ran off toward the road. In a few minutes, she came walking back with something wrapped in a towel and tears streaming down her face. It was one of the barn cats that had been hit by a car. We all soberly gathered around, and through the tears, she gave thanks for the life that had been ours to enjoy for a time. I think one of the kids reacted in anger to whoever hit the cat and drove away, and our trainer said maybe they didn’t know. People don’t always know.
This lady was in the business of rescuing horses, dogs and cats, and young people.
Her menagerie over the years has included a domestic piglet that they found in rural Sarasota – it had slipped away from some farmer – and she kept that thing safe and free from bacon lovers for the entirety of its life. It got to be about 400 pounds, eating and sleeping and getting its own sprinkler head.
Another animal that got its own sprinkler, even though it made a huge muddy mess of the barnyard was a big beautiful palomino Morgan/Belgian X gelding named Joker. He was the first horse I ever cantered on. He was a pleasure-type, so low and slow was his preference, and when it came time to ask for a canter, he just wasn’t that interested, so my trainer had to wave her arms as he went by, and he decided then to go…off across the field and popping over a small ditch. Ha! By the time he stopped, I was hunched on his back like a monkey in total fetal, and she was coming up behind us with her merry laugh, all was well, let’s try that again.
When Joker got too old to ride, he was just a big pasture ornament who discovered how nice it was to stand over the water sprinkler that was supposed to be helping grass grow. He would leave his stall after eating, walk over to it, and stand over it waiting for someone to turn it on. And there he would stand over the jetting water indefinitely. I believe he lived to be almost 40. And when he finally gave out and could no longer get up, Cindy and some of her girls held a canopy over him for hours to protect him from the Florida heat waiting for the vet to get there and help him be free.
And folks, she is still doing all of that still today. 40 years later.
Back in the 90’s, she married her generous, quiet, and supportive fiancé, they still have a farm in rural Sarasota (think cow pastures not beaches). Together they have kept and raised foster children, and along with some of those same foster kids they have continued pouring into the lives of other young people. She has given her life to giving animals the best life she can give, and instilling character and compassion in the young people she mentored. Hundreds of ordinary, poor, horse-crazy girls just like I was.
But last month, Helene came through that part of Florida, and although they didn’t sustain damage that time, their insurance company became overwhelmed with those that did, and the insurance company dropped their farm as policy holders. They had not been able to get new insurance - no one was adding customers post-Helene.
Then two weeks later, Milton came through with a fury, and as it came, Cindy and Elden turned the animals out of the barn, knowing they would have a better chance at survival in that Florida terrain than if the barn didn’t survive a second storm.
It did not survive, although the animals did. The pictures tell the tale. The support poles for the structure are compromised and the whole thing will have to be torn down and rebuilt. Shelter in Florida is a non-negotiable – especially for rescue animals. The heat and humidity is intense, almost year round.
All my life, I have wished I had a way to repay Cindy for the gift of the horse barn life she gave me, and although I have tried to pay forward in ways she would have (though not nearly as well), now I have a chance to try to give back a little bit through hosting gofundme campaign to try to help them take down the remainders of their barn and begin to build again.
Cindy got some quotes, and of course she came back on the low end with $45,000, which I know is not nearly enough to rebuild a barn, but she says it will help pay to pull down and haul away what is there, and provide basic shelter for now, and they will work on it gradually again as they did once before when they first moved there.
The ripple effect of Cindy’s life and work is truly eternal. Her faith in God and in His plan for our lives is strong, and she has pointed others that way. And there are a bunch of us “Saddle Hopper alumni” who are out doing some of what she has done. If you have been touched by Cindy, or the horses or work any of us who are Cindy’s kids have done, would you consider giving toward helping them rebuild a barn for their animals and so they can continue helping animals and helping young people? As they have done for so many years.
Why would anyone give a strange little sawed-off, horse-crazy… AnnaGrace McGonigal needs your support for Rebuilding Cindy's Barn: A Haven for Rescued Animals
