Gone are the days of flopping atop stoic lesson Shetlands, power drunk on the knowledge that the woman dragging you around the arena won’t let any harm befall you, because you are 4… but mostly because your parents are watching.

The horsewoman at 4…

Laughter drool is flying out of your mouth, your pink ski coat is riding up over your face, and your fringed cowgirl boots are on the wrong feet. If it was possible that the specific moment you were infected with the incurable disease could be identified, that was probably it. That smiling little idiot never stood a chance—how was your snot encrusted 4-year-old self to know that the rest of your life would be devoted to these impractical animals who “poop coconuts” and “pee beer”? (Did I mention we were 4?)

Skip ahead a decade or so. You grow into your teens with the same sunny bull$#!+ sense of security you had at 4 years old. You are now 15, you are a cocky, smug little narcissistic. You consider yourself an equestrian prodigy, and you are INVINCIBLE. The world is your oyster, and by God you’re gonna shuck it.

The horsewoman at 30…

Flash forward to 30, you’ve recently become painfully aware of your own mortality, the fearlessness you once took for granted has abandoned you—for lack of a better term, you’ve lost your nerve. It’s happened before, you’ve recovered it, but as you recline in your hospital bed, using an electric beard trimmer lifted from a glove box to shave your neglected leg hair, waiting on x-rays for the third time in two short years, you wonder if this time your nerves have had enough of your crap, and have flown the proverbial coop for good.

Your patient, long suffering husband sits close by staring at his phone screen. He appears engrossed in what you assume to be another article on his subject of choice, the murdering of small woodland creatures. (In reality: He’s shopping life insurance policies.) His expression suggests he may be praying for a permanent cure to the disease we call horsemanship.

The difference you can feel… riding from 15 to 30

• At 15 none of your bones are held together with precious metals…Yet.

• At 30 you’ve become skilled at identifying all prosthetic ligaments, bolts, screws and plates to airport security in record time. You’ve also become a meteorologist and can predict the weather using only the sensations in your reconstructed cyborg limbs. “My ankle says it’s raining.”

• At 15 your body is still relatively unscathed; it hasn’t yet been ravaged by whatever controlled substances you eagerly ingested in your misspent 20s.

• At 30, your hangovers feel like a slow death and last for approximately 2.5 days. Your liver and kidneys are tired of your crap and have decided to stop putting in overtime.

• At 15 your body is still predominantly made up of rubber, and you bounce right back up like equestrian Barbie when tossed in the dirt.

• At 30 your falls are referred to as “dirt naps,” and you find that increasingly, it’s taking you longer to get back up. Your bounce has evolved into more of a grotesque “splat.” Sometimes you just lay there pretending to be dead—this gives you the time you need for regretting all of your poor life choices.

• At 15 the dirt on your face from a day at the barn is charming, and you brandish it boldly.

• At 30, the dirt on, in, and around your face has settled into both your neck wrinkles and crows feet. You now resemble an old homeless man. Strangers may offer you a quarter, and you take it. Who are you kidding, you’re not above charity, you have a horse habit and need all the financial support you can get.

• At 15 your parents insure you. (SUCKERS) You are invincible, and even if you’re not, those simple idiots will pay to have you glued back together every time.

• At 30 you are self insured and classified under “high risk” because you are a train-wrecking hot mess disaster, and the local volunteer fire department is on a first-name basis with you.

• At 15 your parents buy all your tack. (Amateurs)

• At 30 you’re still using the tack your parents bought you, but it’s held together with scrap leather, duct tape and disappointment. Your paddock boots have a tear where the leather meets the sole resembling a gaping mouth when walking. You know what your boots’ mouth is saying? “Kill us.” You ignore their plea, and shut them up with some duct tape. Good as new.

• At 15 during a ride, your inner dialogue goes something like this, “You can jump that. And you don’t need a helmet, boots or a bridle to do it.” The majority of your sentences begin with “watch this.” And end in “yesssss! I can’t be killed!!!”
• At 30 the script sounds closer to this, “Sweet mother of expletive my knees are killing me, at least they’re distracting me from the nerve pain in my spine. Don’t fall off don’t fall off don’t fall off. That ground looks hard.”

• At 15 sunscreen seems overrated.

• At 30 your liver spots are fusing together into small continents. You HATE 15-year-old you.

• At 15 you spring out of bed in the morning like a deranged Disney princess. You spoon fistfuls of sugary fruit shaped cereal into your face before your princess bird friends bathe and dress you in your finest barn clothes.

• At 30 you force your swollen eyeballs open, squinting at the ceiling with equal parts pain and remorse. Maybe those three dirty martinis weren’t the most nutritional dinner option. You slowly crawl to your feet, your back and knees popping loudly in protest. Breakfast is a handful of pills. You consider pouring them in a bowl with milk, but remember you don’t grocery shop. No birds to help you dress, so you just throw a riding shirt over whatever you passed out in last night. Horses don’t care about clean clothes or if you puke in their stalls, just muck it out with whatever else they’ve made for you during the night.

Chances are if you’ve managed to remain an equestrian from ages 15 to 30, you’re probably playing the long game, or as many innings as your rapidly aging body permits. I look forward to discovering what riding will be like in another 30 years—if I even survive to 60, which is pretty ambitious. If I do beat the odds, I can only hope that horses continue to provide me with as much joy, grief and entertainment as they do now.

Every now and then I’ll stumble upon a first riding lesson in progress. The elated child grinning like a meth head while their parents look on, smiling cluelessly. I resist my instinct to run over and grab those beaming idiots firmly by the shoulders, shaking them wildly screaming “NOOOOOOO! What have YOU DONE?!”

But in my heart I know it wouldn’t do any good. I recognize that rabid look on their helmeted offspring’s face. At 4, 15, and 30, I’ve shared that same idiotic expression, however brief, on every ride. That look is the one thing that hasn’t changed in three decades, And I hope it never does.

Sometimes, when I’m out in the hunt field, brushing shoulders with seasoned and respected horsemen and women, I’ll still see it. It starts with a glimmer of the eye and spreads across the weathered lines of their faces, if only for a moment, in spite of themselves, they drool laugh.

Alice Peirce was raised as a self-described “feral horse farm child” in Howard County, Md. She’s made efforts to leave the horse world over the years but always comes back and has worked for a number of people in various disciplines. Currently she’s riding young racehorses and training foxhunters in Monkton, Md., where she hunts with the Elkridge-Harford Hunt.

Read all of Alice’s COTH blogs.