My family and I own our own little sliver of horse paradise. We purchased a little dream farm mostly so I could stuff it full of horses in a quasi-affordable fashion. I did not, admittedly, envision paying a small fortune to lease and board a horse with a hunter/jumper trainer even after buying a farm. So why am I still bleeding monthly board? Why am I a grumpy part-time Uber driver, shuttling my 14-year-old back and forth all week to ride there, when she could just stroll down our driveway to a home-kept horse? 

Every time I peek at our dwindling bank statement, I drown the trauma in a generous slosh of wine and ask myself: Are we making a huge financial blunder? 

My husband sure thinks so. He incessantly reminds me that if we stash this money, instead of spending it on a luxury horse condo, we could easily afford a used trailer and even a real arena at home. We could fix our rotted deck and replace his ailing car. He also throws in: “Maybe you could even have your own horse again.” The man plays dirty.

In theory, he’s right. (I hate admitting that.) Keeping our daughter’s horse at home and trailering her to lessons or meeting her trainer at shows would be annoyingly intelligent. 

It’s hard to articulate why I feel so strongly that she stays at her barn, but I do. Boarding is simultaneously an impractical decision and an invaluable experience, especially for a teenager.

I’m paying the big bucks because I want my daughter to develop as a young woman as well as a rider.  The barn is so much more than the place her horse eats, poops, and loses shoes in the mud. 

The beauty of riding is that, in the right situation, it’s a team sport with a trainer at the helm. My eldest is part of a barn team. She learns from the team, and they share her same passion and values. She becomes a better rider by watching others ride, taking group lessons, and hanging out by the ring to soak in the action. 

The team also bonds with each other during fun events like the barn Halloween party and impromptu free jumping days. The only team I can provide at home is the “whiny siblings” team. It just doesn’t compare.

I’ve watched my daughter mature from a shy, awkward-at-times-girl into a confident young woman at the barn. Yes, she’s more confident in her equitation and her ability to jump a fresh horse, but it’s more wholistic. 

At the barn, she’s interacting with people of diverse ages and backgrounds. She’s learned to have conversations fluidly and comfortably, not just via Instagram posts or texts. Boarding is a unique opportunity to hone her people skills, even if it’s talk about counting strides or sticky lead changes. She can be vulnerable when she’s had an icky ride. She doesn’t have to fake it ’til she makes it when she’s around the people who get her. Life isn’t about only sharing your stellar moments, social-media-post-style. Her barn life reinforces this reality. 

I’m realistic. I can only teach my kid so much. Though I’ve been riding for eons, I’m no Kathy Kusner wannabe. I can provide helpful tips and support my kid along her riding journey, but she needs more support than her mommy can offer. Her trainer has years of teaching and riding under her belt. She has mad skills I won’t ever acquire. I recognize my own limitations. I see the ways her trainer has helped her build self-assurance. In a good program, she’s grown from a worried kiddo who struggled to ride a stubborn pony into a young woman who can confidently ride a warmblood mare with opinions. 

Let’s be honest: Kids don’t listen to their parents the way they do to an expert outside the family (if yours do, DM me your secrets). I know when I offer feedback during my daughter’s hack, the response I get is, “Mom, you’re so annoying.” 

When I offer my refrain: “Pick your hands up; they’re getting low,” I’m “criticizing” my daughter rather than helping her. But when her trainer happens to walk by and tells her to fix her hands, you better believe my daughter lifts those puppies up with a smile. 

At her barn, my daughter is expected to adhere to the barn rules, another critical life skill. At home, when I trudge down for night check after she’s done evening chores, I find the lead rope strewn on the ground like a dead snake and the hose unspooled, debris left by my teenage tornado. A messy aisle is unacceptable at her trainer’s barn. Her trainer demands more. 

My kid has a different kind of relationship with her trainer than she does me, and I get it. She doesn’t want to disappoint her trainer, while my love is unconditional, and I’m OK with that. Boarding provides my child with discipline in her horse life, but more importantly, for milestones she’ll soon hit in her big-girl life, like her first job and college applications.

At the barn, my teen is learning all the horse things and the hard work associated with those things. She’s watching her trainer longe horses and prep the trailer for shows. The barn manager is down on her knees, illustrating how to wrap and dress wounds. She’s seeing hard work in action.

The adult amateurs at the trainer’s barn have told me she’s a good kid and a hard worker. I know they share these compliments with her as well. These women are her mentors, her cheerleaders, her other moms.

As my daughter works harder at the barn, she’s granted more opportunities. For example, she’s able to groom at shows. That positive reinforcement buoys her self-esteem. The afternoon she found her first tip envelopes, peeking out from under the lid of her tack trunk, I was with her. 

“That’s for me?” she asked with an initial jolt of surprise, quickly replaced with pride. What parent doesn’t want that, even at a cost? 

Every year, my daughter’s trainer leads a goals meeting. It’s an opportunity for clients to discuss and reflect on how far they’ve come, to set short-term and long-term goals. If I asked my daughter about her equestrian goals at home, I’d be met with an eye roll. But her trainer’s meeting she takes seriously. 

Her goals evolved from last year to this year, in line with her growth during her time at the barn. This year’s included learning more horsemanship like longing and positive reinforcement training, getting on different horses, catch riding and becoming a working student. (Yessss, girl! Save us some money!)

These aren’t superficial goals; they illustrate her commitment to becoming a more well-rounded and well-versed horsewoman. It’s about more than adding to a ribbon collection. I can’t replicate this experience at our own little place.

Though the monthly bills give us agita, my husband and I agree that the benefits of boarding are worth every single Tums. Our daughter is spending weekends in a safe, supportive environment doing what she’s most passionate about. She’s made true friends. She’s avoiding a lot of the pitfalls of teenage life. She’s waking up early for her lesson rather than staying up late scrolling her phone. She’s at the barn for hours, and we don’t worry. 

When I reflect on my daughter’s story, why it’s embedded in me to keep her at the barn as long as possible, it’s also rooted in my own story. 

Growing up, I had parents with a contentious relationship. At school, I was teased for my frizzy hair, pimply skin and chubby tummy. In middle school, I was unpopular. My free time was spent huddled in bed with a book or at the barn. 

I didn’t fit in at home. I didn’t fit in at school. But I fit in at the barn. At the barn, I was NEVER excluded. I wasn’t ignored. I wasn’t ridiculed. I was accepted. The barn was my safe place. When things felt bleak during the weekdays, I had horses and horse people that brightened my weekends. My favorite childhood memories include sleepovers with my barn friends—late night giggles, Sunday mornings stuffed with pancakes, then right back to the barn for a full day of riding. 

I want all of this for my daughter. This place away from her parents and her four siblings. The place to escape the sterile halls of school where kids once taunted her with the nickname “Horse Girl.” We board to provide her with the place where “Horse Girl” is the ultimate compliment. We board, so she can be the authentic version of herself. 

It’s hard to put a price tag on that.

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Jamie Sindell has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona and has ridden and owned hunters on and off throughout her life. She is a mom of five kids, ages 2, 3, 6, 10 and 13. She and her family reside at Wish List Farm, where her horse crazy girls play with their small pony, Cupcake, and her son and husband play with the tractor. Jamie and her trainer are still on the hunt for her oldest daughter’s new horse.