Have you ever noticed how people have different personalities? I’m sure you have. We all have our own habits, speech patterns, and mannerisms, our own sets of ideas, thoughts, ideologies, and emotional baggage. It’s who we are. A human, almost by definition, is unique.

But, while none of us are exactly the same, nearly every social outlet has a collection of types that fall within it. For example, in one classroom you might have the emo type, the socially insecure type, the preppy type, the overly dramatic type, and so on, all thrown together. One of the amazing things about our species is our ability, not only to be a unique character, but that we have this wonderful capacity to learn from and get along with others and their special mindsets.

Humans, of course, have the broadest and most exaggerated array of characters, personalities, etcetera. But because of this, we often forget that, while ours are superior, other creatures have these abilities as well.

This is one striking lesson that, in my opinion, cannot be taught by anything or anyone better then a horse.

Now, for those of you that haven’t worked much, or at all, with these fabulous beings, this probably comes as a surprise, or may even sound laughable. But, for anyone that has spent as much time with these marvelous animals as I have, you know that this is none other than the truth.

Some of you may be thinking, “Well, I’ve had dogs before, and yeah, they all had different personalities, and we loved them for it. But it wasn’t anything huge, and it was never deeper than, say, this one liked to shred our newspapers while that one liked to bury them in the flowerbed. What’s the big deal with horses?”

Honestly, I don’t think anyone could describe it accurately enough. Why? Because, as any horse person would tell you, you can’t understand it… You just have to feel it. You have to feel the oneness of two hearts beating together, four lungs huffing in unison, four legs pounding out a staccato rhythm as two beings come together as one in a flash of light, flesh, hair and heart.

There are just no words to describe the shiver of delight that his warm, grass-scented, friendly sigh on the back of your neck sends crawling down your spine, or the feel of his silken hide beneath your gentle touch.

You may be surprised to hear that your relations with these (mostly) gentle giants have much in common with the human relations that surround you. In fact, even the very types we use to describe humans can, and are, reflected in how we “label” our horses, and we respond to those types in much the same way.

But then, with horses, these communications take on a much deeper, closer meaning, as the kind of vocal clarity we as humans enjoy is removed from the equation. The specificity of spoken language gives way to a mixture of hard-earned trust and slow-built understanding.

That a horse and a human can even form a functioning relationship is a remarkable feat in and of itself… But to have one with a depth of empathy and understanding equivalent, and in some cases of even greater substance, as that one human has with another is nothing less than awe inspiring.

But, I’ve gushed enough. How about some real-life examples of these comparisons? Yes? All right then. But hold on to your hats… This could get a little bumpy!

Before we get started (insert long dramatic sigh of impatience here), I want to take a moment to explain why, in the following examples, no names will be mentioned. This is because these horses do not belong to me, and therefore how they are represented publicly is not my decision. The views expressed here are solely my own observations based on personal experience, and it is not my place to claim them as absolute truth. Besides, in these examples, the names are not extremely important.

This first comparison is in honor of an incredible mare that passed away earlier this month. She will be missed by many, I know for certain.

How would you classify your typical mother? I don’t know about you, but this is a quick summary of my thoughts:

A mother is often kind and nurturing. When you are an infant, she carries you on her hip and cares for you with the kind of love and compassion that can only be found in a mother’s eyes. As you get older, she watches you, and gently teaches you with a never-ending supply of patience, keeping you safe even when you make a mistake.

When you get to be more independent, she stays close, but allows you to experience more on your own, and teaches you how to deal with the problems you will run into in the future. Down the road, you have your fair share of catfights, but by working through your problems together you only strengthen the bond.  And then, one day, she has to let you move on, face the world, become a mother yourself. But she stays there, ever ready to embrace you in her old familiarity when wanted or needed.  As your mother grows old, the duty will fall on you to become her caretaker, giving back just a percent of the life she gave wholly to you.

Now, how could this possibly relate to a horse? Well, as you will see, the mare I mentioned before fits this description in more ways than I have the time to list!

Many a time I’ve seen her starting with the tiny little girls, not even knee height to her large frame. I would walk beside her, helping them find their balance and figure out how to hold and use the reigns properly. Even when they would lean back too far, or bounce on her, or pull too hard on the poor girl's mouth, she would hardly react, keeping calm and plodding gently along. When you had some experience under your belt, she would still shepherd you, but in a less obvious way. She would begin testing you, just gentle tugs and occasionally refusing to turn, to keep you on your toes. Once you had a good idea what you were doing up there, she would seem to release any reserve she had when testing you, whipping out her “big guns”. But for her, “big guns” were still just simple tests to prepare you for the “bigger and better” mounts.

Eventually, every rider would move on. They wanted, and were ready, to face the challenges of younger, fresher, harder horses, and “face the world”. But, she was always there to take you aboard once more if you needed to go back to the basics for a time… Though by that time she was known to give you a good check every now and then.

I was one of those she taught, though I came to her barn a little later in my training and therefore spent a little less time in her saddle. But, even in that short amount of time, I learned many valuable lessons from her. And, at least at one point, I was with her for a couple hours each night I worked at the barn, caring for her physical ailments to the best of my ability. (Under my trainer’s guidance of course.)

Did you see any similarities? I thought you might!

Now, how about this: have you ever played some kind of competitive game or sport, and run into that nasty, mean, prideful, snobby person from the other team? And furthermore… Did they make you into a better, more focused player? I’d wager a good number of you know just what I mean.

See, out of all the teams in whatever league you might play in, it’s almost a certainty that at least one player is going to be like this. They constantly cut you down with their snide remarks, “accidentally” run into you or toss an elbow in your face, and they always make the score. The game is hardly fun when you have to play it with people like that. But, in some small way, we are indebted to these people. How? Well, because they force us to become better players! After all, you’re bound to get a little lighter on your feet if you must constantly be dodging their immature attacks, and you have to learn quickly how to ignore their vicious comments to avoid a header to the face.

I used to ride this mare. A lot. She was beautiful, but pretty young for a lesson horse, and a complete and utter mare. She is one of only 2 horses that have ever dumped me twice, and I’m not the only one. In the stall, she was about as mean as a lesson horse can be, and you couldn’t take your eyes off of her. More than once she nearly succeeded in implanting a hoof in my face. This isn’t to say she was a bad horse, I’ve ridden her on many a ribbon-winning ride, and she would be pretty high up on my list of horses I’ve learned much from. If it wasn’t for her, I never would have been a strong enough rider, or a smart enough horsewoman to be able to handle my ex racehorse! In the end, she was never one of my favorite rides, and we never got along extremely well (though after a lot of hard work and elbow grease I finally gained enough of her respect that the disagreements came to a standstill), but truly, these are the very things that made her a valuable asset to my training. Besides, how could you ever expect to be a better rider if you never conquered the challenging horses? And it’s the same for any human relationship like this.

Next up? The grumpy old fart. Yes, it might be harsh, but you know you’ve thought it many a time. And to any of you shaking your heads, you either have short and long term memory loss, amnesia, or a really bad case of denial.

These are the men or women who have reached the point in their lives where, well, they just don’t really care anymore. That’s the jist of it. I don’t know a single person who hasn’t been fussed or yelled at by at least one grumpy old man. But the funny thing is, a lot of the time it’s just an act. When they’re in public, they’re as salty as they come. But if you get to know them, underneath that crusty, wrinkly shell, they actually have a heart. Oftentimes, they even have a big, soft, cuddly one hiding beneath their outer burrs.

One horse I spent a lot of time with, and rode nearly every time I worked at the barn, was… Well, he wasn’t the oldest horse at our barn, but he was getting up there.

He had been in and out of the lesson program for a while, and had a heart problem, so we had to be careful when we worked him. He was the old guy that no one really wanted to hang out with. He would lay his ears back, snap at you, and even pretend he was going to kick you. And when you rode him, you had to know how to handle him, or you would end up sitting on a horse that refused to move and kicked at anyone foolish enough to come up behind him. Many a rider has had a very frustrating couple weeks trying to figure him out, myself included. But it never fails that at some point, every rider clicks. They figure him out, and while many never learned to love him as much I did, he was a great mount for flat work.

But see, after I’d been working with him for a couple months and had him figured out, he stopped laying back his ears and acting all mean and brutish. By the time I’d stopped working at the barn, if no one else was around, he would snicker at me whenever he saw me. Then, when I stepped in the stall, I would scratch his favorite place, and he would reach around and lick my hand. It was this same routine he followed the night before he was put down, when I stopped in to say goodbye. He was a horse that everyone hated when they first started working with him, but more than a few eyes cried over.  The lessons learned from him were of great importance, and of them the best was discovering the sweetheart hidden beneath his grumpy exterior.

Does anybody have a best friend? You know the type. That person that’s always there when you need them, that has your kind of humor, and that you share everything with, from hopes and dreams to heartbreaks. The one you go to when you want to laugh and have fun, or when you need a sympathetic ear to complain to, or even when you need a shoulder to cry on. They are in almost every memory, good and bad. You’re inseparable, joined at the hip.

Well, Moose is the best friend I’ve ever had. *GASP!* “Did she just say a name? Shame, Hannah, shame! How could you? You said you wouldn’t call the horses by name!” Yes, yes, you caught me Dr. Seuss. I used a name. But this time, it’s a bit different… The others are not mine, and that’s why I cannot classify them for the general public. But, DropTheKid (epic name, right?), otherwise known as Moose, Moosketeer, or Goofy, is my ex-racehorse in training. He was given to me by a friend of a friend about 2 years ago, and I can’t imagine life without him anymore. Even my trainer says he has more personality then she’s ever seen in a horse. He’s just a big (HUGE) ball of energy and laugh-astrophes! But he’s the sweetest horse I’ve ever met. That’s not to say he’s never dangerous… I did get him right off the track, mind you. We’ve had some way-too-close-for-comfort calls with him, including one incident where his hoof left a mud streak down the front of my shirt when he came down from a rear. That’s maybe a quarter of an inch from my chest! But, that was a long time ago.

Moose is mischievous in that way that only makes him more endearing, and he’s always there when I need him. The night I found out about the horse mentioned in the first example’s passing, I went to his stall and just cried into his neck, and he stood there, still as a statue for a long time, and then reached around to nuzzle my cheek gently. He couldn’t understand why I was sad, but he knew I was, and he was there for me, doing all he could to be a comfort.

Those of you that have met me in Class Connect may know that just over 4 months ago, I cut my hand in a bad kitchen accident and lacerated the extensor tendon in my thumb. Because of this, I was not allowed to even visit him for over a month, unable to work him for 3, and I’m just now able to ride him again. But when I was finally allowed to work him, he saw the “strange contraption”(A splint that held my hand and wrist in the most uncomfortable position it possibly could. I had to wear it 24/7 for the first couple months, and then for a long time whenever I was doing anything involving the use of that hand.) And I swear to this day he knew I was hurt. The first time I came to work him on a lunge line, he was the calmest I’d ever seen him. When I turned him to work the opposite way, which is his bad direction as well as the one I had to use my bad hand for, instead of leaning on the line for balance like he always does, he would put slack in the line just to be sure he didn’t pull on me. Even when I got the splint off, he was much more gentle that direction.

My horse, while still a horse and therefore sometimes unpredictable, is my best friend. He knows me better then pretty much any of my friends, and I know him better than anyone else. We laugh together, we play together, we work together, and together we are making our dreams come true. My passion is to someday own a racehorse rehabilitation center, where I can rescue horses off the track and train them for new careers. Moose simply wanted to get off the track and relax with one person, instead of running all the time and having multiple caretakers, none of whom had time to spend with him. By working hard, he’s achieved his, and I am getting valuable experience to make my dream come true. Furthermore, We just have a blast being together! When I wasn’t able to work him, but allowed to be with him, I literally went to the barn for three hours straight and just sat in his stall. When I left, I was floating on air and my face was red from laughing so hard. The depth of communication we have is insane, and we can’t even technically “speak” to each other. And if you ask any horseperson about their relationship with their horse, I’m sure they’d say the same.

People, horses, different personalities… We learn from them all. It’s an amazing part of life, and I’ve had a lot of fun sharing my thoughts with you. For anyone who has actually read all the way to this point, I made metaphorical brownies! Yeah, give yourselves a round of applause, (or a pat on the back, whichever you prefer) because you guys rock like a boulder! (No, I’m not crazy; I just have a bad case of denial! Shhhh!)

This article is the first in what we hope will be a monthly column written by myself, Hannah Stewart, and Miss Emily Powell. Throughout the school year, we will be brainstorming together to bring you breed highlights, stories, and pretty much anything and everything horse related. Unfortunately, Emily has been sick, and due to our late start getting this article thrown together, she asked me to take on the first one. Hope you feel better soon, Em!

Do any of you have a special equine in your life? Go ahead and tell us all about them in the comments! We love hearing about the unique relationships you readers have with your horses!