Riding not writing, I say, when someone asks me what I’m working on.
When I was five, my brothers hoisted me atop a black and white Shetland pony, bareback. They gave me the reins, slapped the pony’s butt, and hollered Hold On. I clutched the reins and clung to his mane as he ran up our long dirt driveway. When my brothers whistled and shook a bucket of grain, the pony spun around, but I didn’t budge. As we galloped toward the barn, I felt something new. A big, expansive, fearless feeling. Connected to that pony, I was no longer a little girl bossed by her brothers. My body had melted into his, and we were one being.
After that, I rode cow horses. I perched atop stiff saddles with too-long stirrups and meandered around pastures. When I was sixteen, I was rodeo queen at our small country rodeo. My dad borrowed Buck, a quarter horse, from a rancher friend. Buck and I rehearsed our quarter horse pattern for the competition. I know now, looking at the old, faded horsemanship diagram, that Buck had to change leads. I didn’t ask for the changes. I didn’t even know what a lead change was. He knew.
Buck stayed at my boyfriend’s farm close to the rodeo grounds. I rode a mile to the arena every evening and then back again at night, once in the pouring rain. I remember bits and pieces of the rodeo. Following the flag bearers into the arena every night. The clowns riding tiny donkeys who thought it was entertaining to chase the Rodeo Queen and try to kiss her. Buck pinned his ears at the donkeys, and they kept their distance. But here’s what disturbs me. It was a long time ago, but I have no memory of ever brushing Buck, picking his hooves, feeding him, saddling or bridling him. Who did this? My boyfriend says he didn’t. Most likely my dad. He’s dead now, and I can’t ask him. Apparently, I didn’t take care of Buck, but he took care of me. He got me past the clowns and safely home. I was just his passenger. As the leader of our tiny herd, he should have been Rodeo Queen.
Decades passed. All writing, no riding. When I turned 70, my husband and I celebrated at a resort adjacent to a national park, the setting of countless movie westerns. I signed up for a private trail ride. I can ride, I assured the wrangler, eying her sleek Appaloosa. In the myth of myself, I was an accomplished horsewoman. The wrangler knew better. She mounted me on a sturdy draft cross who knew his job. After our two-hour journey through the canyons and mesas of scenic southern Utah walking, trotting, and a few bone-jarring lopes, I was sore and aching but besotted. Why had I stopped doing this? Back home in Connecticut, I took some lessons and then leased a horse at a western show barn. I rode a retired show horse and learned spur communication. I kept my back straight and my hands still. We trotted over poles, opened and closed gates, and loped slowly around the arena.
The next barn, closer to my house, reminded me of Oklahoma. A dusty outdoor arena, big enough for a rodeo, with a large unheated indoor arena. There I learned to ride all over again. I took off my spurs and rode an impeccably trained old Morgan mare who responded to voice commands. Walk, trot, canter. I learned direct reining, which means reins in two hands instead of one. When the mare moved back to her old barn, I moved with her. I knew she needed to stay in shape, but after a time our routine seemed pointless. Walk, trot, posting trot, canter circles in the small outdoor arena. I felt guilty asking her to work when I secretly believed she deserved to be a pasture pet. I decided to take a break and look for something else.
I checked out a new trainer who I was told had a really different method. Woo Woo was the word they used. Once again, I started over. Brittanie, my thirty-something trainer and former endurance rider, lives her philosophy, which puts the horse first and focuses on how humans and horses work together, through communication and correct biomechanics. Brittanie’s also a poet, a photographer, and the most self-effacing person I’ve ever met. I call her Woman Who Stares at Horses, because she claims that’s what she does all day.
I partner with two pretty chestnut mares: Xena, a standardbred Tennessee walking horse cross is fast and forward. She’s like a luxury car—long, reliable, and comfortable. Mud, an Arabian quarter horse cross is more like a dirtbike with two personalities. Sometimes, head high and snorting, she’s the classic Arabian fireball. Other days, she’s a steady quarter horse who loves to work.
Sometimes it’s frustrating and extremely slow going to give up being a passenger and learn how to be a partner. I ride in a treeless saddle which is more comfortable for the horse, but also more challenging for me. I learn a new way of balancing. Mud responds to the most subtle pressure or lift from my seat bones. There are moments of connection when I feel Mud’s power and impulsion beneath me, my hands down and light on the reins, not needing them really, because our bodies are in synch. Earthbound flight. When I sense we’re ready to descend, I click my tongue on the roof of my mouth. Mud stops, and I give her a few alfalfa pellets. We both stretch. Positive reinforcement.
Just like people, horses can get sour or bored or agitated or have a bad day. I realize the dangers. No horse is bomb proof. An unexpected spook. A fall. A broken hip or worse. One day we’re headed to the trails. Mud and I following Brittanie on Xena. Suddenly, Mud is on high alert, head up, feet dancing, body tensing. My heart pounds. I hold my breath. What spooked her? The landscaper’s tractor? The smell of gasoline? It’s a beautiful fall day. Perfect for a trail ride. The other me, the one who created the myth that she was an accomplished horsewoman would have pushed through the fear and forced Mud to the trails. Maybe that would have been a good choice. I don’t know. This me, the seventy-seven-year-old woman who’s learned a few things about stories we tell ourselves, chooses listening over dominance and takes Mud to the arena where we wait for Brittanie to direct us.
In every herd, there’s a leader. Brittanie is ours. We trust her completely. She’s the boss. (When Hulk, a two-thousand-pound Percheron thunders up to the pasture gate to greet Mud, Brittanie stops him with a subtle look, the human equivalent of pinning her ears.) Ten minutes later in the arena, after Brittanie has coached me through some breathing exercises, Mud and I release our tension at the same time. We relax and breathe freely again. Partners.
Getting old is humbling. “Forget self” Eleonora Duse said. She was talking about acting, but I think it applies to most things, including aging. I find that as I age more than anything I want to escape my own head. To transcend myself. To find again that expansive fearlessness I had at five. Learning something new. Forgetting myself by doing. Now I’m riding and writing.
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Helen Sheehy is a biographer of three theatre pioneers, Margo Jones, Eva Le Gallienne, and Eleonora Duse. Her first novel, Just Willa, was published last year.
© 2026, Helen Sheehy
Halfway Down the Stairs 