“I’m definitely going to list Duncan for sale.”
When Saskia, my best friend and longtime barn buddy finally said out loud what I’d nervously anticipated for a few weeks, I did my best to say all the right things. I wish I’d been shocked; after all, our entire friendship revolved around horses--carpooling to the barn in college, bunking together at horse shows, and taking a million photos of each other and our ponies, capturing every moment of this sport we were lucky lucky lucky to do. So when Saskia told me she was formally hanging up her spurs for the foreseeable future, I mourned her loss of a passion, yes, but I also surprised myself by thinking, “finally.”
The reality was, Sas and I weren’t in college any more. We had both moved out of state in the last few years, her to Michigan for grad school and me to Nebraska for my husband’s career. Our relationship had matured beyond just riding and selfies and we remained long distance bffs, her supporting me as I navigated the seemingly impossible task of riding without my childhood trainers and me offering the best advice I could as Saskia became less and less enthusiastic about riding. The financial and existential reality of adulthood set in and for her, it was time to step away. It hurt me to know we wouldn’t have this in common anymore, but it had hurt even more to see her unhappy as she slowly fell out of love with the demanding lifestyle horses put on us. I was relieved that she’d come to terms with the flickering flame and steeled myself to help her extinguish it.
Overdone cliche as it is, Duncan the horse is as close to a unicorn as any of us have ever known. Not just in his looks--though his dapples and silver mane make Halloween easy--but he is honestly the perfect intersection of steady and talent. Duncan has the uncanny ability to win junior dressage championships one day, spend 10 days hanging at home, and then go bop around a cross country course without blinking an eye. Since the day she brought him home, I’d been a reasonable amount of jealous that Saskia had found a literal dream horse.
So why sell what seemed like the best thing on four hooves? What I came to see, through hours of carefully listening to my best friend, was that you could love something very much and still know when it’s time to walk away. Selling Duncan to the next little girl to adore him (and that’s how this story ends, it’s a very happy beginning for Duncan and an adorable junior rider) means Saskia has a level of maturity I couldn’t have imagined was buried deep in the 18 year old I’d befriended six years ago.
Our friendship was unlikely at best. I’m an energetic eventer who can be loud, bossy, quick to judge, and demands a lot of attention. Saskia, especially when we first met, was reserved, almost reverently polite, and an endless font of compassion with a quiet obsession for the precision of dressage. You wouldn’t expect the loudest girl at the barn and the quietest girl in the state to become inseparable. But of course, opposites attract and the more we talked, the more we discovered in common as two overgrown barn rats navigating college, showing, and working multiple jobs to afford us both luxuries. Saskia was the first friend I had who understood exactly what I meant when I said I’d do anything to ride and that commonality became the foundation for a resilient friendship, enduring over distance and differences.
And now, six years and a whole lot of growing up later, it became clear that my job was to understand. If I were Saskia, would I have sold Duncan? No, but if I were Saskia I wouldn’t be so forgiving toward my loud and pushy best friend (honestly I wouldn’t even have a loud friend). It wasn’t about making all the same choices and being joined at the hip anymore, it was about understanding that she was doing the best she could for this horse who she loved very much, a horse who loved and thrived in consistent work and showing--two things Saskia couldn’t offer him.
Though we are both fiercely competitive, goal-oriented people, Saskia and I are very different when it comes to how we reach those goals. We both were determined to take as many college classes as possible, but she expected herself to get straight-As, whereas I expected myself to do as best I could while still having fun at the barn every night and hanging with my boyfriend all weekend. Saskia is a perfectionist, going full into the work she does, whereas I am one of the few Type A people happy to live with “good enough,” always figuring that done is better than perfect. (This is probably why Sas is a much better dressage rider than I’ll ever be!) When faced with the adulthood dilemma of cutting back on riding, not taking lessons, and not showing, I saw my friend lose her spark for the sport that used to set her face alight with enjoyment. She needed those goals to work toward in order for her perfectionist nature to have something to perfect.
And unicorn as he was, Duncan just wasn’t happy being in light work--he must take after Saskia. He dropped a bit of weight, developed persistent ulcers, and became generally unhappy and more difficult to ride, dropping behind the leg and balking at exercises which he’d previously enjoyed. His new owner, an ambitious junior, reports none of these issues; Duncan is back to his happy self in a consistent training schedule. Saskia and I both let out a sigh of relief seeing him thrive in his new home; the right decision had been made.
But before his new best friend came along, we faced the final hurdle to selling Duncan, helping the 13 year old inside her forgive the decision to stop riding that 24 year old Saskia was making. Even from a thousand miles away, I felt the resentment from teenage Saskia radiating through the phone. She was hurt and confused and furious. How could you do this to us, that teenager said, through the quiet tones of my adult friend. Teenage Mel, of course, agreed ferociously, because we promised we’d ride forever, no matter what...right?
Little Saskia (and Little Mel) were right about a lot of things. They were right to love horses with fearless abandon and they were right to learn the value of hard work and what it means to put an animal’s well-being ahead of our own. But, no matter how wise they might be for their age, we don’t let 13 year olds make lifelong decisions for a reason. And strange as it may seem, as adult amateurs we’re under no obligation to stay with this hobby forever. Despite the unspoken implications and problematic jokes about being “addicted for life” we’re allowed to stop riding horses, whether that be for 3 months while you recover from mental illness or 3 years while you have small children or 30 years while you pursue the career of your dreams. We both had to learn that lesson, for me it meant cutting back my time at the barn after my move and for her it means cutting it out entirely.
Teenage Saskia thought she’d build her life around horses. But teenage Saskia also thought she’d never fall in love or pursue a graduate degree or be a mother. Teenagers are notoriously short-sighted; they can’t legally get married because even though they might love really hard and believe it to be forever, forever isn’t the same when you’re in the real world. And sometimes horses aren’t forever--or they’re forever but with an intermission somewhere in the middle. Balancing horses and family demands compromise, and sometimes that compromise becomes choosing to let go of the life your 13 year old self thought you’d have and live the life your 25 year old self faces.
And while it’s nice to accumulate a savings account or have money for the down payment on a house, if this was just about money I know Saskia’s decision would be vastly different. This is about the chance to do what we never did as obsessive teenagers, the chance to put down the pitchfork and see what else is out there. The chance to let a new side of our personalities blossom, the chance to spend summers traveling for fun instead of for ribbons. Both are great ways to spend a summer, but we’d already done one and were ready to see what the other felt like.
It was a long journey to realize that Duncan might always be in her heart, but not in her name. I didn’t love that part of being Saskia’s friend meant helping her end a chapter in her life, especially because it was a chapter I helped to write, a chapter I played a very prominent role in. But friendship, the really tough kind, means trying really hard to understand, and always supporting a carefully-made decision, even if it isn’t one we’d make for ourselves. The pain of being an adult ammy is that sometimes we can do horses a lot, sometimes we can do horses a little, and sometimes we can’t do horses at all.
I’m just glad I get to be the kind of friend who gets to be around for the horse stuff and the non-horse stuff, the fun stuff, and the tough stuff. Because if growing up in a barn taught me anything it’s that horse girls, with or without horses, make the very best kinds of friends.
Thanks for being a great source of love and friendship, Duncan and Zoe