My first official steed was actually a burro, concrete and sized for a four year old. He lived in my grandmothers yard. It was with him that I first began to learn the intricacies of tacking up. Using my Encyclopedia of the Horse as a guide, I fashioned halters and bridles and harnesses from clothesline, built sulkies and chariots from cardboard boxes. His ears eventually crumbled away leaving two spikes of rebar to impale the shins of unsuspecting adults. Over the years, a few days before some school holiday or another, an uncle would valiantly attempt to effect new ears with a bag of Quickerete and some chicken wire in anticipation of my visit, but inevitably the repair would fail and within a month and the burro would return to rebar ears. I always felt it lent him an air of character, this burro was, after all, an adventurer not content merely to tote baskets of flowers like all the other garden burros, it was with him that I would ride into the Colorado sunset.

Because I had to leave my steed behind in Colorado, I had other horses at the home stable in Idaho. Breyers, of course, the Cadillac of horse toys. I acquired my first on my seventh birthday, there was a special trip to a department store where I was allowed to choose whichever one I wanted. I chose Buckshot, a gray and black leopard spotted mustang, whose flying mane and tail and jaunty pose made him irresistible – and totally unable to stand up without leaning on something. I soon had a small herd of Breyers, including Man O’War, a fine Dappled Tennessee Walker, Misty of Chincoteague, and several cheap plastic horses (for use at the beach and in the bath, to spare wear and tear on the show horses). I received my one and only Barbie from some deluded relative or another, but decided she was stupid because she was unable to ride any of the Breyers with her non-bending legs, I longed for a Breyer Brenda with her knee joints and blue jeans and sensible footwear.

Christmas at this house came in late summer when a neighbor’s grown son would arrive on a Saturday or Sunday with a stock trailer full of cheap (and usually broke down) ranch horses purchased at auction early that morning. The horses were unloaded, bathed right on the front lawn and tied along side the trailer (standing right in the street!) to dry while their manes and hooves were trimmed, in the late afternoon they were loaded back up and returned to the auction, hopefully to turn a tidy profit. In retrospect this was perhaps not the most scrupulous of businesses, but to be able to sit on the sidewalk and gaze or ride my bike slowly up and down the street, to pick out just which one I hoped to own someday was a time I looked forward to all summer long.

When we lived for a time in upstate New York I preferred to go back to school shopping at the outlet mall, not because of the fabulous bargains on name brand apparel, but because a trip to the outlets meant driving past pastures full of Thoroughbred brood mares and their foals. I really hoped someone would buy me a jockeys whip or goggles from one of the silly tourist shops in downtown Saratoga Springs and I began staying up late in the summertime to watch the sulky races live on TV. Around this time came a silver studded bridle that would hang in my bedroom for nearly a decade before being pressed into service on my very first horse.

By the time I reached Colorado and high school I had a loose association of friends and acquaintances all of whom owned horses I could ride on a regular basis, a decent pair of riding boots and my eye on a cheap place to board that first horse. His name was Puppy, he was a grade horse out of Texas, black with only a white star, a marked ear, and loved to chase cars and barrels. Ten years and yet another state later I have a car full farriers equipment and loose hay, an apartment that could be mistaken for a high end tack room, and my eye perpetually on some Icelandic horse or another. The silver studded bridle still hangs on my wall and though I outgrew him after too long my burro was returned to me as a graduation gift, and currently resides between the TV and the stereo, rebar ears still a constant threat to shin bones. I recently sold most of my Breyers off on Ebay, but there are still a few hanging around and in the right light my aging chestnut Quarter Horse could almost be called orange.