Having Cake; Eating It, Too

I have been involved with horses all my life; my mother tells me that when I was a toddler, I used to get excited and point out the horses we saw as we drove around in the car. My earliest memories are horse-related, and I cannot remember a time when I did not love them.

Originally, I planned to have a career that included horses. Breeding, showing, even possibly riding in the Olympics on the US Equestrian Team! When I was seventeen, my dad and I looked at properties for a horse farm - he would do the funding, I would pay him back through boarding and training fees. I also started in the pre-vet program at Purdue University, thinking to become an equine veterinarian.

But my priorities shifted in my late teens. I realized that, while my love for horses was strong, that there were other things I loved, too. I wanted a family, and a big one at that. My religious faith (Mormon) was important to me, and when you spend every Sunday at a horse show, it is difficult to feel a part of your church family or to serve as a Sunday School teacher (my other love was teaching.) I so enjoyed teaching children, and thought that education might be a good fit for me.

And so I decided to make faith and family the priority. I knew I could still have horses in my life; I just would focus on a different career - teaching.

One husband, six children, eleven grandchildren, and eight horses later, I have no regrets. I love my big family, my teaching career, and I love being able to attend church and serve as needed. Plus, I have Abby to enjoy. Life is sweet.

Other horse lovers make a different choice for their life's path. I was reading an article in The Chronicle of the Horse, a weekly magazine that focuses on the highest levels of dressage, eventing, and showing jumping, and read an interview with Irish rider, Conor Swail. He has home bases in Canada, Florida, and Ireland, and a wife and child.

The interviewer writes that "... he tries to fly back to Ireland as much as possible to spend time with his family."

That gave me pause. Instead of his family living with him as he goes from home base to home base, they live apart. That must be tough on them all, I thought.

I continued reading the article, but no more mention was made of his family. The response to the last question, I thought, surely would include them. It asked where he saw himself in ten years.

"I would like to continue being successful. I think I would like, in the next couple of years, to get in the top ten of the world. I have a great team of horses at the moment and great owners."

No mention of family. It really made me think about his lifestyle with horses, one that I had thought might be my own. About the life I had contemplated and then rejected,  deciding that my priorities went along a different path.

Do I have any regrets?

None. I would make the same decision again.

The subtitle to this blog is "My life with horses" and I have certainly had that! And while I wish Conor Swail the best as he pursues his career goals, I am grateful for the choices I made to include my love of horses on a lesser scale.

This horsewoman is fortunate to have had my cake, and eaten it, too.