Diamond Horseshoe Necklace

I grew up on a farm outside of Portland, Maine. From my second-floor room, I had a view of the horse farm at the end of our dirt road. They had two corrals with white fences where they trained new horses. In the small corral I could see cowboys on bucking horses. In the medium-sized corral, they taught horses to trot. Then, they had a racetrack where they taught horses to win.

In the 15 years I lived there, it never once occurred to me to wander the 300 feet down to the horse farm to watch the horses up close. In my 70s, I’d give anything for just one day in the summer to climb a white fence and watch a cowboy teach a horse how to settle down. Back then, I kept my head buried in books. How often do we see something interesting and let it pass us by?

This is a diamond horseshoe necklace. I suspect you had a closer relationship with horses than I did. If you did, you should have this necklace.

Diamond Horseshoe Necklace
Imagining West of The Mississippi

The sky is blue, open horizon to horizon. You’ve been out on the range, open, treeless, and you can feel the wind in your hair. You can feel the power of your horse: its weight, its speed, its clarity of purpose out on the land. You can feel its power. You can hear its breathing. You hear its hoof beats on the earth below. You feel its intent to respond, to do as you wish. You’re out on the open land. You’ve been out for hours now, you’re just trotting.

You turn. Your horse turns, and you head back to the barn at a full gallop. Again, the gait, the hooves on the earth. You’re moving like you’re being chased. You’re moving like the wind. You can see the house, the corral. You can see the barn.

You slow to a trot, you ease into home. You’re in the barn, and you can smell the hay. You can smell the wood of the barn. You’re certain your horse had a good time. You know you did.