Equine ER got lost yesterday at the mall and found our way out only after discovering a trail of See’s Candies (toffee-ettes). Anyway, that’s our way of apologizing for missing the regularly scheduled Monday blog post. Today’s post sums up some of what I learned during my year writing Equine ER (as also noted in the book’s Afterword). 

I learned one truth from observing the vets, clients, and horses. You can do everything right when it comes to any kind of horse, and things can still go to hell in a handbasket over something as small as an unfilled hole in the ground, as inconsequential as a bad step, as uncontrollable as a mayfly carrying Potomac Horse Fever. People who own horses know this, and yet they must have them. When I asked why, they talked about the pure, indescribable bond of equine friendship, and how taking care of horses ties them to the seasons, in accord with the sun and the moon, and the cycles of birth and death. Those in the racing world said things like, “Once it gets in your blood, it’s there forever. Win or lose, I don’t know why.”

I saw that people need horses more than horses need people, whether it is an owner with the dream of the winner’s circle on Derby Day, or someone with an illness or life setback who finds strength and determination through the love or a horse or the example of its courage. I came to see horses save people far more than the other way around