"She gives off horse girl vibes"
Giddy-up babes, we're going riding
Welcome to Following Studies, an adventure through subcultures and obsessions. If you haven’t subscribed, be sure to follow along for the fun. This week, we are hanging out with a horse girl.
Even if you’ve never met a horse girl, you can probably picture one.
If she’s from the ’90s, she watched Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken till the VHS wore out. Breyer Horses were her jam. If she didn’t talk her family into going and seeing wild horses on a family trip, she certainly at least tried. Her clothes might not be exactly barn appropriate, but they are at least horse adjacent - all overalls, patchwork, and horse t-shirts. Horses - or even just dreaming about horses - was a lifestyle she lived obsessively. To be a horse girl, there’s little room for anything else.
I’ve known a few true horse girls in my life. There seems to be a liminal space, a time when horse girl becomes horsewoman, and while that seems very not a girl, not yet a woman, it really has always seemed that horses are the least casual love you can ever have. Horse girls seem to hold these intense childhood fantasies, but horses are the most ferocious reality. They require so much more of you than other things, and once you age, as you slip through that window from youth to adult, sometimes horses stay in the past. You are a horse girl, not yet a horsewoman.
I’ve known a few horse girls, but I will say I hadn’t ever met a horsewoman. But a few years ago, I moved out to California and got a job at a not-for-profit, and that’s where I met Nancy Lewis. She is a horsewoman by her own definition - willing to sit at the barn at 3 am with a colicky horse, focused on groundwork just as much as riding, and constantly looking to deepen her connection and knowledge. But she’s got that horse girl spirit in her heart. She’d probably spend all her money on new tack if she could.
Nancy Lewis is all gangly legs and short hair, sleeveless shirts, and boots. Her accent is thick. It’s all Kentucky, where some syllables stick and others drag, and even though I’m not from there, out here in California, when I hear her talk, it sounds like home. Once, she told me that her landlord said she needed to start beating the dust out of her clothes before they were tossed into the washing machine. The dust comes from the not-for-profit we work at, specifically the ring and the barn where she manages the equine therapy program that includes 5 hodge-podge horses full of personality and supports kids who have experienced trauma.
We talked about everything horses and what a horse girl is.
Laura Guidry: Talk to me about how your obsession with horses first began.
Nancy Lewis: I don't ever remember a time when I wasn't obsessed with horses. It definitely grew with me as I got older. So when I was a kid, I was into collecting toy horses, playing with toy horses, and fantasizing about horses all the time. I lied to all of my classmates in kindergarten and told them all I had a pet horse. Her name was Coconut, and she would come to my window every night and I would feed her, and then she would go away and she wouldn't come to anybody that she didn't like, which was why none of my friends could see her.
LG: The elaborate level of this lie.
NL: It went very deep. My dad was a lineman for an electric company and he had this big leather harness that he would wear to climb the utility poles. I told everybody that that was my horse pack, like my saddle. It was kind of an intense lie. I had a picture of this random horse. I think I took it at a fair or something - a random horse in a stall. And I told everybody that that was Coconut. I brought it to school to hang on my 'about me' poster. And everybody just went with it. Everybody thought that was my horse.
LG: What did she look like?
NL: What did Coconut look like? She was a chestnut brown with a flaxen mane and tail.
LG: That's amazing. We love little lying Nancy.
NL: Oh, I was full of it.
LG: I feel like a lot of kids go through this horse obsession but eventually move on to other things. When did you go from fictional horse to actual riding and being part of this horse world?
NL: I got a late start in riding for the horse world. I started in middle school and I had begged for riding lessons for years and years and years. And my parents were always really, really hesitant to sign me up for riding lessons. My mom rode as a kid and she was in a pretty rough riding accident that resulted in many surgeries on her arm. I don't know if she had some sort of fear of me riding and getting hurt or where that came from but for whatever reason, I was not signed up for riding lessons until I was a lot older. Also, riding lessons were really expensive, which I'm sure also factored into all of that. I started taking lessons at a local 4-H barn and got super obsessed. From that point on, horses were all I could think about, all I wanted to do, and I got it in my head that I was going to get a horse of my own.
LG: What would be a typical trajectory, then? How old are people when they typically start to ride?
NL: Oh, man. I mean, I have friends that were riding horses before they were born. I guess about five is when people can start to take lessons. But a lot of people start, you know, six, seven, eight, somewhere in there. But I feel like that's the way it is for most sports.
LG: Horses show off class and wealth more so than other hobbies or interests, don't they? What was your experience with that and how did you navigate the differences in proximity people had to horses depending on their finances?
NL: They do. I was shielded from a lot of that at my childhood barn. Sure, we had a couple up obnoxious, uppity people come through, but they never seemed to last long there. When I got to college, I noticed just how big that decision was. I met girls there who were dropping thousands a month on show fees alone. It was shocking. I also met people in college who had never seen a horse in real life due to a lack of access. Horse lessons are expensive. I paid $100 a lesson for a while. Sure, you can find them cheaper, but not what I would call affordable. Horses are so expensive to care for, that barn owners and instructors have to charge a good chunk just to care for the animals.
I definitely was a stall mucker as a kid. When I saved up and eventually got my own horse, I was responsible for paying for everything. I paid for a lot of it by doing stuff around the barn. The lady that owned the barn had two twin girls, and I paid a lot of my horse bills by babysitting for her. She gave me a really good rate because I think she knew it was going back to her. Anyway, I started all kinds of like around town businesses. I did car washing, lemonade stands, yard sales, all of that good stuff to help raise money to support my hobby.
LG: How old were you when you were like I'm buying a horse. I'm going to make it happen.
NL: 14.
LG: That's wild because you have to really love something intensely to be that committed so young.
NL: And that was a weird thing with all my friends, too, because all my friends knew that I was saving so much for this horse that I would not spend any money anywhere else. It's a little mortifying to think about now, but I remember packing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to take to a restaurant to eat out with my friends. I wanted to spend time with them, but I did not want to spend any money.
LG: And you still have the same horse today, correct?
NL: She is my girl, my heart horse, the horse that I will have until she's gone. I've had her for about 14 years now. No, 15 years. Wow. 15 years. And I have brought that horse everywhere with me. She went to college with me. I kept her there. And then that was a whole other thing because I had to work off my board while I was in college to help cover her costs. And then I took her all the way to North Carolina. She was in Hillsborough with me. I did not move her out to California even though I really wanted to. I just knew that she'd be miserable. She lives now on several acres with her horse friends and lives outside. My mom takes care of her a good deal. She goes out and sees her and helps take care of her, which is so nice. I love having her there to support me with that. But it is a commitment and it's a commitment I made to her. I cannot tell you how much I love this horse. Like I think about her so much every day. Like, there's definitely not a day that goes by that I don't think about her, she's so much a part of me, and I owe so much of who I am to her. And I love her in a way that I don't think I'll ever love another animal.
I think in a lot of ways, like horse girls in general, we just sort of know each other when we see each other. I can be in a store and be like, that girl rides horses and I don't know what it is. I feel like there's a horse girl walk like shoulders forward, always having a little bit of a limp. It's a thing, the horse girl walk. And so you can see somebody, and then I'm trying to figure out a way to approach them. Do I ask them about their horses? Because all I want to do is talk about horses. I want to know about their horse. I want to know what they do with their horse. I want to know what they feed their horse. I want to know what ailment their horse has. And I want to tell them all about my horse.
LG: Why do you think it's kept you captivated for so long? Like you've shaped so much of your life around horses, even now you earn your living coordinating an equine therapy program.
NL: Yes. I think that horses are such spiritual creatures. They are 1,000-pound animals that could smush you any second they want to and yet they choose to be part of our lives. It's just a super powerful thing to get to experience and be a part of. When you connect with the horse, like when you really bond with one and make it your own and you have that deep connection with that horse? Man, it's something special - more so than a dog or a cat. I love my dog. My dog is amazing and a huge part of my life, but my dog loves everybody. When you connect with a horse on a really deep level and that horse knows you, looks to you and relies on you? It's just a different kind of bond. I think that human's relationship with horses is so deep and runs so deep and is so historic that I think we've just kind of carried that over through, you know, centuries.
LG: I have always thought of horses as just like these, you know, mythical strong creatures. And while they are, there's also this intense frailty about them and dependence that they have on humans. I do feel like that creates such an interesting interconnectedness of support and needs that humans have with them. It's fascinating to me.
NL: Yeah, that's super true. I mean, the horses are so fragile. I mean, they're giant creatures walking around on little toothpick legs. They break a lot. They're always hurt. There's always something wrong with them and I don't know why I love them so much. I tell my coworkers all the time that I hate that I love horses. Because they break your heart all the time. There's always something wrong with them. They're so fragile. They can't throw up. So if they eat something, they just die. And they break your heart.
LG: At what point did you know you would shape your career around horses?
NL: When I was six, my parents have this great VHS home video of me saying that I wanted to be somebody who rode on horseback throughout the mountains of Appalachia, picking up trash and delivering Bibles to children, which is a highly specific thing to want to do when you're six. However, the heart of that is very much the same, right? Use horses to do good. And that's what I have always wanted to do. So when I learned about equine therapy, especially for this demographic, which I think was around sixth grade, I knew that's what I wanted to do. I told everybody that I was going to open up a second chance ranch, which is going to be a facility for kids that need it, need another go at it, another try, another chance, and arrange for them to come. Well, my second chance ranch has not happened yet. However, I'm doing very much the same work that I had hoped to do at that age.
LG: How do you see horses working in kids’ lives when they begin equine therapy?
NL: Oh, it's the most amazing thing. So often, you know, we have kids come in that have experienced so much trauma at the hands of adults, in the hands of other people, and they don't want anything to do with me, but they'll show up for their horses. I get to have kids that hate therapy, they hate social workers, they hate their therapist, and then they come here and they're happy because they get to spend time with an animal that loves them and trusts them and is happy to see them and enjoys them in a place that has no judgment, has no expectations, nothing is being asked of them. They just get to come and have fun and be part of their horse's life.
LG: It's really special that you really have stayed obsessed your entire life, that horses have been so steadfast.
NL: Nothing fills me like the horses. Like, I never don't want to be around horses. I love surfing, and I love swimming, I love longboarding. I love all these things, but there are plenty of days I'm like, I don't want to do that. But there's never a day where I don't want to go to the barn, where I don't want to see a horse. I always do.
When I am not working from home, I go into the office at the ranch a few times a month, and every time, without fail, I visit with the horses. There is one I love more than the others. Jet is 16 hands tall, has the most knobbly knees, and seems to bump into things more than I ever thought a horse could. Two weeks ago, we walked around the ring together. There is this exercise called ‘join-up’, something Nancy introduced to me and what I didn’t realize I was doing, but Jet probably did. Horses are herd animals, and they are constantly looking for a leader, watching to fall in step with one. There can be such exhaustiveness in trying to be understood in this world but a horse just looks at you and they do. They just get you. It feels so good to be so understood. That day, I led the horse into the ring and began to walk. It was midday, right when I would take my lunch. The sky was clear even though we’d been having weeks of rain that was filling up reservoirs and making mountains shudder under feet of snow. Jet clomped behind me in the ring. I marveled at him, catching Nancy’s glance and beaming with childhood glee. When I paused, he did. When I walked, so did he. We were completely in tune - as though we were one. I felt this idea bubble up in me - if Jet understood me, this large, clumsy, beautiful creature - maybe other things weren’t so far away in possibility. We circled the ring, my anxiety from the day falling into nothing, my heart steadying. Right then, I was the best version of myself. I was the person I wished I was for every other second of the day.
For those moments, those times in the barn, the horse world is tempting, but then again, most obsessions are.
Recommended Reading
A Home for Kyrie By Nancy Lewis: Loved what you read here? Support Nancy’s work and children accessing equine therapy by purchasing this children’s book written and illustrated by her. It tells the story of Kyrie, a therapy horse at her barn.
Horse Girls: Recovering, Aspiring, and Devoted Riders Redefine the Iconic Bond Edited by Halimah Marcus: Writers dive into that iconic horse girl energy - and what it has meant for them. Highly recommend!
The Year of the Horses: A Memoir by Courtney Maum: If you are interested in the relationship horses can have in our mental health journey, this is the book for you. A look at motherhood, mental health, and coming back to yourself.
Brava! #horsegirlgoals