The story of how I found myself in the horse world.
It all started with a little girl’s dream of horses . . .
From the first that I can remember I have always loved animals. Over the years I grew up with a random assortment of dogs, rabbits, birds, guinea pigs, turtles, and can even remember going through a grasshopper phase, hollering at my Mom to “Stop the car! I need to catch that grasshopper!” when one would land on the window. (I’m sure Mom was happy when I finally decided grasshoppers were much happier living on their own in the wild!). But one animal that really captured my attention was the horse.
I grew up in the middle of Wichita, KS and my life revolved around the thought of horses but, although I tried my hardest to convince my parents that our neighbors wouldn’t mind if I had a pony in the backyard, I never had the opportunity to actually be around them. So, I tried to feed that love by learning as much as I could about them. I checked out every single book the local library had that had anything to do with horses, from fiction stories to non-fictions books like “The Best Horse Fencing.” I filled thousands of notebook pages, taking notes on everything from healthcare and breed descriptions to training and forage and food. I was obsessed!
By the time I was in middle school, my parents decided that this may not be a passing fad. So they found a non-profit therapeutic organization that used horses as part of people’s therapies. My mom and I volunteered 1 day a week, and I was able to finally be around a horse! My parent’s thought “She will either love them or hate them, because she’s not going to be able to ride them” well… I loved it and couldn’t get enough! I volunteered there for years, going from 1 day a week to 3 days a week and dragged 3 of my 4 siblings along with me. At the age of 14 I was offered a part time job, helping with the therapy sessions and assisting the barn manager with horse chores.
Around the 14 yo mark, there was a wonderful lady, who also a volunteer at the therapeutic riding center, who offered to teach my siblings and me how to ride. Up to this point, all of my interactions with horses was on the ground. For the next few years she was gracious enough to let us ride her horses and for my 16th birthday present I was given a little mare (female horse) that she raised. I was over the moon! Through the rest of high school and a few years after, my days were consumed with horses. I started learning how to drive wagons and carriages, and got a job on a local ranch.
A few years after high school an opportunity came up for me to go to college, I never wanted to leave home, but my family convinced me that this would be a good way to keep learning about horses, so packed my things and headed for Illinois. I was so homesick! But the Lord took care of me and I met 2 other freshman girls, and we stuck together through college. I learned a lot in college and was able to intern at some interesting places.
My first college internship was on a Clydesdale breeding farm. It was quite the experience! The horses were amazing! They had 4 breeding studs and 15+ broodmares, in addition to their 25+ horse show string. The horse side of things was amazing, but I really struggled because it was my first real experience being the only Christian around. It was during that time that my relationship with the Lord went to another level. Growing up I was surrounded with Christianity and when I was 12 or 13 I accepted Christ as my Savior, realizing that I was a sinner and that the only way that I could be with God was through His Son Jesus. Leaving for college was a big change in my life, and during my first internship the Lord showed me that, though I had accepted Him as my Savior, I hadn’t fully surrendered myself to Him. I really struggled through some things, and came to the crossroad of either saying that yes, everything God says in the Bible is true- that He speaks truth, or He doesn’t. I couldn’t just take bits and pieces, believing what He says in one part of the Bible and not other parts. It was all or nothing. Thanks be to God, He showed me that what He says is truth and that I needed to live my life in that knowledge.
From there I finished my years in college and headed to another internship on a cattle ranch in NE, with my best friend from college! After bouncing between there and KS, we both ended up working there for a few years. During this time I became the proud new owner of a 3 month old Australian Shepherd, Chevrolet, and he has been by my side through thick and since then! The Lord brought some wonderful people into our lives and the little church that we attended was such a blessing, we were challenged and encouraged us to deepen each of our relationships with the Lord. One of those people was Monty, one of the ranch partners we were working for. Our time there ended when Monty passed away, but the testimony of his love for the Lord as he fought terminal cancer touched more people than he knows.
There have been a couple of people who have really impacted my walk with the Lord. As I look back, it’s the quiet ones that stand out most to me. Those people who are living their everyday lives, but who ooze the fragrance of God. Their quiet commitment to prayer, the ones who love spending time with God, reading His word, not as something to get checked off, but as someone who just wants to sit with their God and bask in who He is. Those who, while doing daily chores, are singing an old hymn because it’s their way of worshiping. These are the types of people that resonate with me because they show me what it looks like when someone is in love with their God and Savior.
After Monty passed away I moved back to KS and ended up working in a grocery store to help pay the rent bill. I learned that I am not the type of person that can be inside all day, I need to see the sky! Feel the wind! Hear the birds! Smell the plants! I went a little stir crazy to say the least! I found a help wanted ad for an assistant trainer position in Western Kansas and I called. I headed out to Colby the following week to do a riding interview, and ended up with the job! I was excited and a little surprised, you see, I wasn’t the greatest of riders and had no experience as a professional trainer. But God is good and he gave me the best job working for a great horse trainer, who was also a Christian!
I learned so much there! EJ was very patient and through the years he has poured so much of his knowledge into me, making me the rider and trainer that I am today. I worked in Colby for a few years, ended up getting hurt, and prayed through some things. I felt the Lord telling me that I needed to go back to school. This was not what I had planned. I loved my job and had previously said that I was never going to school again! But when you know that the Lord is telling you something, you have a choice to do it or not, and thankfully I obeyed. I gave my notice not knowing where I was going next, but had school securely fixed in mind, so started doing some research. I felt that whatever it was, I needed a solid Christian foundation, so started looking into Christian colleges and stumbled across Lancaster Bible College. They offered an online course in Biblical Studies and it was set up for adults who worked full time. After some prayer I hit the apply button and started looking for another job. I was able to work on a cattle ranch in CO for a few months before school started and loved every minute of it! A month before school started I packed up my life again and headed for MI.
My brother and best-friend, who is now my sister-in-law!!, had moved to MI for his residency, and they invited me up to live with them while I tried to figure this school thing out again! So my dogs and I (Dash had joined me while I was working for EJ) headed for a little 2 bedroom farmhouse on the outskirts of Ann Arbor. I started online school and eventually found a job as a farm hand at a horse barn. It was my first real experience in the English world (the style of riding), and definitely my first experience around jumpers. I found it fascinating but was too scared to ride anything in and English saddle! They were also part of an organization that restarted Thoroughbreds from the racetrack, and I talked my way into them letting me restart some of them, as long as I could ride in my western saddle. They did and I had a blast riding OTTBs (Off the Track Thoroughbreds), getting them ready for the new addition homes.
A few years later I got a call from my old boss, they had just relocated to OK and was wondering if I would come work for them again. I headed down to talk with them and see if I could still ride some cow horses. It felt like coming home! I was conflicted though, because when I left, I had given this part of my life up to the Lord. I had released this love and expected to never train like this again. The only thing I could do was pray that the Lord would give me peace, like He always does when He is leading, and that I would be attuned to His direction. I was scared that I would blow past His road block because I wanted this job back so badly. But, He’s peace was through it all and I moved to Oklahoma. I am currently (2024) here in OK, riding and training horse and loving it!
That’s a quick history of how I went from a city-slicker young girl to a horse training woman. There are so many hours in the saddle, horses, experiences, and people who helped along the way that I don’t have enough space to write about it all in detail, but I am thankful for every one of them!
Walk with the King and be a Blessing!
-Liberty