A True Story: part 1

In life, I think it’s rare and lucky to be inside one of those Big Realization moments and be conscious of it while it’s happening. To feel your pulse pick up, the sweat trickle down your temple, to breathe in the sights and sounds and scents of that instance and to know that, in the grand scheme of your life, the simple act of being in that place is more important than what you are actually doing. The way you analyze your hopes and dreams, accomplishments and goals, is being shaped right then.

For me, the blood pounding in my ears was like a kettle drum. My hands went liquid soft on the reins. One of my Big Realizations took place, surprise surprise, on the back of a horse.

In 1996, Michelle Gibson rode the Trakehner stallion Peron to Olympic Bronze at the Georgia International Horse Park in Conyers.

Peron and Michelle Gibson in 1996

Five years later, I met Peron’s son and I had no idea, laying eyes on that broken, nearly starved skeleton covered in rain rot, that I was about to learn exactly why his father had been so successful. It was the same collection of traits that made Cosmo, horse that he was, the most inspiring soul I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.