Gretchen

There were two very important searches I made when my family and I first moved to Boise. The first was to find the Bookstore nearest to our new home, the second and more important was to discover a stable I could take lessons at. The latter was solved by my mom. She went for a jog past a large stable called Pierce Park . It was 10 minutes down the road from where my family and I lived at the time. So my mother sign my sister and myself up for lessons. It was here that I met the woman who would become like family to me and later introduce and convince me to buy Twilight.



Her name was Gretchen, she was tall with lovely hazel skin, wrinkled from the sun like a walnut. A wild mass of curls white covering silky grey was held away from her face by a sun bleached life is good baseball cap. It did not take me long to discover that her mouth had two positions which she constantly altered between, a soft relaxed line, and a warm grin which exposed her teeth.



Gretchen was a wanderer by nature. She was constantly moving from stable to stable. Nothing ever seemed to go right for her. Her heart was to large and warm, she wore it on her shirt, open and venerable for the shrewd and scheming world to see. Gretchen possesses a certain quality, or characteristic about her that seems to resonate from every true horse woman I have ever known. Like the sweet smell that permeates the air before rain. They always seem to be stronger than the very elements of nature that govern the worlds weather. Hard strong women who don't always land on there feet but somehow manage to get back up. But these women who can be filled with so much power are also the most fragile people alive, with hearts and souls that can shatter as easily as a bird's egg.



Gretchen's heart has been broken several times, she has suffered through several hardships. But she is a resourceful woman and has found a way to repair her soul. She patches her heart up with broken horses, an assortment of ragtag horses in need of a caring hand. Gretchen's hands were gnarled with arthritis, but they were the best hands these creatures could fall into.



Her first horse was a Thoroughbred from the track (who's name escapes me). She suffered with him through his gelding, he would kick at her and bite her when she applied ointment to the cut, but she never grew angry with him. She watched him race. She had a affinity with that horse. He was fiery, and difficult a hot headed racer but they had an understanding a bond. Even though he was not hers and probably never would be she never gave up. When he did not make it on the track, and was considered worthless by racing standers, Gretchen felt like the wealthiest woman in the world. She had no saddle to ride him with, and he was a young and green fighter. But they learned to trust each other.


He was the beginning of her charity work with horses in need.

Next there was Mark. A bay thoroughbred that was destined for the meat house, along with his mother. Gretchen was able to save Mark but not his dame. Regardless Mark was rescued and has lived with Gretchen for 20 years of his life. Mark has a long scholarly face with an intelligent strip of white down his nose. He looks like an old professor and was born to be a school horse. I remember the first time I worked with Mark. I was terrified. He was a monstrously tall, long lean athlete who bucked every couple steps of the trot. It took Gretchen only one summer, three months to turn him in the perfect lesson horse, docile and challenging with hardly any faults.

Gretchen's amazing rescues and fairy tale endings for horse could fill an entire fantasy book. Her actions were memorable and selfless, however the places her rescued animals ended up thrilled me. As I mentioned earlier Gretchen wandered from stable to stable. And at ever stable we moved to there was a horse she had rescued, riding under Gretchen's instruction almost became a fantasy within itself. There was an allure to ever new barn, with new horses to meet.
After Gretchen had a falling out with her co owner at Pierce Park stables, that ended with Gretchen having to leave some of her beloved horses behind. Including a small bay Arabian named R2 D2 who I had become particularly fond of. She traveled out to Meridian Idaho to a Stander bred Stable. Pierce Park was a high class stable, with large green pastures, enclosed stalls, and an organized aura about it. The Stander bred Stable made it look like a second hand shanty. It had elegance, green grass pooling under large shady willow trees. A partial indoor out door arena, with a second arena that was about the size of a race track. There were pastures with long velvety grass, pale and delicately dappled with wild flowers and with a small brook in the far corner. It was a utopia large and secluded. This was the last place I expected to encounter any rescue horses. How could there be any? All I could see were well feed glossy creatures that appeared to have been cradled in this luxury for their entire lives.
As it turns out there were two characters in this horse paradise that had been snatched from the jaws of tragedy, Griffin and Jack O' Lantern. However when I first saw them I could not find their flaws, they were tall well proportion chestnut thoroughbreds, obvious athletes. Jack O' was introduced to me first. He was in a spacious wooden stall and came to the door as soon as I approached. His face was large with a blaze down the front which accented his eyes. Two large terrified eyes rimmed with white. I stopped suddenly and he spooked wheeling around and trotting away from the door. As it turned out his eyes were naturally white rimmed, his eye sockets were simply to large for his eyes and as a result he always appeared to be on the verge of hysterics. Because of this one flaw, he had always been treated as a 'spook' horse people were on edge around him, and either extremely harsh with him, or pathetically timid. Jack O' had picked up on these feelings and had therefore become hopelessly skittish, to the point were no one would ride him. I am happy to say after knowing him for about a two years, I finally found the courage to ride him and found him to be energetic and willing to please as long as he was handled with firm gentleness.
Griffin was out in the one of the luxurious pastures, with another horse, a dark bay Thoroughbred Morgan named Adam who I will explain more about later. They both seemed very content in their large green pasture with the sun beating down on their backs and the freedom to roam. I went out to great them along with one of the girls who worked at the stable. We approached the two horses and let them inspect us sniffing our hands with soft velvet muzzles and softly blowing there approval out of warm nostrils. As we turned to walk back in the two gentlemanly horses decided to accompany us in. It was then I discovered Griffin's fault. He moved with a brittle hobble, and could hardly keep up with us at a slow walk. Each step was painful and he struggled to lift each heavy hoof without stumbling. I could not help but express my horror. The other girl who was accustomed to the barn and had been there much longer than I took the time to inform me of Griffins story. He was born a champion, from two long and prestigious lines of Thoroughbred's all built for jumping. He had been bought before he was born for the price of 15, 000 dollars to a couple who intended to jump him professionally. He was a dream, no fence was to high, each jump was effortless like flying. I'd like to think he hand a bit of mythology in his veins, the blood of Pegasus that allowed him to become air born and float from the earth to the sky with a fluid power and grace. I could not comprehend how this future legend had come to this sorry crippled state. As it turned out four simple mistakes shattered any future Griffin possessed as a jumper. Four iron shoes that were not properly fitted to Griffin's badly trimmed hooves by a careless farrier caused him to contract ring bone, an osteoarthritis. The jumping carrier was over before it began, and the couple who had purchased him could not bare to see the broken creature who had held so much promise, his worth dropped to bellow fire wood. What could any one do with a horse that could hardly walk? Gretchen took him when no one else would. She put time and money that she did not have into giving him about 5 easy years in pastures. This cured him. Griffin recovered slowly and was eventually sold to a caring owner and as I understand it he can walk trot and canter with the prowess he possessed so many years ago. This is all thanks to Gretchen who somehow knew this horse who had fallen from a high pedestal still had value and a future ahead of him and took the time to reveal it to the astounded spectators around her.

Prologue

It is hard to say where the hands of fate started to direct Twilight and I towards each other. I could have been when I moved to Idaho five and a half years ago, or it could have simply been the works of random circumstance. I don't know and honestly I don't ever want to. I'm a hopeless romantic and would like to think that destiny guided us together. But chances are we just happened to collide in the midst of the storm of life.


When I was 14 years old I began to struggle with depression, which worsened over time. I stopped eating and began to lose weight rapidly, till I was considered anorexic, even though I did not have an eating disorder. My skin became ashen, and I began to lose my long dark hair. But I did not care, I was trapped in the waves of depression and did not notice my body was shutting down. Every day I wished for my life to end, for the opportunity to close my eyes and die. The world was frozen in a cold mist that fogged over my mind and weighed me down. I slept endlessly and had difficulty waking up each morning.


School was a painful blur that I was barely coherent for. My grade started slipping and my teachers began dropping subtle hints that they knew something was wrong.



I suffered through visiting specialist for my multiple problems 4 specialist per week, a psychiatrist, psychologist, dietitian and pediatrician . Each one was monotonous, and prodding, which left my emotions raw and tender. I became reclusive and closed in upon myself pulling in the threads of my quickly unraveling world, there were to many lose threads and ends in my life and I became hopelessly entangled in the snarling knot that was my reality. Eventually I got to the point where I could not force myself to get out of bed. Sleeping days away and not caring, and almost enjoying the oblivion I had fallen into. I had reached the breaking point, my life was officially shattered. I was institutionalized for over a month, living with other teenagers who had problems similar to my own. I slowly started to climb out of the hole of depression. Shortly after I turned 15 I was released.


It was difficult to relearn the motions of life after a month of life on hold. Everything felt awkward and empty. I was constantly paranoid believing people were staring at me and that they somehow knew I had been hospitalized. However, there was relief in returning to the real world, because in the real world there were horses.


I have been riding horse sporadically since I was 4 years old, at a variety of places from elegant stables, to old half barns with bleached wood fences. And I have ridden a wide spectrum of horses from a retired thoroughbred to an irritable strawberry roan mustang altering between English and Western riding. I'm certainly not a flawless rider, but I can hold my own. I have had my fair share of run away horses and painful falls.


Horses have always been a powerful influence in my life. Its a delightful addiction. The smell of sweet hay, the must of horse sweat and dust, and the occasional haunting neigh and methodical crunch of shod hooves on gravel. It is a harmony, familiar and comforting. I was very lucky when I moved to Idaho form my home in Utah I did not need to withdrawal myself from the world of horses, if anything I waded in deeper.