Damn you horses, with your inspirational ways that make me cry

I was on a plane home from Atlanta this morning, happily minding my own business when I suddenly starting publicly weeping and sobbing and alternately looking out the window while trying to use my wool coat to sop up the mess that became my face. The last time this happened I was reading a book about a dog on a flight to Bismarck.

Let me tell you something. I do not cry. I'm just not a crier the way some of my friends and my husband can sprout waterworks at a sweet Hallmark card. Not me, so sirree, I'm stoic.

UNLESS.

Unless I'm reading or watching a story about horses. What is it about those two-thousand pound animals that makes me sob like a baby? This particular story was just a short little clip in this week's People magazine about a seventeen-year-old boy who took over his dad's horse training business when his dad was paralyzed in a horrible hay-bale-crushed-him accident. The kid stepped up to the plate to make sure his family didn't lose their ranch.

No tears.

Then he met a filly. Uh-oh. I see it coming. The filly was wild when she got to the ranch. No one thought she had any potential, but the boy did and he worked with her. He taught her how to let a jockey tell her how to run, and he taught her to run like the wind. He signed her up as a long shot in a race and she won! She healed his broken heart, she gave him hope, and her winning the race saved the ranch for a while longer.

And that was that, I was boo-hooing like there was no tomorrow. Damn those horses with their big heads and their big hearts! It gets me every time. I can't watch Seabiscuit or Secretariat. Well, I can. But the tears get in the way of seeing the movie. The Kentucky Derby? I get the chills and get all choked up and yes, by the end there are tears. Last year (or was it the year before?) there were tears for the baby girl horse whose legs broke in the race and she had to be euthanized on the spot. Many many tears for her, for what they're doing to racehorses to get them to run faster.

Well. On that light note. Have a great weekend, everyone! And if you have a horse, give her a little hug for me. And an apple. I hear they really like apples.

- H