When Chasing Your Dreams Becomes Your Worst Nightmare



I blame it on the books. You know the ones - the Thoroughbred series with Ashleigh and Wonder, the Golden Filly series with Tricia Evanstan and her sick dad, The Black Stallion and every other Walter Farley book.

When I was a kid, and there was no actual horse hair in my life, these books provided it. While I was absorbed into the pages, my mind was transformed to the barn. The Saddle Club was ok, but there was something about the racing books that grabbed my attention and my heart.

As a junior in college, I decided it was time. I left a full scholarship, an amazing church family, a hunter/jumper farm that was safe, my parents, and everything I’d known since I was 5 years old, loaded my horse into the trailer, and hit the road for Louisville, Kentucky. I’d prayed over this for years, and I just knew God was in it. And now, he was giving me the desires of my heart.

I had waited and paid my dues, hadn’t I?

Louisville, KY was a lot different from the suburban town of Madison, Mississippi where I grew up. Everything had a bit of a mafia vibe to it. Restaurants were plastered with horse racing win photos. Portraits of famous jockeys hung from the sides of buildings. Racehorses were on the front page of the Courier-Journal. It was a city of dreams!

My indoctrination into racehorses came from a horse whom I was supposed to be hand grazing standing on his hind legs and threatening to paw my brains in. Great. These were definitely not the show horses I was used to. Nevertheless, they had me up on my first racehorse two days later. This time I was being ponied, and we spent more time rearing than moving forward. But I felt safe enough, because the trainer had a leadshank attached to the bridle.

Two days later, they put me on a chestnut two-year-old. Sandwiched between an experienced rider and the head trainer, we trotted “backwards” around the track to warm up. Then we had the horses stand and wait to learn patience. At the nod from the trainer, we peeled off the rail to the center of the track. I stood in the stirrups and pressed my hands into his neck, and he rolled into a gallop. 

It was everything I had dreamed of - like a song God wrote just for me. Hooves pounded in time with my racing heart. This was what I was born to do, and I would do it every day.

A couple of weeks later, I stood by the rail on the biggest two-year-old in the barn and whispered my customary prayer. God, please keep me safe. We trotted to the center of the track. Red rolled into the gallop and asked to stretch his neck out. The trainer had said to let him, so I let the reins slide between my fingers as Red dropped his head down. Then I was soaring through the air without a horse underneath me.

An eternity of seconds later, motion finally stopped. I was pressed against Red. He had rolled over me and kicked me in the face with his flailing hind foot, yet somehow we ended up next to each other. I wanted more than anything to stay right there, pressed against him. But I was smart enough to know he might panic and flail, so I crawled away spitting out teeth and blood.

My life became before the accident and after the accident.

I railed at God. Is this what His version of safety looked like? I wondered how I could trust Him. I didn’t know how to pray, and in my anger and hurt I heard the words, Jesus intercedes.

And I said, good. Because I don’t know what to say right now.

A couple of weeks later, as hope began creeping back into my heart, my beloved Gideon, the horse I loved more than anything, disappeared. His halter was left by his stall, but there was no horse.

After no sign of him for twenty-four hours - no neighbors reporting a random horse in their yard - it became clear. My horse was stolen.

Nearly everything I cared about was gone. 

The foundation I built my life on had crumbled and been washed away. 

I was raised in the church. I accepted Jesus into my heart when I was nine years old and recommitted my life in high school. I loved God and wanted to be the apple of His eye. But it turns out, I loved horses more.

Kentucky was supposed to be the city where my dreams came true. Instead, it became the city where God taught me what Jesus really meant in the parable of the house on the rock (read the verses here). I thought Louisville would help me become the horsewoman I aspired to be. Instead, I learned that while horses are amazing, I needed to proceed with caution. Because my little horsegirl heart was quick to put the creation over the Creator.

I learned to trust a God who gives and takes away. I learned to genuinely praise God in the storm. I experienced God’s provision in the desert. As someone who will relentlessly pursue a goal in her own strength, I felt the incredible power and gift of giving my dream to God and letting Him come through in His way and time. 

For all of the pain and the heartache and teeth that still aren’t quite right after thousands of dollars of dental work, I wouldn’t take back a second of it.

It turns out, walking through my nightmares hand in hand with God, was better than walking through my dreams by myself. 

After I graduated and moved away, I felt God’s tug on my heart to write the story down. It took many years, but the story is finally written and out there to encourage other people as they go through challenges and wonder how on earth a good God could let such bad stuff happen.

I still ride, and mostly only work with off-the-track Thoroughbreds. They remind me of that crazy time and all the work God did in my life. And through all the hardship, there’s still something about the track that calls to me.

To read the entire story (like what happened with Gideon?) check out my memoir, Finding Gideon