The Mustang Diaries: Peaches Kept a Christmas Secret!

We had a secret! I have been spending the last few weeks quietly preparing Peaches for her owner, Brenda’s, first ride. I wanted to embrace the Christmas spirit and gift Brenda a memory she would undoubtedly carry through the years to come!

The weeks leading up to this day were spent in careful, quiet sessions—no dramatic breakthroughs, just small, steady conversations between Peaches and I. Groundwork formed the backbone of our time together, with eventual short riding sessions leading into more advanced maneuvers and mountains of confidence building for Peaches. The goal wasn’t speed or showmanship; it was for Peaches to feel at ease in her own skin, and for Brenda to sense that a new kind of bond could form between them as horse and rider.

The most delicate part of the plan was the actual moment when Brenda would become part of the bond I’d nurtured and prepared in secret; their first ride...

I picked an unnaturally warm day this week and invited Brenda to do a groundwork session with Peaches. I mentored and observed as they united through new exercises that Peaches had learned over the preceding weeks. They were clunky with each other at first before finding their rhythm and moving together with confidence; Brenda leading, and Peaches a willing student. I wanted both of them to feel calm, connected, and ready before quietly springing the question to Brenda, "Do you want to ride her?" Silence followed, a hitch of her breath, an inaudible oh-shit moment, and then finally "CAN I"!?

I led Peaches to the mounting block, and for a second, Brenda stiffened next to me, perhaps a fleck of anxiety, nerves, or panic, before settling her attention on the golden mare she had loved from first sight through a computer screen so many months ago. She took a deep breath, threw her leg up over the saddle, and settled in for the very first time.

Calmly, I asked Peaches to follow me off the mounting block and around the arena for a few laps while it sunk in with Brenda that she was riding her very own horse. I gently handed off the reins and encouraged the pair to take their first steps as one without outside influence.

Peaches carried them with a natural ease, a partnership that felt less like a performance and more like mutual trust beginning to flower for the first time. Brenda’s face glowed with the look of a dream unfolding in real time and I couldn't have been more proud of how well Peaches was handling her new rider. They found a shared breath in the quiet of the arena, and that breath built a bridge between them that neither had known existed so completely before. A magical moment to witness as the inner horse-crazy 12-year-old girl combined with the formerly wild mustang and went from spark to flame, crackling with fresh potential...