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In this story, a plus-size rider shares how she never quite felt like she fit in with the horse world, until one trainer fostered her talent with patience, kindness, and inclusivity.
By Brooke Bell
I pulled up to a beautifully designed covered arena, and took a minute to watch the stick-thin women in their 60s parade around on horses and in saddles that cost more than the 2003 car I drove ever cost. Despite the beautiful palm tree shadows hanging across paver-lined stables, I had a sinking feeling in my plump stomach: you don’t belong here.
I grew up obsessed with animals, and especially horses. My first pony ride was at two or three years old, and it was over for me. I taught myself to read so I could make a presentation for my parents as to why I – painfully shy, incredibly anxious me – should take horseback riding lessons to increase my confidence. Eventually, it worked. At five, I started a pet-sitting business to help pay for my lessons, clothes, and tack. It lasted for almost two decades, putting me through college post-injury. I saved every penny in an attempt to maybe, one day, lease a horse.
But unfortunately, I found out in my teens my body wasn’t quite built right.
When I moved to Orlando in 2021, I never anticipated that I would get back to horses. In 2011, after a series of traumatic injuries, I tore my labrum at fourteen years old while jumping a cavaletti. My injury recovery journey is long, sad, and full of tears (out of the eyes), tears (in my pelvis), pills, and pain. Eventually I was diagnosed with hip impingement, a labrum tear, pelvic tears, ankylosing spondylitis, and generalized hypermobility.
I attempted to starve, control, and mold myself into a pain-free body again. Doctors told me to follow anti-inflammatory diets, which I became obsessed with. I thought that I could eat so little sugar I could reverse my diagnoses. None of it worked. Skinny didn’t fix my pain, my brain, or my shame.
When I was 21, after some healing, I tried taking some lessons with my old trainer. I ultimately ended up with a whole other set of issues – POTS, sudden allergic reactions, subluxations, and more. I was almost certain I would never return to riding.
Almost being the keyword.
In 2022, out on my own in Orlando, I had surgery to confirm and remove endometriosis. Yep, it was real, and it had spread to other organs. As someone who had been consistently plagued by sickness and chronic pain since my teens, the diagnosis was a blessing and a horrible, incurable curse.
But with surgery, I felt better than I ever had. My POTS symptoms dissipated, and my pain was nearly nonexistent. So, despite some financial hurdles (and with a bit of delusion and mania I was attempting to tame in the aftermath of a bipolar diagnosis), in August, I attempted a return to riding – at my highest weight and most diagnosed. I never would have expected the journey I would take.
The first barn I tried held dark secrets beneath palm tree shadows on manicured lawns and covered arenas. I only discovered the depth of which when I became more immersed in the horse world. But this trainer left me with a phrase that threatened to stop my comeback in a perfectly square halt: I don’t have any horses big enough for you.
I’m so glad I didn’t let that woman have the final say.
I tried again in October 2022, but the barn was just too far away. Then, due to safety issues, I had to make an emergency move to a new apartment. This barn was what I was used to, but something didn’t quite click yet. I shelved my horsey dreams and prioritized recovering from the move that decimated my finances. But I made a promise to myself: next year, I would try again.
So, on January 16th, 2023, I drove up I-4 to a rural family barn. There, I met my current trainer, Cameron, and a sassy paint gelding with one blue eye named Dewey. In my first lesson, I could barely post. I couldn’t trot down the whole long side of the arena without my whole body feeling horrible and my dizziness overcoming me. Cameron listened, let me take my time, and it all just felt right. I immediately scheduled a second lesson.
In the coming months, I would rediscover my love for horses, and especially dressage. I started as a hunter/jumper, made the switch to eventing as a kid, and loved the change. As the Florida heat became more pervasive over the months, my stamina and strength increased, and I became more engrossed in the community around me by helping feed at the barn and volunteering at the horse show venue up the street; I also found my voice through social media.
I started my Instagram and TikTok account, Brooke Back Equestrian, after seeing the change that was happening in the equestrian community. When my first SmartPak and Dover catalogs came in the mail with plus-sized riders, I sobbed and stained the pages with tears.
As a kid who grew up a size XL and couldn’t fit into anything at the tack stores, to see my now even bigger size represented in print was transformative. I wanted to be a part of it. I loved sharing progress videos of Dewey and me, as I worked at various barns, learned to jump again post-injury, and won my first-ever dressage competitions.
Through these social media accounts, I found friends. I found a community of people asking the same question: am I too big/disabled/queer/non-white/sick to enjoy horses?
Throughout these past few months, a few of them have messaged me, finding the answer in my content: you belong.
I hope every day that by sharing my story, I can help the kid I was, fourteen and finding nothing but pain after an injury I thought would not only disable me, but kill me. There is hope, despite what you’ve been through. There is hope because of who you are.
Dressage, and most other equestrian disciplines, are changing from the world I entered at four as a chubby child on a hunter pony – hopefully, for the better, into a more inclusive community, and a more humane sport.
There is a horse for you, a barn for you, a trainer for you. There is a space where you belong.
