Shaping Lumps of Potential

By Heather Boo

I am a neuroradiologist. Nobody outside of neuroradiology knows what that is. I am also a dressage rider. Nobody outside of the sport knows what that is either. Many times I have explained one side of my life to the other and have met with vacant nods and, “Oh, that sounds cool!” It is! I am making my very own fairytale, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Thankfully, there are no judges in mountain biking because I could not have broken 50%. It’s hard to make it through a trail in West Virginia when you are magnetically attracted to solid objects and must dismount to lift your bike over the woodland cavaletti. I was frustrating my friends who expected me to keep up. I wanted to go with them, so my mid-twenties quixotic mind decided to purchase a mare, a barrel racing pinto who would leave them in the dust. And we did.

I had never connected with anything like that before. It felt as though life had just begun. We galloped over the mountainsides and through streams, in sun, rain, and snow, for miles. Cliffs, dappled woods, hills and dales. We ran. Even after a long day in medical school, I would park my rusty red truck with its luminescent headlights glowing over a patch of grass that, in my mind, was a private lit arena where I practiced moves. It was just my horse, Grace, and me in the stillness and calm that she provided when life was overwhelming, giving me silken silence amid noise. She was everything.

I was a radiology resident on an overnight call in the hospital when she suddenly died. Having been inseparable, life without her had not crossed my mind. When you lose your first and only best friend, that kind of grief only has a beginning.

Over the following years, trying to find her, I found dressage. At the time, nobody around me knew what that was, but my search eventually landed me in Florida following graduation from a neuroradiology fellowship. “The Winter Equestrian Capital of the World,” they said. My plan was that I was going to stay one month only. But I never left. I was elated to live in a place where it lacks purpose to yell “Horse!” every time you see one. But still, I was only a lump of potential: unemployed, broke and borrowing money for rent, and still trying to properly post the stupid trot.

Enter the schoolmasters.

I have read some people’s controversial opinions about schoolmasters, but having had Liberty Light (Bert) as my own Grand Prix teacher, I can confirm that negativity is unwarranted. If I told you I learned how to read your brain MRI from a fellow student, it may take me longer, and I may be able to get it done, or I may not. But if I told you I had expert training from someone truly qualified, someone who had been there and done that, and I was made to step up to the plate, then the learning can be more effective. 

As a result, what they taught me is how I teach my horses now. Personally, this is what I prefer when it comes to learning. It does not mean that it is easy, if anything, it can be more difficult because good teachers have higher expectations. 

In fact, Bert’s skin would become electric and move in ripples, warning that correctness was necessary, and I was not a good rider. He invented the bombastic side eye (you’re welcome). If you could ride Bert and earn a USDF Gold Medal, you deserved two. That achievement with him was special and unforgettable. 

Bert was exactly what I needed in order to find the rider I was not. The concentration I needed felt like slipping underwater, dampening sound and light, and I use that skill to this day. Bert introduced me to riding Grand Prix at CDIs in a big stadium, one which I hardly even saw, feeling submerged and focusing on his electricity like ready-stinging jellyfish. It was an ocean dream; I am so grateful to him for all of it.

I love a challenge, almost to a fault, goading myself that fear is only a lack of control, right? I never rode Divertimento chasing goals, but a world ranking and some nice achievements were side effects of working on my tests. He was older when I acquired him, and I just wanted to ride Grand Prix at a higher level in the CDIs, including qualifying for the Special and Friday Night Lights Freestyles so I could develop those skills. If there was one thing I did right, it was doing all of it, facing fear and fumbling forwards.

In retrospect, there is so much I would change about how I managed life around trying to compete. Often, I had no choice but to be awake for over 20 hours straight, coming straight from an overnight shift at the hospital, to the show barn, changing clothes and going promptly into a 3*, before trying to catch a few hours of sleep (if possible) before another overnight. I was often nauseous with fatigue. Everything I was trying to balance started to shift. 

I love what I do as a physician, but I was becoming unrecognizable. The decision to leave my hospital position should have come sooner, because I knew I could not sacrifice riding any further, I needed it too much. What I learned from that time in my life, and what I recommend to other hardworking amateurs, is to check in with yourself all the time. I evaluate if I am happy, and healthy, and thriving. If not, it is time to step back and make a change that allows all the good energy to return. When I thrive, my horses thrive, too. Today I work from home and manage the horses myself, and balance is restored.

I have asked myself if training and competing is too much of a selfish pursuit. But it is what allows me to show up at my job and give 100% every day. Even if I feel like I have been hounded all day by emergencies and questions, it is a blessing to be needed and valuable. And the only reason I am able to be completely there for everyone is that my mind has been in a meditative space of quietude, listening to horses each day like a practice. 

There is so much to learn, and what you learn after you think you know a lot is where it really starts to count. This is true for both medicine and riding.

It has been difficult to write an essay about what horses mean to me because, in my mind, they are a wordless place of emotion and safety. I train at my tranquil fairytale farm, Three Bays Farm, where two lumps of potential have become Grand Prix competitors, and a third is competing at the small tour level this year. Dressage with my horses fills that Grace-shaped hole in my soul; It is grounding, keeping me happily barn-tired, all of us fumbling forwards together. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.