07/28/2025
The Trust of a Good Horse
Before I got Cody, I scoffed at the idea of heart horses. Don’t get me wrong, I fully believed that you could truly love one horse more than any other horse. However, the notion of an unbreakable bond that the horse shared back with you seemed like woo woo, fairytale, wishful thinking. I would cringe when I’d hear people, throwing the phrase around, especially for horses that seemed certain to end up for sale within a year. to me, it was nonsense.
But then I met Cody.
Cody is one of those mustangs that you read about or hear about – the one that basically trains himself. A “cheater mustang” if you will. The kind that gives an amateur trainer a false sense of accomplishment because it wasn’t nearly as hard as everybody says. Cody decided I was the one and that was it.
On day two, he kicked me for picking up his feed pan behind him (which I fully deserved for being such an idiot). On day three, he not only let me touch him all over his entire body, but also let me halter him. I slid it over his ears like he’d been born in captivity and had it done to him every day.
Don’t get me wrong, we put in a lot of work going forward. Three times a day every single day for months. We primarily work at Liberty since he hates lunging on a line and on day 18, I sat on him for the first time. He’s since become my main man. my trusty rusty. My “I haven’t ridden you in a month but you’ll still let me jump on you ba****ck in the pasture and we’ll tool around for no reason.” But it really only happened that quickly and easily because Cody picked me. It sounds fanciful, and cringey, but I have to admit that it’s true.
I’ve worked with many mustangs since Cody came home with me, but none of them have decided on me the way he did. He will come over to me in the pasture just to be nearby, let me do ridiculous things and just sigh in annoyance, and he resource guards me from other horses because I am the keeper of his scratches. He is not a lovey dovey boy and isn’t a big fan of many things that most riding horses would love. But at the end of the day, he makes it known that he prefers me to other horses, other people, and being by himself.
Cody is not perfect. And he often causes me headaches since he’s pretty offended by most other horses daring to look in his direction, much less share a fenceline. But I love him in a way I didn’t know was possible. His quirks don’t bother me like they would with literally any other horse. And when he dies (a very long time from now, God willing), it will absolutely destroy me.
Because there’s only one Cody. And though younger me would gag at myself for saying it, he is, without a doubt, my heart horse.
