You Are Never Too Old to Realize a Lifelong Dream

You're Too Old to Spend the Rest of Your Life on the Couch: Let's Adventure!

When will you give yourself that one dream?

His long black mane whipped my cheeks, drawing blood. He was running so fast I had to screw my eyes nearly shut to protect them from the desert air, which was hurtling past so fast I could barely draw breath. I lost my connection with time. We were moving as one, his hooves pounding the dunes as we raced through the twilight towards the distant mountains, purpled in the setting sun.

That’s not fiction.

The year was 2016. I was 63, on a three-week trip to Egypt. Our tour had stopped at Hurgadah, on the Red Sea, where we were relaxing. I’d just recovered from a bout of food poisoning from eating unwashed grapes at an open market.

Weak from lack of food, I’d walked the hotel’s small beach, which was carpeted with towels, chairs and tourists. Eventually I located a man leading a camel; we negotiated and I got a ride. His camel got a kiss- I’m very fond of them, assuming the owner says it’s safe to do this. They can be wonderfully quirky animals when they are well-treated.

So, I got a ride and a camel kiss. And no, it didn’t stink.

The man told me that his brother owned a stable not far away, Seahorse Stables, where I could ride.

Are you kidding?

I was there within the hour. The hell with my sore belly.

The stable didn’t have many tourists that day, and I was lucky.

The first horse I rode was a sweet Egyptian mare. The guide told me not to be afraid. Ohfercrying out loud. I mounted, without a mounting block thank you, and we were off.

My guide took my camera and offered to film me. At that, my mare and I took off down the dunes:

For those of you wondering, no, I never used the crop (she most assuredly didn’t need one). After our hour’s ride, he said, “You need a stronger horse.”

My guide took me around the stable, and I got permission to enter the stall of a mouthy stallion. It didn’t take long to sort out what he wanted:

Then my guide took me to see the horse he wanted me to ride for the late afternoon/sundown ride. Valentino, eight years old, the breeding stallion and nearly $100k of horseflesh.

This was my introduction:

I watched in wonder as this animal raced by, every single cell in me tingling.

Every horse-crazy little girl of my generation read every Black Stallion book by Walter Farley. We were irritated that it wasn’t a little girl on that horse, Alice instead of Alex, but the book was written in 1941. We read all of the series. We dreamed and dreamed.

You might know the movie. Either way, from the age of ten on, I dreamed.

Someday I would raise horses and I’d have a Black.

Someday I would ride a Black stallion.

Someday.

Decades of somedays came and went. The horse farm never materialized and neither did my Black. I had largely forgotten about my dream of a Black stallion.

I rode plenty of horses, stallions only rarely. Nothing like what I was watching snort and kick in this corral.

I’m going to ride that?

At two pm Valentino was saddled and ready. As I gently pressed my bodyweight into the saddle, he screamed a stallion’s challenge.

I grinned at my guide, leaned forward and cupped his right ear.

Oh...blublublublublub! I said, then scrubbed his ear. My guide grinned back.

For a moment, Valentino didn’t move. Then I maneuvered him to a small corral where we spent a few minutes getting acquainted.

Anyone who’s ridden a lot of tourist horses can tell when a horse has been manhandled. Valentino had been ridden by too many people with hard hands and zero patience. It took him a while to understand that my directions would be feather light, suggestions that we cooperate instead of fight.

He rose to the invitation immediately.

The rest of our time together we cantered, trotted and experimented. He was a gorgeous animal, light and airy and fine. When we gave him a break and I scritched his ears and face, his huge eyes were focused on the horizon, where the stables lay.

I didn’t even exist for him. Girls and food, girls and food, girls and food.

As the shadows lengthened, my guide and I turned towards home. In the distance the mountains were backlit by the setting sun, shooting purple and pink skyward. I looked at my guide.

He nodded.

I pushed my feet well forward in the stirrups because I knew what was coming. Leaned over, left hand on the horn of the saddle and right hand buried in Valentino’s mane. Double handfuls.

Then I yelled

YAH!

Had I not taken all those precautions, I’d have been left up to my molars in the sand dunes while Valentino disappeared in a cloud of sand.

As expected, Valentino shot forward like a thoroughbred at the Derby.

Feet back where they belonged, I grasped with my thighs and leaned over his neck, holding onto his mane for dear life. He ran faster, faster and faster still, as tears streamed out of my eyes and down my cheeks, then taken by the wind like pearls thrown from a train.

Faster still he ran. I concentrated on staying on, and moving with him as one.

Never before and not once since have I ever ridden such a swift, powerful animal. The dunes swept by us, everything lost in the moment of pulsing hearts, pounding hooves and the wind that knitted us together.

We ran for what felt like days, my guide well behind us. I had no idea what might be ahead, but Valentino did. He skidded to a stop at the edge of deeply- curved dune, sides heaving, as my guide joined us. It had been perhaps two minutes.

For me, it was a lifetime.

Wordlessly, we rode back. By the time the staff took Valentino’s bridle my heart had calmed down.

But not by much.

No matter how old we get, we all have a dream that still burns inside us. While some of them may be made impossible by infirmity or cost, some version of it might still be within reach.

This was mine.

I didn’t have to raise or own one. Just ride one, just once, just like this.

And that was enough.

Let’s play.

I hope you were inspired by this story. Above all I hope you are willing to do what it takes to give yourself a dream, even if it’s had to be changed over time. Life is over far too soon, and the opportunity is gone. Please plan it, do it now. If this story appealed to you, please consider

If you know a horse lover, a fellow Walter Farley fan, or just know someone who can use a little kick to kickstart a dream, please also consider

Thank you.