I Am US Equestrian

HORSES GIVE ME PEACE

by Julie Webster-Smith

Julie Webster-Smith participates in the Horses and Warriors veterans’ program at Calvin Equestrian Center in Hampton, Ga.

Horse trainer and riding coach Julie Webster-Smith has worked on the racetrack, ridden cavalry horses, been an assistant coach with Oberlin College’s equestrian team, and worked with veterans and their horses. Along the way, she says, horses have saved her life.

I grew up in Chicago. I was adopted, and my adoptive father was a mounted policeman in Chicago. I was born in ’53, and he used to take me to the racetrack as a two- or three-year-old. My mother would say, “Do not take that child to the racetrack!” But he would sneak me there with him, and he would put me on his mounted police horses and stuff like that. That’s how I started loving horses.

But the family broke up, and when my mom divorced I was living on the south side of Chicago near Washington Park. There’s one area of Chicago that used to have a bridle path called the Midway. It was a straight shot from my house for maybe two miles all the way to Lake Michigan. When I was about 10, I was riding my bike one day, and I smelled something that I didn’t know what it was. So I followed the smell and saw horses. I was enamored. But I couldn’t go in the barn. I’m not playing the race card, but this is just how it was back then: they wouldn’t allow me in the barn. All I could do was sit on my bike and watch, so I’d do that almost every day. One day the lady who owned the barn saw my dedication. She said, “Do you want to come in the barn? Come on.” I went in, and there was a horse—I guess it was a lesson horse—and she let me brush him.

Later on, when I was 16, I found my mother dead; she passed away from a heart attack, and I found her on the couch. My aunt took over my care. She was a registered nurse, and she knew I was going through a lot of problems. So they sent me to a therapist. It was $20 for an hour, and that was a lot of money. Back then, they didn’t have credit

Julie Webster-Smith riding alongside Calvin Equestrian Center’s Equestrian Director, Kate Robbins.

cards, so she would give me cash. One day I skipped therapy, and the doctor asked, “What happened? Where were you?” Thank God he didn’t tell my aunt. I told him I’d seen horses down in Old Town Chicago. That was the tourist area. I told him I went there and paid to have a lesson, and I rode. He said, “And did you like it?” And I said that, yes, I had loved it. He said, “I can see the difference in you already. We’re not going to tell anyone, but maybe once or twice a month you can go down there.” And that’s how I started riding.

I found out that horses were so calming to me. I was in a lot of pain. I was a little girl who had gone through a lot, including a little abuse, because my mother was an alcoholic. That therapist could see what a change the horses made in me.

I joined the military in 1977. I asked to go to Fort Carson, Colo., because my best friend in basic training was at Fort Carson. She knew I loved horses, and she said they had a ranch that belonged to the Army and I could work at the farm. I tried out for the ranch job at Turkey Creek Ranch, and I got it. I never had to do what I was trained to do; I got special duty riding the horses.

That’s where I first noticed what dressage was. There was an old cowboy there in a 10-gallon hat, and he’s the one who first taught me what dressage was. He also taught me a little bit about reining. I had so much interest in both of them and was like, “Which one should I do?’”He was the first one to say to me, “They’re very much alike. Take your choice.”

When I was in the military, they had disbanded the Women’s Army Corps, and there wasn’t awareness about sexual harassment back then, but you were harassed. I had a big old sergeant from Texas, a Black man, and he thought, how could I, a Black woman, ride horses? He would say I didn’t know what I was doing, black women didn’t ride horses—it got ugly. That’s all I’ll say about that. But I was suicidal. I had to leave the military because I tried to commit suicide twice.

When I left the military, I went to Meredith Manor in West Virginia and got my Riding Master I. I started a horse training and riding instructor business at the fairgrounds in Ashland, Ohio, where I had about 14 horses, but I was married by then and my husband decided he wanted to become a United Methodist Church pastor, which means you’re an itinerant pastor and move all around. So I never got to have my own place, but when we left Ashland I took one of the school horses with me, a Thoroughbred named On the Mark; I called him St. Mark because he helped me when I was stressed out learning to be a pastor’s wife and he taught my children to ride.

But I had really been having some problems: leaving the military, then getting divorced after 14 years. I have lupus and had blood clots in my lungs. I never knew if I was going to make it. And some things that happened to me in my childhood came back to bite me, and I was seeing a psychiatrist. But the horses kept me alive. I would go to the stables and

stand in a horse’s stall and pet them and smell them, and the tension would just go away. Everything would be okay.

By then, I was an assistant coach at Oberlin College, and I just couldn’t be away from the horses. If it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t be here.

Horses have an aura about them that speaks peace. God has given them a spirit of being totally aware of their surroundings. They have to be aware; they’re prey. When they feel safe, that aura of peace and security flows from them and to you. It stops you from being angry, from being hurt, from having problems with self-esteem. If you are afraid, if you are angry, if you are disquieted, you have stress you’ve been carrying, maybe for years, even if you didn’t know it. But the horse knows it as soon as you walk up. If you are quiet, a horse will flick his ears, look at you, and then take a deep breath and sigh. And that warm sigh will relax you.

That’s what I look for in a lesson horse: he has to have that peaceful spirit, secure in who he is, and to be able to relay that to others.

When I was 47, I decided I would apply to Lake Erie College. I got accepted, and when I graduated in 2003, I was 50 years old and had a B.S. in Equine Studies. I was the first Black person and the oldest person to graduate.

Today I mainly ride for pleasure and to keep myself in shape. When I first came to Georgia, I had never seen so many Black cowboys. When I was in Ohio, I was just about the only Black person who was riding. But in Georgia I found this man who ran a Black rodeo, and he told me about a place I should go. So I did, and there were all of these Black people and all of these horses, and I was like, “Whoa!”

I met a man, a Marine named Curtis Harris, a good friend who had a horse, a little Morgan cross named Xavier’s Black Knight, that I trained. He’s the horse of my dreams. He’s jet-black and is the greatest horse in the world with the best personality. He’s perfect for anybody to ride, but when he’s done, he’s done. He won’t dump you; he’ll just walk away, still carrying the person who is learning how to ride! But he is the best ride. Today, horses give me peace. When I first started riding, they gave me confidence. They gave me self-esteem, and they gave me a need and a want to either take care of somebody or be taken care of by someone. Because horses are great caretakers. And that’s what they taught me from the beginning. As I grew, they gave me a willingness to continue living. Where I am now is so different from where I was then. I have a pacemaker, I have a port in my chest, I’m on Coumadin, and I have lupus. When I go out to Horses and Warriors, and when I get near those horses, it stops me worrying.

Back around 2019, I was in a parade at a Black rodeo here in Atlanta. Here I am, a fat lady riding Knight. Everybody else is riding Western, and I rode in in my dressage saddle. I gave Knight a squeeze, and he came in there high-stepping—he’s a Morgan!—and people were waving and calling to us. They came up after and said, “How do you do that?”

Well, you know, you can do that, too.

I want people to know there is no limit to what you can do; the only limit is you. Learn to ride and be surprised.

Julie Webster-Smith lives near Atlanta, Ga., where she operates No Limits! Dressage LLC and participates in the Horses and Warriors veterans’ program at Calvin Equestrian Center in Hampton, Ga. She teaches dressage, hunt seat equitation, and Western dressage.

“Today, horses give me peace,” Julie Webster-Smith says. “When I first started riding, they gave me confidence.”