There’s a part of me that wishes I’d never sat on a horse.
It’s a small part, deep down: a cold spore amongst an entire being of burning passion. But still it’s there.
Sometimes the burning passion and the icy doubt come crashing together in a perfect storm, and I find myself on a plane, flipping through pictures saved on my phone.
Nearly all were of me and my horse, whom I had just made the decision to retire. But this isn’t just a horse. He is eleven years of my life: a scholarship money purchase that became my travel companion. He made me a professional equestrian. I always referred to him as my first husband (a phrase that my soon-to-be ex-husband never really grew to appreciate).
The struggle of now running a business around fragile, unpredictable animals, and the end of my best friend’s competitive career hit me with a feeling of regret. Yet my job as a C-Horse Equestrian LLC, training and competing horses, is to make sure I do right by the horses put in my care, and it’s a passion of mine that never wavers. Although the competitive chapter of my career may be closing, I have a feeling there are many more lessons for my tall, dark, handsome, and four-legged man to teach me.
Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to get off the plane and onto my horse.
As a third-generation equine professional, Cassidy Sitton has horses in her blood. After working in public relations and marketing for a time, her four-legged friends called her back. Now she finds herself newly single, running a business, and figuring out what “life after thirty” is supposed to mean. She is the owner of C-Horse Equestrian LLC and serves as the Communications Chairman for the North Carolina Dressage and Combined Training Association. She is also the mother of one very enthusiastic yellow pup named Peter Pan.
