by Nicole Miller

I fell in love with horses the way most young girls fall in love with horses — through movies, cartoons, horse figurines and even a wooden rocking horse. I couldn’t get enough. Every company picnic, I’d spend all day on the pony rides. Needless to say, my dad knew this wasn’t a childhood phase. My mother had owned horses, and it must have been in the blood.

When we moved onto property, I was given my very first horse, and it was all over for me. A dozen years, two rodeo queen titles, and eight horses later, I’m still as obsessed, though I’m confined to city limits most days. I now get a lot of my horse fix through blogs such as this one, which is how I’ve come to be the voice in front of you.

Since the day I started cleaning stalls at the age of 12 simply to be around horses, the horse-human connection has fascinated me. It seems to have captured quite a few folks:

In “Hollywoodland”* and beyond, there are many celebs known for their love of horses:

• Selma Blair
• Gisele Bundchen
• Madonna
• Christine Brinkley
• Johnny Depp
• Jennifer Garner
• Elizabeth Taylor
• Viggo Mortensen
• Joe Perry
• Robert Redford
• Nicole Kidman
• Jewel
• Lucy Liu

My own list:

• Jennifer Lawrence
• Patrick Swayze (was a champion for the Arabian breed)
• Russell Crowe
• Jamie Foxx (anyone catch the fact that he did his own horse stunts in Django Unchained?)
• Ronald Reagan
• Queen Elizabeth (she’s still riding!)
• Captain Kirk – I mean – William Shatner

There are so many more… What is that spark that draws some people to horses (and not others?)

Readers: What is it about horses that draws you in? How would you define the horse-human connection?

*I’m reading a great book about the cowboys who shaped the early movies and I just love calling it Hollywoodland.