This story was written by a 16 year old club member, Leah Grisham.  In 2012 she suffered through the loss of her beloved horse Continental Zip, her grandmother and her grandfather.  As a senior at Glendora High School, she is a gifted student and is taking an advanced placement English Literature class.  Shortly after the loss of her horse, the teacher gave the class a prompt for a short story.  Students were to write about what you believe in.  They were told to write about anything they wanted, as long as it was something they "believed in".   Here is what she wrote.



  This I Believe
              By Leah Grisham

          I believe in my horse. Simple as that.
 I believe I learned everything I needed to know about how to live the good life from this amazing pet of mine.

 Zippie. While most parents buy their kid a dog to teach them responsibility, or at least that’s what conventional wisdom says, I was given Zippie. But the thing is he didn’t teach me responsibility, he taught me much more, not just how to clean stalls and tack and how to get dirty and win and lose, the thing is though, he taught me more things than any human I’ve ever met. Zippie was amazingly innocent and irresponsible- never worked a day, never earned a dime, never took a test or went to school. I so wanted to live the good life that Zippie led. Every day for the eight years that I owned him I went to the barn and rode or got him out, and if it was raining, I would find something to do. The thing is, Zippie taught me both literally and metamorphicly how to fall off. I have taken my share of face plants to the ground from six feet above while on a 1,000 lb animal running at full speed, but one of the biggest rules in horses is that if you fall off, you have to get back on. So I did. I was blessed that Zippie was so kind and patient to let me sit on his back every day and ride him till he practically stopped. I also believed that Zippie could do anything, and he pretty much could. Him and I traveled all over America competing and I always wondered why the hell he would put up with an annoying little kid on his back telling him to go and work after he had been just in a trailer for three days straight on his way to a horse show. He taught me patience, not because he was patient, but because I had to be patient with him, all he ever wanted to do was eat. Sadly, everything has to come to an end. My amazing horse had to be put down a few months ago, and if you really want to know, I cried when I wrote this. As childish as it may seem, He taught me just about everything I know and I will never stop believing in him.






© 2013, all rights reserved
High Desert Pinto Association