Boots

Thirty-one years ago, I interned for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum at his stunning Irish operation, Kildangan Stud. As a rider/student groom, I earned 12 hours of college credit helping start young racehorses under saddle. At the start of my internship, all riders/grooms were required to have uniforms. The Stud had a local Irish cordwainer come to the staff's common area to make us personalized boots. I remember looking down at the top of the cordwainer's head as he drew the shape of my feet on paper and thought to myself, "This is special." I was so excited. This was the giant Darley operation, after all, the best of the best...and I was considered a good enough horsewoman to be there even though I was just a girl from Oklahoma.

Breaking in those boots was tough, though. As you can see after all these years, the leather is still thick and durable. I developed massive blisters on my heels and roaring tendonitis in both Achilles as we hand-walked the yearlings every morning before they were actually 'broken in' to saddle. Not only were we breaking in the yearlings, but we were breaking in the boots. Each night, I would ice my heels. I'd never felt pain like it, but I couldn't let my employer or colleagues know I was in pain. There was a sense of competitiveness among the colleagues, something at the time I couldn't quite articulate, but which I felt, since everyone seemed to be gunning to be a part of the Sheikh's new Godolphin training operation in Dubai. It all seemed so glamourous and exciting.

These memories are so poignant, now, more than halfway through my professional life. Over the years, I've been asked about what are the most instrumental moments I've ever had professionally and I always start with my internship at Kildangan. As an assured, but naive young adult when I started work there, it was the most inspiring and equally humbling experience of my life. I quickly realized how little I knew about the world and how much better the older horsemen and women were than I. Yes, I could handle myself around horses (after all, I'd been a competitive hunter/jumper and spent time hotwalking/grooming for Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas), but this was something else. This was global excellence, the likes which I'd never seen growing up. During the span of the six months that I worked there, I both felt empowered and kicked in the gut.

When I returned home, I modified my college major to focus more on the business side of horse racing. I moved from wanting to be a Thoroughbred racehorse trainer to ultimately becoming a trusted bloodstock/pedigree advisor to many high profile owners and breeders. After initially feeling unsafe in that world due to a powerful employer's sexual assault and harassment, I went to law school...and the rest, they say, is history. As an attorney, I've been successful enough to breed and own racehorses, even if it isn't, or will ever be, at the same level as Sheikh Mohammed whose operation spans four continents. But it's mine. It's my dream, and that's what matters.

As this nation and the world, once again, go through massive societal changes, I find myself studying these boots again, wondering about all of the possibilities and pain that we'll inevitably experience. I just hope that through all of it, the United States and its allies continue to be places where people, regardless of race, sex, or religion, can not only dream big, but fulfill those dreams, because there is nothing more powerful for a nation than to be a nation of dreamers who work hard to make those dreams happen.