Grace Gu’s story: The bond and growth with horses

Horse Riding is a very cool and magnificent sport, but it doesn’t mean that everyone can really learn and understand the pleasure and truth through this sport. Grace Gu, who is a Grade 11 students has already ridden horse for 12 years. From the helplessness when she first started riding horse at the age of five to establishing the special relationship with these horses, and now we can see her elegant posture on the horseback.

Her story is unique, not only because of her achievement but also because of her attitude about riding.

First Try and First Horse: Opens the New World

Grace first met this sport when she was five years old. She didn’t think too much at that time. She just wanted to find an interest. The process of finding out what she was interested was struggling. Parents thought girl might like painting or playing music instruments. However, these didn’t work on Grace. So, she started to try riding horses.

To everyone's surpise is that she didn’t mind the muddy land or the mixture smell of horses and feeds. She showed great interests on horses, which is the beginning of her story with horses.Although she needed to train with teenagers, who are much older than her, she didn’t feel scary. The training that others can do, she can do so. She didn’t say no to the training because of her age.

Grace is a person who like to challenge herself and standing out. She choice a horse that nobody wanted to ride because it was hard to build relationship with this female horse. Grace’s attitude towards this horse was different from others. She couldn’t understand why other people always thought about conquering this horse. She spent long time on accompanying this horse. After both of them got to know each other better, Grace tried to ride on this horse. Not surprisingly, she just did better than others because she knew much more details than others.

By chance, she was exposed to Horse Riding, and by a chance, she learned that riding horses doesn’t mean conquering, submission, it means tight relationship.

Stick on this Path: Deeper understanding and Valuable Experience:

Grace rides horses once a week, her perseverance helps her to get today. During the interview, she highlights the idea that she trains frequently not only for her skills but also for her friends. Yes, friends, she sees horses as her friends. Grace mentions that every time before the training, she will always feed her friends some carrots first. Instead of focusing on improving the skills, she prefers the time just staying with these horses, talking and looking at them. Grace says this is also one of the reasons why her riding skill is better than other people. She points out that many times people should pay more attention on horses’ different personalities, not just asking them to follow the order.

Grace is a national second-class athlete now, her horse friends and herself work together to get this achievement. She is proud about herself and also love her horses. She says that riding skills not only depend on the person's level, but also test the horse's ability and the degree of coordination between them. During these years, Grace is improving all the time, also, she is leading and training her horses to be much better, not only the skills but also their relationship. The tight relationship is one of the key facts of her success.

What Grace want to say:

Nowadays, more and more people want to learn this sport. She understands the charm of this sports. However, she thinks if people just seeing this as something can flaunt, it won’t be a good process. Grace thinks that only takes horse and person as a whole thing and use hearts to know and build relationship with these horses, people can get the true meaning and treasure of Horse Riding. Grace’s story with these horses is unique, other people can also have their own special stories in their lives.