I AM US EQUESTRIAN
HORSES GIVE ME PEACE by Julie Webster-Smith
I grew up in Chicago. I was adopted, and my adoptive father was a mounted policeman in Chicago. I was born in ’53, and he used to take me to the racetrack as a two- or three-year-old. My mother would say, “Do not take that child to the racetrack!” But he would sneak me there with him, and he would put me on his mounted police horses and stuff like that. That’s how I started loving horses. But the family broke up, and when my mom divorced I was living on the south side of Chicago near Washington Park. There’s one area of Chicago that used to have a bridle path called the Midway. It was a straight shot from my house for maybe two miles all the way to Lake Michigan. When I was about 10, I was riding my bike one day, and I smelled something that I didn’t know what it was. So I followed the smell and saw horses. I was enamored. But I couldn’t go in the barn. I’m not playing the race card, but this is just how it was back then: they wouldn’t allow me in the barn. All I could do was sit on my bike and watch, so I’d do that almost every day. One day the lady who owned the barn saw my dedication. She said, “Do you want to come in the barn? Come on.” I went in, and there was a horse—I guess it was a lesson horse—and she let me brush him. Later on, when I was 16, I found my mother dead; she passed away from a heart attack, and I found her on the couch. My aunt took over my care. She was a registered nurse, and she knew I was going through a lot of problems. So they sent me to a therapist. It was $20 for an hour, and that was a lot of money. Back then, they didn’t have credit 34 FALL ISSUE 2022
PHOTO: SWEET FRESNO PHOTOGRAPHY
Julie Webster-Smith participates in the Horses and Warriors veterans’ program at Calvin Equestrian Center in Hampton, Ga.
Horse trainer and riding coach Julie Webster-Smith has worked on the racetrack, ridden cavalry horses, been an assistant coach with Oberlin College’s equestrian team, and worked with veterans and their horses. Along the way, she says, horses have saved her life.
