When I returned from my summer visiting Aunt Vicki, my parents set me up with riding lessons. Every week, my mom would drive me and my friend, Angela Hardin, out to Mrs. Humburg's farm where I would take a lesson from my first equine teacher, a pony named Mr. Magoo. He was awesome. He was patient. He was smart. He was not too interested in being good for random children. He would be out in his pasture, and my job would be to catch him, groom him, saddle him, and then take a group lesson with this starchy, proper, a bit scary, British lady. Mr. Magoo taught me the value of patience. It would often take up to 40 minutes to retrieve him from the pasture. He would let me get within a hair's touch of him and move off. He was so slick that even if I brought a bucket filled with a taste of oats, he would manage to get those oats and still be free. You gotta respect that in a lesson pony! Anyway, here we are -- the young equestrienne and her very smart Zen teacher.