My amazing bride has been riding horses since she was a wee nine years of age. For the first three years, she happily walked, trotted and cantered a herd of nippy school ponies. However, the first hoofed beast that she could call her very own was a pristine 600 pound white Welsh pony named Suzanne who was given to her by a kindly old gentlemen in Pennsylvania.
When my wife was fourteen her family moved to the North Fork of Long Island to a gorgeous home, barely a quarter mile from the Sound.
The pony lived in the families attached two car garage. My wife would brush her for hours, ride her through the country-side like this were the dream come true that it was. They trail rode through the Long Island potato fields and sod farms, galloping through man-made rain storms generated mammoth irrigation systems.
And... being so close to the salty sound, they'd also walk to the stony beach just down the paved road and swim ... more-like a pair of free range fish than than pony and rider. The photo is one of their actual sunset swims with my wife (a teenage version), pony and a shark-like Black Lab named Dutches.
