We all know the phenomenon of the “horse girl.” There was always at least one kid in elementary school who was weirdly obsessed with horses — who wore t-shirts with horses on them, read horse books, pretended they were a horse. I know this intimately because I was (and still am?) that horse girl.
I had colorful Lisa Frank folders featuring rainbow unicorns and endless graphic tees adorned with glittery cartoon horses. I read Black Beauty a dozen times and envied my friends with Breyer horses, a luxury I never had. I begged for horseback riding lessons for my birthday and even happily volunteered to muck out the stalls at my local barn — as long as it meant I could spend more time being around the ponies. In my teenage years, I taught horseback riding lessons at a local summer camp and finished the work day with trail rides.
It’s hard work being a horse girl. The kids in elementary school would run away from me when all I wanted to do was play pretend horses (I was a bay-colored mare named Brownie, if you must know). Once I was labeled a horse girl, it was hard to shed that identity — although I was conflicted about whether or not I even wanted to shed it. But you know who’s never been afraid to lean into her horse girl personality? Martha Stewart.
I began watching Martha Stewart passively in the early 2000s. Aside from horses, I was interested in cooking and baking, and my mom would occasionally turn on Martha’s program. Yes, Martha would be teaching us pie crust tricks or assembling elaborate roast chicken dinners, but occasionally, I’d also get a glimpse of her horses and donkeys. I became hooked.
I realized, at age eight, that Martha Stewart had my dream life. In my fifth grade yearbook, I wrote that in 2025, 20 years from my elementary school graduation, all I wanted was to be an author living on a farm, riding horses, and writing. I’ve got the writing part down, but the horses are still a work in progress.
Martha, however, has it all. She’s a writer who is about to release her hundredth cookbook. She lives on a plot of land big enough to house a stable with horses, ponies, and donkeys. She can jump from horseback riding to cooking to writing and back to riding in a single day. Even when she’s not riding, she gets to experience the buzz of being around horses all day: the farrier visits and the click-clack of new shoes, the cuddles, the braiding manes and tails (all things she’s outlined in her blog). Not to mention she owns some of the most gorgeous horses in the world; Fresians, with their jet black coats and feathered hooves, have long been one of my favorite breeds.
Being horse-adjacent has other perks. It means Martha gets an invitation to the Olympic games to watch the world’s most competitive show jumping and dressage events. It means silly segments riding with Conan O’Brien, and taking trips to Iceland to learn more about the island nation’s horse culture (I think Martha might be the only person who can pull off bringing horses on set in front of a live studio audience in New York City).
For Martha, horses aren’t just an afterthought, but a defining piece of her career. Being a horse girl has paved the way for international travel, interesting segments, and the best perk of all: getting to be around these gentle creatures every day. So if Martha is proud to be a horse girl, then here I am proclaiming loudly that I am, too.
