The Trail to This Tale

I’ve always been the quintessential horse girl. One of my earliest memories is riding a pony at one of my dad’s summer work events. As a kid, I was obsessed with all things horses: Breyer horses, Horse Illustrated magazines, posters, sketchbooks full of barns and paddocks I dreamed of one day owning. I watched Black Beauty and The Black Stallion more times than I can admit.

But like a lot of horse-loving kids, riding lessons or owning a horse just weren’t in the cards. Instead, I soaked in every glimpse I could get: horses grazing in roadside pastures, visits to tack stores to imagine what I’d buy someday, etc.

I was always trying to find an excuse to get my mom to drive twenty minutes into the next county. Just over the line was a massive 450-acre farm that bred Thoroughbreds. (I didn’t know it until later, but a winner of the Kentucky Derby even lived there!) The road cut straight through the farm, lined with miles of beautifully fenced pastures on both sides. For a horse-crazy kid like me, it was heaven. Nearly every time we passed through, we’d spot horses grazing in the fields or riders exercising right along the fence line by the road. It felt like driving through a dream.

One of the most meaningful things my dad did during those years was take pictures of horses just for me. His work took him all over the back roads of Middleburg, Virginia (known as the “Nation’s Horse and Hunt Capital”). One day he bought some disposable cameras, pulled over whenever he spotted a herd, and snapped photos. Dozens of them. He brought them home and we got them printed. I treasured those pictures. I gave the horses names, imagined their personalities, and pretended they were mine. It meant the world to me—because he saw how much I loved something, and he wanted to be part of it in the way he could.

Room to Run is a love letter to that time in my life and to the quiet, thoughtful ways parents show up for their kids’ dreams. It’s a quiet story, but a powerful one: about what it means when someone makes space for your dreams, even if they can’t give you the whole thing. Sometimes, a gesture that seems small at the time becomes the thing you remember forever.