The Horse Issue
The equines of Fort Pet + songs about horses
Welcome to issue three of The Weird Girls Post, a newsletter about music life + mountain life, made in Appalachia by me, Mariana Timony. If the topic of this newsletter so far has been a love for music, this issue is about a love for horses.
Specifically, it’s about a girl named Lenza Paul—native West Virginian, owner of Fort Pet, Cherry Coke enthusiast—and the love she has for the three horses who live here: Cisco, Dozer, and Zeb (pictured above with Gandy the cat), whom you might recognize from previous issues. You’ll get to know them in this one.
I didn’t know anything about horses before moving here, but it’s been impossible not to be completely taken with what unique and magical creatures they are when seen through the eyes of a person who truly loves them. I’m always inspired by anyone who is so passionate about something that they’ll change their entire life to accommodate it—and Lenza definitely did that for horses, as you will see.
The Horse Issue kicks off with an interview with Lenza, who talks about how she came to own three (!) horses, what she learned during a difficult first year as a horse owner (sad spoiler alert: a horse dies), and her favorite/least favorite thing about horses, plus advice for the horse-curious. Then we’ll meet the herd as Lenza introduces us to Cisco, Dozer, and Zeb and all their individual horsey quirks and histories, before we finish up with a cool list of songs about horses featuring tracks by Pauline Oliveros, Arthur Russell, Jonathan Richman, and more, recommended by many of you.
Thank you so much for reading The Weird Girls Post. Please enjoy all the horse photos!
MT
Fort Pet, West Virginia
A Girl Who Loves Horses: Interview with Lenza Paul by Mariana Timony
When did you decide that you wanted to own horses?
I always loved horses, but I didn’t have friends with horses growing up. I started taking riding lessons after getting injured pretty badly rock-climbing, which I’d been doing seriously for most of my twenties. I got depressed and needed to find something else to be interested in and I was like, I’m an adult, I should take riding lessons.
Finding a riding instructor in southern West Virginia who has a good reputation and no sketchy background is really hard. The lady I ended up taking riding lessons from, the only reason I found her was because I was selling my first house and somebody who came to look at it asked me why. I said, “This sounds crazy, but I want to get some property so I can own horses.” And she put me in touch with her friend who gave me riding lessons. But I got bored with the lesson horses, and wanted that emotional connection with my own horse.
If I lived almost anywhere else I would not have gone about horses the same way. I had a much shorter timeframe where I bought a horse very quickly after starting lessons because there wasn’t a great buffet of learning opportunities. I changed my life completely to own horses. Then I probably had the worst first year of horse ownership that you could possibly have.
Molly
Lenza bought her first horse, Molly, at a horse auction in Athens, Ohio. This is a photo of her. Molly was a Foundation bred Quarter Horse, an American breed with bloodlines traceable to 17th century Virginia. Lenza brought Molly home on January 2nd, 2018. On the evening of November 28th, 2018, Molly was shot and killed while in the pasture outside of Lenza’s home.
What kind of a horse was Molly?
I don’t want to anthropomorphize her too much, but Molly was kind of like a caretaker in a way. She was very tolerant of me learning her buttons and learning to get comfortable with her. It took us about a month or so to get used to each other. Some people say it takes about a year for a horse and owner to click, but we clicked pretty quickly. Then I was absolutely obsessed with her and very proud to own her. She was a really cool horse.
What was Molly’s personality?
If she had a saddle on it was very work-oriented. I could tell that she liked being ridden. She never tried to go back to the barn, didn’t balk or stop. On the ground she was a total sweetheart. She really liked being petted and was very calm and respectful of my space.
How did Molly die?
Basically, someone thought they were going to poach a deer in my pasture, but it was Molly. I can’t give many details because of a pending court case, but there were always deer near the feeder and it was November, so it was getting dark early. I would wear a headlamp when I was feeding the horses and Molly was so black you couldn’t see her body whatsoever, just her eyes reflecting the light. So I don’t know if she was in the periphery of the person’s headlights or if there was just enough light from the driveway, but I think that’s what happened.
She was shot right in front of her hip and behind her ribcage. Judging from how she died, and how quickly she deteriorated, the vet thinks that her kidneys were destroyed. There was no exit wound so I had asked the cop about doing an official necropsy and he said he didn’t think it would help. In retrospect, it would’ve helped having that documentation and having the doctor say what the trajectory was and stuff like that. That’s technically how she died, she had to be euthanized. There was no questioning it. She was dying and it was the humane thing to do.
What did you learn from owning Molly?
I learned a really hard lesson in what to do when your horse gets shot, which is call the Department of Natural Resources. They’re the ones that manage hunting and that’s the type of thing that they take very seriously.
From Molly, I learned how to be a boss for the other horses. I hadn’t been around horses much before owning her, so watching how she controlled her herd-mates and kept order, I definitely had a lot of respect for how she ran things. It was cool to go through the trust process with her. Not on her side of things—I think she trusted me from day one, for whatever reason. But to be a little bit nervous about riding her and getting to the point where I realized that the horse wanted to take care of herself so that meant that I was pretty safe, too. I also didn’t know anything about pedigrees or anything like that, so with Molly being a Foundation bred Quarter Horse, I started to read a lot about foundation sires and why that breeding was what it was and geeked out on that.
Why did you decide to get another horse after Molly died?
I wanted to throw in the towel so badly. I was like, I can’t do this. It’s too difficult, it’s too expensive, I can’t see another one of them die. It was awful, but I stuck with it because I had changed my whole life for it. It was like, I’m going to trust the person that I was before all the hard stuff happened. I’m going to push through out of respect to myself and what I wanted at one time. And that’s what I did, I just tried to take it day by day.
What’s the best part about owning horses?
I like riding them, but that’s not the main draw. 80% of the joy of having horses for me is just taking care of them and making them happy. They’re really special to be around. They’re so big and have such intricate personalities and dynamic social structures, in addition to how beautiful they are. There’s an old school cowboy approach to owning horses where they’re viewed more as investment or a tool for a job. Some people are in the mindset of: horses aren’t pets, they’re livestock. But I like the emotional connection.
What’s the worst part about owning horses?
Constantly worrying about what could be wrong with them. Horses are really delicate, and it’s scary to think about that to save one of their lives might a $3,000 veterinary bill that I can’t pay. I don’t want to go into debt for something that might not make their quality of life better. I think that’s a legit reason why some people emotionally distance themselves from their horses. They’re so expensive and hard to take care of and they live for so long. It makes me sick to think about, but in the back of my head I know something could go wrong at any moment in time.
Your horses seem pretty happy.
They’re definitely fat. They’re not asked to do much. That’s a shortcoming on my part. I need to ride them and haul them places and just expose them to as much stuff as possible.
What do you wish you’d known about horses before changing your life around to own them?
A million things! I’m constantly learning and watching videos and trying to navigate a world of very muddied advice. There’s so many different opinions and ways to do things with horses. I have a number of people, like mentors, who I approach with questions. Some people are better at health things, some people are better at behavior things. If you’re thinking about getting into horses, building that base and having people you can go to with questions is really important. Relying on the internet, the answers are so all over the place. It’s really frustrating. I’m very much a black and white person, but the entire horse world is grey. There are so many different schools of thoughts with horses because they’re so wildly different. That’s been really challenging for me.
What have you learned from owning horses?
Horses have really taught me patience. I’ve had to slow down. They determine a lot of your time. I definitely dove headfirst into the lifestyle. The whole thing has been very humbling because in the beginning I was like, I’ll figure it out, dumber people than me have done it. But so much comes from just being around horses and being around a bunch of different horses. It’s constant learning experience. It’s cool and it’s scary at the same time.
Any advice you’d like to give to people thinking about getting into the horse life?
Horses absolutely have to have a leader. If they don’t have a leader, they’re lost. They don’t want to have this jumbled range of how to feel in a day. A boss mare like Molly was very black and white, this is what you can do and what you can’t do. Just being firm and giving them that leadership is important because it lets them know they don’t have anything to worry about it, that you have it under control and they can listen to you. What looks firm as far as leadership or training a horse is really just establishing trust. I’m in charge and you can chill. That’s a huge thing.
Meet the Herd
The horses of Fort Pet in Lenza’s own words.
Terms to Know
Gelding - A castrated male horse
Weanling - A newly weaned animal
Cisco
Cisco is a 10 year old grade gelding, which means he doesn’t have any registration papers. He was raised about an hour from here. I first met him because he was boarded with Molly. Him and Molly were boyfriend and girlfriend. They caused some issues at the ranch where they were boarded because they would get all the other horses riled up. They had to be separated. I bought Cisco in January of 2019 after Molly passed away.
Cisco is an awesome trail horse. He’s really brave and not spooky at all. He knows his job. He’s pretty standoffish on the ground. He’s hard to pet, especially compared to the other two, who are very social. If you pet him on the shoulder, he repositions himself. He wants to be able to see you at all times. But one thing that’s nice about Cisco is that he’s really respectful of your space. I can very easily back him away from me by just waving my arms. That makes him pretty safe to be on the ground with.
He’s kind of a proud horse. I don’t really like how he asserts his dominance over the other two. It looks like insecurity to me. But I don’t think Cisco was ever a pet until I got him. He’s had to learn to tolerate and accept hugs. I think he does like being ridden. He seems to enjoy it, he always does what you ask him to do.
Fun Fact: Cisco is allegedly named after Kevin Costner’s horse in “Dances with Wolves”
Zeb
The baby of the herd, Smokin King’s Zebulon aka Zeb is one-year-old colt. Lenza has been raising him since he was a foal.
I would never have considered buying a weanling. Zeb came from the woman who bred and owned Molly for the first 11 years of her life. We had become friends so when Molly passed, I told her that I would love to find another horse that was bred or trained like Molly. She said she had a horse that couldn’t be any more closely related. That was Zeb, who was a four-month-old foal at the time. Molly’s half-sister is Zeb’s mom.
The day Zeb came to Fort Pet
At first I was like, there’s no way. I don’t know enough at all to raise a baby horse. She assured me that she would be with me throughout the whole process and if I had any questions I could reach out to her. She felt confident in me raising Zeb so that gave me the confidence to buy him. He came here in August of 2019.
I was a little bit nervous about bringing a foal in with Cisco, but he took ownership over Zeb and was very protective of him. I was really happy to see that they got along so well.
Zeb is so social and very goofy. He’s very much a baby. He kind of demands affection. I think I’ve really raised him like a puppy. It’s cool to know that I’m raising him exactly how I would raise a horse. Nobody else has ever had him. I feel like Zeb’s mom a lot of times because, if he gets picked on in the barn, he comes over to me to pout. He is so funny. A healthy horse can live to be 30 or 35 year old, and I hope I have Zeb for that long.
Zeb will get his first rides under saddle when he turns two and then around three is when it’ll be more like a training program. I’d love to train him myself, but it’ll all hinge on what kind of horse he turns into. I think he’s going to be good. Even when I work with him now he’s interested in what I’m asking him to do. He likes to do the right thing, he doesn’t want to be bad, he doesn’t want to get in trouble. It’s a lot of responsibility to turn him into an upstanding equine citizen, where it puts him in a place for the rest of his life where he’s in a good position. I want to go above and beyond with his training to make sure he’s well protected.
Dozer
Dozer is a 10-year-old Appaloosa. He was a lesson horse at a girl’s boarding school before coming to Fort Pet. One of the most recognizable of horse breeds, the history of the Appaloosa is intertwined with the history of Westward Expansion and the Native American genocide in the United States. You can learn more here.
Appaloosas do have a reputation for being stubborn or crazy. You’ll hear people say they would never own one. But a place nearby was selling their lesson horses, so I went and met Dozer. He was so chill and so quiet. Cisco tries to walk off whenever you get on him, but Dozey was super low key. He’s 10 years old and registered. His full name is WAPS Prince of War, which is ironic for a such a laid-back horse.
I ended up with Dozer because I really wanted to have a horse that someone could ride with me since it’ll be a while until Zeb can be ridden. I was hoping to find one that I could put almost anybody on their back and not worry about them. Dozey is like that for the most part, but he is kind of spooky and doesn’t have a ton of confidence when riding alone.
Another justification for buying him was to give Zeb more of a herd dynamic to grow up in instead of just having Cisco, who would never put him in his place. I think having Dozey around has been good for Zeb.
I call him Dozer because he’s built like a heavy piece of machinery. He’s very pushy, and I’ve had to be very firm with him about respecting my space. He’s also constantly falling asleep in the round pen.
Editor’s Note: Dozer left Fort Pet this week. For the reasons described above, mainly his spookiness, Lenza decided he wouldn’t be happy as a trail horse and sold him back to his original owner, who is opening a new riding school. Dozer will return to being a lesson horse, welcomed back by his many fans who remember him from when they were taking riding lessons as children.
Weird Girls Playlist: Songs About Horses
The songs on this excellent list were crowd-sourced from Twitter. I do not fuck with Spotify (and neither should you) so there is no actual “playlist,” but when possible the linked song titles lead to Bandcamp, where you can hear and purchase the track/album and make the playlist yourself!
Erase Errata - The White Horse is Bucking
Pauline Oliveros - Horse Sings from Cloud
Mayo Thompson - Horses
Jack Rose - Red Horse
The Byrds - Chestnut Mare
V.V. Lightbody - Horse on Fire
Bill Callahan - Riding for the Feeling
A Wilhem Scream - The Horse
Jonathan Richman - Since She Started to Ride
Tourist Dollars - Horse Girl
Jordaan Mason and the Horse Museum - Racehorse: Get Married!
Arthur Russell - Goodbye Old Paint
Melody’s Echo Chamber - Desert Horse
Richard Dawson - Poor Old Horse
100 Gecs - Stupid Horse
Prefab Sprout - Horsin’ Around
Sun Araw - Horse Steppin’
Tacocat - Horse Grrrls
The Melvins - The Talking Horse
Leonard Cohen - Ballad of an Absent Mare
Oruã - Cavalo Branco
DIIV - Horsehead
The Vaselines - The Day I Was a Horse
Paulette Humanbeing - Where’s My Horse
America - Horse With No Name (Lenza’s pick! “He lets the horse go at the end. That doesn’t always happen.”)
Thanks for reading, see you next issue :)