07/21/2026
The One Before.
There’s almost always a horse that comes before the one everyone knows.
For me, his name was Jasper, Diamond Road.
He was a five-year-old OTTB. When I decided to buy my first horse, I wanted to adopt rather than go through a sale barn. Then I found Jasper. He had the sweetest face, and from the moment I met him, I could already picture the life we’d have together. Learning dressage, quiet trail rides, and years spent growing as partners.
He passed every veterinary soundness exam, so we believed he was ready for his next chapter.
Then everything changed.
Jasper is the horse I was thrown from. The accident that left me with injuries and complications I still deal with today. At the time, I didn’t understand why it had happened. I questioned everything: myself, my riding, and him.
What no one knew during those veterinary exams was what was happening beneath the surface. If I had known how much pain he was carrying, I never would have asked him to carry me.
The dreams I had of rides slowly faded. Instead, I realized Jasper wasn’t meant to be a riding horse at all. He was meant to be loved exactly as he was. A companion horse who deserved a peaceful life without expectations.
I wanted to give him that life.
I wanted to keep him forever and find another horse to ride, but I simply couldn’t afford two horses at that point in my life. Letting him go remains one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made. Not because I stopped loving him, but because I loved him enough to know he deserved more than I could give.
There’s a particular kind of heartbreak that comes with doing everything you can while still wishing you could have done more.
I don’t know where Jasper, Diamond Road, is today.
Maybe he’s crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Maybe he’s spending his days in a quiet pasture somewhere. I like to imagine him grazing under a big blue sky, free from pain, with soft grass beneath his feet and no harsh winters.
He may have been the horse before Star.
But he’ll always be the horse who taught me that not every horse is meant to carry you on their back. Some are meant to carry a lesson. Some come into our lives not to stay. And the ones who don’t s
