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Sasha turned. Her smile was small, a little sad, a little hopeful. “Then let me teach you. No pressure. No agenda. Just… let me stand next to you in the stall.”
In a hectic world, the bond with a horse offers a quiet, reliable sanctuary. A horse provides a unique kind of companionship, where one is never truly alone when riding, as noted by author Jane Smiley.
The Unbreakable Bond: Women, Horses, and Romantic Storylines
This dynamic subverts the "jealous boyfriend" trope. The hero who complains about the time she spends at the barn is the villain. The hero who brings an apple and learns to muck a stall is the romantic lead. In modern romance novels (a la Ride Hard by Laura Kaye or The Rough Rider by Maisey Yates), the horse is the lens through which the hero proves his patience. Holding a hoof for a farrier? That’s foreplay. Calming a mare during a thunderstorm? That’s intimacy.