Chosen by a Horse: How a Broken Horse Fixed a Broken Heart
By: Susan Richards / Narrated By: Lorna Raver
Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
4th time I’ve listened to it—4th time I’ve cried
Ya gotta learn one thing about me, if anything. I don’t listen to a book and remember everything about it. Rather, I experience an audiobook. This makes it reasonable to listen to audiobooks over and over. And over. I get something from each and every listen; I experience something wonderful from each and every listen.
Which is how I came about listening to Chosen by a Horse for the fourth time. The last time I listened to it was barely six and a half months ago on my sister’s birthday when we listened at the same time, each in our respective cities.
I cried then. And I cried now.
It’s a beautiful audiobook with simply wonderful narration. Lorna Raver sounds like a middle-aged woman, one scarred by a terrible childhood, by disastrous 20s, misguided 30s and who is now, in her 40s, learning about how to live. For the first time.
And Susan Richards is learning all of it because she’s taken in a horse that was rescued from a life of neglect and abuse. A life kinda like her own.
But whereas Lay Me Down, the mare who was raced so hard she was crippled, is open-hearted and loving, Richards finds herself struggling mightily to broaden her horizons, to melt some of that ice, to open her own heart just a little bit. But as she comes to love Lay Me Down, she’s challenged by her belief, born from her mother’s death when she was but a tiny girl, that love means death, love means endings.
But is it worth it?
The audiobook is nothing but answers to big life questions. It’s about learning to deal with pain, learning to live with regret, learning to live and love in the moment without thinking about what terrible tomorrows might come. The reason I cry so much when I listen to it? It’s cuz it’s about devotion, too—the purest kind of devotion of human to animal, animal to animal. Hot shot, a gelding owned by Richards, is smitten with Lay Me Down, and how he behaves to her always causes a big ol’ lump to form in my throat.
And sometimes grief, pure grief, happens in life too. And that’s part of Life’s terrible beauty. Susan, caring for Lay Me Down, re-experiences her childhood loss, her childhood love. All her life, she’s thought that no love means no grief, but opening herself to the love Lay Me Down offers, by seeing how an abused horse can trust and love no matter what, she begins to wonder if maybe she’s had it wrong this whole time. It’s a great story of tearing down walls, of growing up even if you happen to be later on in years.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all weight and depth: It’s a funny book too. Susan finds herself feeling like a grandma in Victoria’s Secret because she’s decided to go on a voyage of discovery in the world of dating. It’s a hilarious scene, and there are lots of scenes, lots of thoughts, lots of comparisons that inspire chuckles. Richards has a true way with words.
As always, I came away from listening feeling like I’d cried for ten years. Which is a good thing, no? Especially since it was only for a few hours! What a fantastic, fantastic story. You wanna laugh? Here it is. And definitely: You wanna cry…?
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