The Quiet Love of a Heart Horse

Calli, My Heart Horse

I didn’t know Calli was my heart horse when I first got her.

She was four years old. I was young, confident, and certain I knew a lot more than I actually did. 

We’ve been together for a long time now. She’s 21. We’ve grown up together in many ways. And when I look at her today, I’m often filled with two emotions that sit side by side in my chest: deep gratitude, and a quiet sorrow for what she carried while I was learning.

Calli was there for all of it.

I made my mistakes with her. All the clumsy ones. The well-intentioned ones. The ones that came from believing I needed to be “the boss” to be a good leader. I thought leadership meant control. I thought respect meant compliance. I thought confidence meant certainty.

Calli taught me otherwise.

She showed me that horses will do what we ask even when it hurts. That they will quietly endure discomfort, pain, and confusion if they believe that’s what’s required of them. That just because something works doesn’t mean it’s right. And that suppression can look an awful lot like cooperation if you don’t know how to listen.

She didn’t resist me loudly. She didn’t fight me. She just… carried it. And that, in hindsight, is one of the hardest things to sit with.

Over time, she made me look at myself — again and again. At my beliefs. At my behaviour. At the stories I told myself about what horses needed from me. She gently but persistently asked me to grow, even when I didn’t realise that’s what was happening.

Somewhere along the way, she became more than just my horse.

The shift was gradual. There was no single defining moment. No dramatic event where I suddenly understood who she was to me. It happened quietly, the way the most meaningful things often do. Year by year. Season by season. Mistake by mistake.

Now, she feels like an old soul friend.

Calli holds my softness. When I’m with her, something in me melts open — a part of myself I don’t offer easily, or often. She doesn’t demand it. She doesn’t ask for it. She simply makes space for it to exist.

She has an acceptance that humbles me.

There were moments when I realised I had done the wrong thing by her. Moments when the weight of that knowing was heavy. Moments when I struggled to forgive myself. Calli forgave me anyway — not because she had to, but because that is who she is.

She endured it all. And still, every day, she greets me with a nicker when she sees me.

That sound carries years in it. Years of shared history. Years of learning. Years of quiet companionship. Years of mistakes and forgiveness woven together into something steady and real.

Through Calli, I learned gentleness. I learned kindness. I learned how to see from the horse’s perspective rather than only my own. She taught me that everyone is doing the best they can with the knowledge they have at the time — and that this applies not just to horses, but to people too.

Because of her, I’m less critical. More curious. More willing to pause and ask, What don’t I understand yet?

Before Calli, I was a little girl who thought she knew a lot about horses. After Calli, I am someone who listens.

When she looks at me with those big, beautiful brown eyes, it feels like she sees straight into my soul — not to judge it, not to measure it, but simply to know it. To accept it as it is.

Calli isn’t just my horse.

She is a part of me.
A part of who I’ve become.
A part of how I love.
A part of how I try to do better — for her, and for all the horses who quietly give us so much.

I love her. And I am eternally grateful to her for standing by me through everything.