By Hunter Houtzer Photography by Allison Potter Reining Moses Congestive heart failure left Kim Smith beaten down. Learning to rein horses helped her to rise above it, and eventually overcome. Even to the careful observer, Kim Smith’s com-mands to her horse are barely visible. Planted in the saddle, her spine is as straight as a yardstick and only one hand holds the reigns as BoJac, her palomino, gallops around the fenced-in training ring at her Currie, North Carolina, stable. Without any obvious movement from Kim, BoJac plants a strong back hoof into the dirt. He moves the rest of his body around his hoof until he is making rapid, perfect circles, spin-ning dust into the clear air. Kim maintains perfect posture on his back and just as quickly as he began, BoJac regains his bal-ance to continue his collected gait around the ring. Kim and BoJac are trained in the western horse riding art called reining, which has gained popularity during the last two decades with the National Reining Horse Association, topping off its numbers at 19,000 members. It is a sport that focuses largely on the communication between the rider and the horse, as the rider’s commands are never to be seen by onlookers. The horse must feel from the rider what it is supposed to do. Successful reining fortifies the bond between a particularly responsive horse and dedicated rider. It takes heart for both the horse and the human; that’s something Kim is very familiar with as she, within the span of the year 2004, suffered through two battles with breast cancer plus one heart failure. Kim had all the symptoms for women’s heart failure, but did not know what the signs were pointing to. “I thought I had a slight flu and stayed home from church. By the end of the day on Sunday, I ached between my shoul-der blades and was exhausted. I blamed it all on having a tod-dler and a newborn, but by Monday night I couldn’t breathe,” she says. Above: Kim Smith praises BoJac, her four-year-old palomino quarter horse, after a training session in January. Opposite: Smith and BoJac compete in the National Reining Horse Association Rookie/Prime Time Non Pro Class, designated for competitors 50 years of age and older, at the October 2013 State Fair of Virginia. 48 WBM february 2014
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