25 Who Love to Ride

As a horse owner for more than four decades who still loves to ride, I am always looking to hear famous and influential folks’ stories about working with and taking care of their four-legged companions.

As the co-author of The New York Times bestseller People We Know, Horses They Love, I discovered long ago the ties that bind these people together. There’s little to do with celebrity, and everything to do with how important, enduring, and enjoyable their relationships are with horses they own or perhaps just ride. All have an appreciation for these marvelous creatures, along with the respect for nature, freedom, and openness fostered in their presence.

With that in mind, enjoy some heartwarming horse stories and quips from 25 of our favorites.

1. Wes Studi (Actor)

“The horse I’m riding in Santa Fe is Carbon Copy, a beautiful and elegant black color, accented with a small white blaze and random white spots throughout her body. A gaited horse, each of her feet moves independently of the other three, causing a sensation of gliding over all type of terrain, creating a very soft ride. I didn’t train Carbon Copy but I love to ride her, as she is extremely intelligent, communicative, and very good with people. She has the ability to do a short-single foot that is so comfortable; your body is moving back and forth with no bounce to her movement.”

2. Robert Redford (Actor/Director)

“I bought my first horse soon after playing the ‘Kid’ in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when I really had to learn how to ride well. Many years later, I came to appreciate the vastness of Utah on a monthlong horse journey I made from Montana down to southern Utah on the old trail that Butch Cassidy and the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang rode in the late 1880s.  Although I don’t ride as much as I used to, I still continue to be amazed at the Utah wilderness and what can still be seen from the back of a horse.”

3. Wendie Malick (Actor)

“I didn’t start riding till I turned 40. We had just moved up to the Santa Monica Mountains and suddenly it was a real option. I trail rode nearly every morning with my best pal, Christina. She taught me to shut up and be present while riding. Being out on my horse, with dogs in tow, remains the singular most restorative thing I can do. When I haven’t been able do it as regularly, because of my work schedule, I feel out of whack. I know of no better spiritual guides than my horses, dogs, and the donkey.”

4. Thomas Haden Church (Actor and Rancher)

“When I was a boy, hunting with my father around San Saba, Texas, I always felt that the area was the true West. I would jump on the back of a ranch horse and ride up into the Hill Country. But more than 35 years later when filming John Carter in northern Arizona and western Utah, I really learned to appreciate what it took for the hardscrabble pioneers to ride across the implacable mountains and settle this part of the country — what they had to go through, who they had to fight, and the weather they had to endure.”

5. Bill Pullman (Actor)

“Working with horses and shooting a western is always interesting. [Laughs.] Of course, when you’re on location, you get a certain amount of testosterone flaring all around you, because everybody wants to look good on a horse. It’s the same on our [Whitehall, Montana] ranch, really.”

6. Katherine Ross (Actor)

“I’ve been on horseback, or should I say pony-back, ever since the age of 7 when I went ’round and ’round on a pretty amateurish pony ride in in the San Francisco Bay Area. My mom told me that I was grinning from ear to ear even though the ride was incredibly bumpy and I held on to the saddle horn. My own horse was the first thing I bought after I did my first movie, Shenandoah, and I have been in the saddle ever since, most recently riding at our ranch in Oregon. I feel very fortunate that for most of my adult life I’ve been able to get away into nature and take a great ride.”

7. Carolyn Hunt Olson (Cowgirl)

“When you’re teaching horses and they start to realize what you said or what you want, they chew or blink; that means they have digested what you said or what you want. Isn’t that neat? It’s their language.”

8. William Devane (Actor)

“Where I live in Thermal, California, we will get up every morning and ride at 8 a.m., as by mid-October the horses at my Deer Creek farm are in full polo training, getting ready to play at one of the local polo clubs, and there might be a hundred people on our track. Although I’m a bit too old to play competitive polo anymore, I still love to ride and have several horses there that I will trailer to Montana for Western pleasure riding during the summer when it is 110-plus degrees here in the desert.”

9. Pierce Brosnan (Actor)

“I enjoy horses very much. On The Son, I was fortunate to have good horses — one more sure-footed than the other. But, yeah, riding horses is great fun. And riding in the company of great wranglers and cowboys is even greater.”

10. Terry Bradshaw (Broadcaster and Actor)

“[Early on I enjoyed] both the physicality and adrenaline rush of being on the backs of these fine-tuned animals. However when I got hurt riding at my ranch, the Steelers wouldn’t let me rope anymore. Still wanting a life with horses, I started to read up on halter horses, which are worked with on the ground and for 25 years now have been breeding and raising champion halter horses. I even turned part of my cattle ranch in Thackerville, Oklahoma, into a horse farm and every time one of my horses wins best of class or even show, I know it was the right decision.”

11. Christie Brinkley (Supermodel and Actress)

“Even though horses have always been a love of mine, I was always the person getting bucked off or thrown when I was riding. But I loved horses so much and wanted to learn to ride them so badly that I just kept getting back on no matter what happened to me. When I started riding as an adult in Celebrity Cutting Horse events, I won this giant belt buckle, and kidded myself into thinking that this large piece of silver looked good on everything from sweats to evening gowns.”

12. Morgan Freeman (Actor)

“I had quarter horses for more than 30 years at my farm in the Mississippi Delta. One of my favorites was a feisty gal named Sable, who I would ride whenever I had a break from filming somewhere around the country or world. However, I didn’t want anyone at the farm to ride her and sometimes it would be three or four months before I got back there. One day I was riding her back to the farm and she decided to take off, just stopping inches away from a four-and-a-half-foot fence that I knew she couldn’t jump!”

13. Brady Jandreau (Actor and Horse Trainer)

“Being around and selling horses, and training horses for people, you have to present yourself in a certain way. Not only to the person who’s going to buy your horse, or the person you’re training [it] for, but you also have to present yourself in a certain way to the horse. You know, each [one] is so individual. And you have to earn the horse’s trust.”

14. Kim Coates (Actor)

“I’m smart enough so that, whenever I get cast in a western, the first thing I do is hang up the phone and go out into the country and get on a horse. Just to get that nice little blister in the back of your bum and get those heels down and feel the energy of the animal. The horses feel the energy of the rider. If you’re tense on a horse, that horse is not going to listen. [Laughs.] I know that.”

15. Carson Kressley (TV Personality)

“My family has always had horses and my grandparents raised and would show dozens of Shetland ponies in Devon and other little show towns in Pennsylvania, which made for a pretty magical childhood. Sitting in the hay loft watching them graze fostered a love for all things equine, and as I got older I desperately wanted my own horse.  As I grew up I’d attend horse shows and fell in love with American Saddlebreds as they are so stylish—truly the supermodels of the show ring. This was the mid-’80s and I have been riding them ever since.”

16. Kacey Musgraves (Singer-Songwriter)

From a 2016 Instagram post: “Today marks a day I have waited for my whole life. I have always dreamed of having my own horse. I used to draw pictures and write poems begging my parents to let me have one and stick them under their pillows for them to find. Meet Mismo. (“Same” — because he’s always the same every time you ride and also because we have the same hair color.) Cowgirl dreams DO come true, y’all!”

17. Ty Murray (Champion Rodeo Cowboy)

“What I love about horses and how I work with them has changed and evolved over the course of my life. When I was young, all I wanted to do was ride bucking horses and use my skills as a rider; but as I’ve gotten older I love the subtlety of developing relationships with them and discovering how intuitive and perceptive horses really can be. Now I want my horse to operate off of my thoughts, and I will give off enough body language so that they can read me, so we can react and interact together. A key for me is to start off and continue with good groundwork as it all begins on the ground, where we can interact even if the horse is a hundred feet away from me. Interaction is the key!”

18. Lou Diamond Phillips (Actor)

“Although I’ve never owned my own horse, I have ridden many a fine steed in such movies as Young Guns and Young Guns II, to more recently in Longmire. High on my successful equestrian experience in Young Guns, I decided to do most of my own stunts in the sequel—a bad decision that could have cost me my life. I somehow got tangled in a real noose wrapped around my neck.  When the gunfire started, my horse reared and spun, dragging me by the neck away from the wranglers and into the desert. What saved my life was when he ran into a railway tie, chewing up my leg, but finally breaking the rope.”

19. Jill Rappaport (Journalist and Author)

“I get the same enjoyment whether I’m on the ground looking up into my beautiful horses’ magnificent eyes, or when I am in the saddle watching their inquisitive ears as they move back and forth responding to the sound of my voice. I am the proud pet parent to six wonderful horses and, to this day, whenever I ride, I get the same thrill and joy as my first ride when I was 6 years old growing up in Michigan. Dreaming at that young age of one day having my own horse in my own backyard, I would sit on our fence and pet the air and imagine it was a real horse and it was mine! Well, my dream has become a reality.”

20. Neda DeMayo (Founder of Return to Freedom Wild Horse Sanctuary and Preservation)

“When I was 8 years old, my mom took me to a farm to meet a large black pony named Sam. He bit me. He was perfect. I never told anyone that Sam bit or kicked because I so badly wanted a horse. I’d been riding since 4 or 5, my first word was ‘horsy,’ and I even turned our wooden fence into an imaginary herd, feeding, watering, and riding the ‘horses’ daily. Sam was the slowest, laziest, and meanest horse I ever met, yet I walked miles each day to care for him and ride on rural Connecticut’s country roads.”

21. Noah Wyle (Actor)

“My son is just finishing up his first year at The Thacher School boarding school where I rode as a child. He was assigned a horse his first day there, and that teaches responsibility as well as horsemanship and is character-building as well. I always felt that Owen, who’s 15, was more of an athlete than [an] equestrian, so it is amazing that he has taken to riding in such a profound way. This is now one thing that we love doing together and we took a great vacation to The Ranch at Rock Creek in Montana.  All we did is ride around in the snow and had a really great time.”

22. David Midthunder (Actor)

“I come from a people that have integrated the horse into our spirituality and into our culture. My mother’s family in Montana at one time had up to 50 horses, no car, and just one saddle. I currently have two horses in my life, and the thing that I love about riding is that horses have an intellect and a spirit of their own, and you have to work together with this immense power. Kind of like surfing the ocean or white-water kayaking a powerful river. Because with all of those things, you have to work with its energy or life force.”

23. Amber Midthunder (Actress)

“I’ve grown up around horses, and my mom bought a rescued mustang when I was 4 or 5 and spending weekends and vacations at the Rainbow Ridge Ranch in Acton, California. Horses are both beautiful and magical, especially as a little girl, so I wanted my own horse when I was very young. That dream came true when I got an older retired rodeo horse named Maverick. On my first ride with him, he rounded a corner and took off, so of course my friend’s horse thought he was back on the track ... one fast and scary ride.”

24. William Shatner (Actor)

“I was about 12 and we lived in the suburbs of Montreal, far enough out that there was empty land around, and on one of those pieces of land there was a stable. One day—and I forget how I actually got the money, though I think I told my parents I swabbed out the stables to ride the horse, which wasn’t true but it made a nice story—anyway, one day I was able to wangle myself a ride on a rental horse. And I rode as though I’d been born in the saddle. I was neither afraid nor awkward, and people were commenting, ‘Oh, you ride well.’

I remember thinking at the time: first, how much bigger I felt and how much smaller everything else seemed; second, how much power was beneath me, tolerating me (because I did have the sense that it could toss me any time I became a burden); and third, of course, how much I wanted to do it again.”

— excerpt from Shatner’s book, Spirit of the Horse

25. Erin Krakow (Actor)

“Although I have never owned my own horse, I ride on my series When Calls the Heart, and have a couple of funny stories from the set I’d love to share.  In the beginning of Season 2, my costar Daniel Lissing was supposed to help me up on the horse I was riding, but we both overcompensated and he hoisted me over the side where I landed in a puddle of mud. In another episode, I was filming a pretty emotional scene with Jack Wagner where I was presented with my husband’s horse after he had died, and that horse bit down on my hand pretty hard. I decided to stay in the scene until it got too much, and I had to let go.”

Photography: (Top to Bottom) studio seven productions, 20th Century Fox/Photofest, Ken Amorosano, Van Redin/courtesy AMC, courtesy Doug Blumenthal, courtesy Terry Bradshaw, Howard Schatzberg, Andi Lane Artze, Kimerlee Curyl/courtesy Neda Demayo, W. Ben Glass, courtesy Teresa Neptune/TeresaNeptune.com, courtesy Angelique Midthunder, Melissa Coulier/courtesy Erin Krakow

From the November/December 2018 issue.