Hunter Quest Farm

"We’ve all heard the phrase “barn time” before, and probably used it jokingly with friends or spouses. They know that asking when you’ll be home from the barn is usually a fruitless endeavor. Could be an hour. Could be three.

You say, “All I have to do is brush my horse off, and then I’m heading out.” But brushing turns into bathing. Maybe some tack needs cleaning. Before you know it, you’re reorganizing your show trunk with absolutely no idea what time it is—you’ve completely lost track.

That’s because the rules of regular time don’t apply at the barn. It feels different there—outside the laws of clocks and calendars. Sometimes it whizzes by, and a 45-minute hack feels like just a few minutes. Other times, it slows to a near stop: standing in your horse’s stall with a handful of carrots, or sitting in the grass gossiping with barn friends until the sun sets.

We’ve all been late to girls’ night, showing up covered in dust and horse hair. Your friends expect it by now, laughing as you waltz into the restaurant in muddy boots. Every equestrian shares the quiet understanding that time moves differently once you walk through the barn doors. There’s something uniquely special—and a little bit magical—about it.

But after more than twenty-two years as a professional horsewoman, I’ve learned that the world outside doesn’t pause for barn time. Time is finite everywhere else, and it will pass you by if you’re not careful. You promise you’ll be home in time for dinner, only to realize everyone got tired of waiting and ate without you. I’ve had my share of cold pizza alone at the kitchen table.

“Just one more phone call” to the farrier or a client turns into missing bedtime stories with my toddler. The barn has been my whole world for my whole life. Sometimes, the minutes that turned into hours became borrowed time I couldn’t return.

This year, my marriage of almost a decade ended. Was it because of the barn? No. But do I wish I could turn back the clock and prioritize things differently? Absolutely. The countless early mornings at horse shows and the late nights with colicky horses didn’t feel like sacrifices at the time, because I was deep in the vortex of barn time. I had no idea how much of myself I’d given to the place I loved—and how that sometimes meant less of me for the people I loved.

I was inconsolable. Broken. Devastated. And still, my soul knew where to go for comfort. I found myself in my twenty-year-old gelding’s stall—my heart horse, my companion of eighteen years—sobbing into his shoulder. There, everything slowed down again. His warm breath on my neck. The sound of him chewing hay. The soft brush of his nose against my face as I cried until there were no tears left.

It might have been twenty minutes. Or hours. I had no idea. It didn’t matter.

Time at the barn has given and taken a million things from me. I’ve made lifelong friends, and I’ve lost some too. I’ve trained horses I felt deeply connected to, horses I owe so much to. I’ve had to watch some of them take their last breaths. I’ve seen riders fall in love with horses for the first time, and I’ve seen their passions fade.

The barn has given me joy, success, heartbreak, and healing. I’ve witnessed beauty that convinces me it exists nowhere else on earth. People tell me I should write a book, and I always say the same thing: it would be a hundred books for all the lifetimes I’ve lived inside the barn."

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📸 courtesy of Ariel Zara Univer