Horse Love

An impassioned account of the many way horse love has nourished the author's spirit.

A Life With Horses

by Sharon Gates

A Life With Horses follows the author’s life journey with horses from her earliest memories in the Coteau Hills of Saskatchewan to her home in the Chilcotin region of British Columbia. The story begins with a daydream, followed by a brief overview of the author’s parents and grandparents on the family ranch in Saskatchewan. The first part of the book relates childhood memories of growing up with horses on the ranch, the second with marriage, children, riding on a Community Pasture and the barrel racing circuit. Managing a horse training and coaching business in both Saskatchewan and British Columbia provides many stories for the remainder of the book, along with showing and trail riding experiences. In part five, broodmares and foals take center stage. Woven through the stories is a thread of horse love, a connection to horses that will not be broken. Throughout changes in home, family and location, horses (sometimes the same one) provide stability. There can be no doubt that A Life With Horses is a story with a message of dignity, grace, patience, courage and humility learned in the company of horses.

Sharon Gates is a horse breeder, horse trainer and riding coach who loves to write. Born into a ranch life in Saskatchewan, and raised with horses, she turned to the horse business in the seventies to earn a living for herself and her children – which led to editing newsletters and writing horse training articles, poems, and anecdotal pieces about horses.

Sharon has ranched, barrel raced, trail ridden, and shown horses in four provinces of Canada and the United States. Today, she operates Wildwood Reining Horses in the Chilcotin region of British Columbia, where she breeds, trains and shows reining horses.