Chris Lombard - Land of the Horses: A True Story of a Lost Soul and a Life Found

LAND OF THE

HORSES

LAND OF THE

HORSES

A True Story of a
Lost Soul and a
Life Found

CHRIS LOMBARD

Foreword by Joe Camp

First published in 2021 by
Trafalgar Square Books
North Pomfret, Vermont 05053

Copyright 2021 Chris Lombard

A prior edition was published by the author in 2013 under limited release.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, by any means, without written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer quoting brief excerpts for a review in a magazine, newspaper, or website.

Disclaimer of Liability

The author and publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book. While the book is as accurate as the author can make it, there may be errors, omissions, and inaccuracies.

Trafalgar Square Books encourages the use of approved safety helmets in all equestrian sports and activities.

Attempts to reach the publisher of You Just Cant See Him from the Road, select lyrics of which appear on page 147, have been made and should she be found, credit will be adjusted in subsequent editions.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lombard, Chris (Horseman), author. | Camp, Joe, writer of foreward.

Title: Land of the horses : a true story of a lost soul and a life found / Chris Lombard ; foreward by Joe Camp.

Description: North Pomfret, Vermont : Trafalgar Square Books, 2021. | A prior edition was published by the author in 2013 under limited release. | Summary: An intensely moving memoir of a young man who left heartbreak in Maine to seek healing Out West in the company of horses. Growing up in a small Maine town, Chris Lombard had never ridden a horse-never even touched one. But on one fateful night, as what hed thought was a happy twenty-something life full of love and possibility fell suddenly apart, he met two horses and looked into their eyes. What he saw inspired him to leave everything he had, and everything he didnt have, behind, and go in search of what was missing. With the little he needed packed in his ten-year-old Pontiac Grand Prix, and little more to go on than a belief that someone would give him a chance, Chris headed west to find work on a horse ranch. His journey took him first to the mountains of Colorado, then the Hollywood Hills of California, and finally, the wild borderlands of Southern Arizona. The settings changed but the same lessons came in quiet moments, movingly captured in these pages: watching horses, reaching out to them, swinging upon their backs. Chris learned new meanings for words-presence, connection, softness, and balance-the elements of good horsemanship feeding a deep hunger he didnt know he had. But learning to ride a horse, learning to communicate with him, to teach him things, these required qualities Chris was only beginning to cultivate. Human nature plans; it pushes and it rushes. And it would take a terrible accident to awaken a whole new awareness for time and space, and Chriss place within it, beside a horse-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021012037 (print) | LCCN 2021012038 (ebook) | ISBN 9781646010950 (paperback) | ISBN 9781646010967 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Lombard, Chris (Horseman) | Horsemen and horsewomen--West (U.S.)--Biography. | Horsemanship. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.

Classification: LCC SF284.52.L66 L66 2021 (print) | LCC SF284.52.L66 (ebook) | DDC 798.2092 [B]--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021012037

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021012038

Book design by Lauryl Eddlemon

Cover design by RM Didier

Typefaces: Myriad, Modern Sans

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Rocky, for all the times I look out into the field and he is standing there, staring at me, and I hear the words,
You're on the right path, Chris...

Contents

WHEN YOU DISCOVER someone who cares as much about the horse and who knows as much about the horse as Chris Lombard, you cannot help but wonder how it all came about. What brought him to this perfect point of truly understanding the relationship with the horse and fully knowing how to lead humans to that point, each in their own special way?

I suppose I wondered all this aloud one too many times because Chris asked if I would like to read this book, and perhaps consider writing its foreword.

I was honored. But I really didn't want to do it. I wanted no part of it, actually. I'm a very harsh critic, first and foremost of myself. I am brutal with myself about my writing and often hate myself for treating myself so poorly. But I'm also brutal with what I read by others. If I pick up a book that doesn't reach out and grab me by the throat and pull me immediately, without choice, into a new and emotional adventure, that book usually gets dropped on the floor, and I reach for another one in the stack. I want to care about what I read and who I read about. I want them to take me on a journey that I cannot resist and cannot wait to get back to. I want them to fill my sensesand cause me to reach for a better me.

How could any of that happen here?

This was Chris Lombard's first book.

I spent years and years learning to write, for movies and television,

studying what makes a good story and experimenting with emotion and how to reach it. All before I ever attempted my first book.

What Chris was asking me to do would surely result in the loss of a friendship.

And there's no way I could lie.

How could this young whippersnapper burp out a first book that I could actually praise in a foreword?

You are about to find out.

Because do it he did.

And you will be so much better off for having experienced it.

This book changed my life.

And it will change yours.

Joe Camp

Author of the National Bestseller
The Soul of a Horse: Life Lessons from the Herd
and creator of the canine superstar Benji and
writer-director-producer of all five Benji movies

Alto's eyes scanned the hills. He too knew they were close.
His chestnut coat and white blaze had turned fuzzy with the cold
weather. The tall and lanky, tough desert ranch horse...I softly laid my
hand on his neck and his left eye looked back to me and
there it wasthat feeling I would get with a horse.

Something all the way right.

THE DIRT ROAD TO THE FARMHOUSE was dark and tangled. I turned on the dome light to look at the directions she had given me. The windows were down, letting in a cool breeze and the sound of car wheels over gravel. Like a flashlight in a cave the headlights lit the road and the walls of thick Maine woods to each side, and I watched the farm appear out of the darkness. I hoped the drive would be longer, just a bit more road. I wanted time. Maybe to think about what I wanted to say. Maybe to just delay the inevitable.

As I walked up to the front door, I felt like I was going into the job interview of a lifetime.

Did you find the place okay? Allison asked as I stepped inside.

Yes, I said. I was nervous, that twist in my stomach like when we were on our first date. Her hair was down over her shoulders. Long, dark, with that slight curl at the bottom it sometimes had. Usually in the mornings. Perfectly spread over the pillow beside me.