My true identity lies with the company of my horse Camilo and my love for the arts.
My family’s relationship with this sport dates back to my great grandparents. My male ancestors rode horses professionally and the passion for horseback riding was an essential part of our family tradition. According to my grandparents, while I was growing up, my great grandfather took everyone riding at his ranch almost everyday, horses were a main topic of conversation as well as a bonding activity.
However, at a young age, I was given dolls and my male cousins were given toy horses for Christmas. My great grandfather had high hopes for his great grandsons to pass down the family tradition in becoming successful riders. I wanted to break this barrier that is dominated by men and wished that I could become a professional horseback rider at the age of 10. Although there are women in my family that practice this sport it was not spoken of often. My great grandmother, grandmother, and mother are role models to me as independent and strong women that are capable of enjoying and excelling at this sport despite the obstacles that they face. Through perseverance, I became the only successor to continue this family tradition of competing professionally in horseback riding.
Throughout my horseback riding path, there is one horse who has changed me the most and his name is Camilo. Initially, Camilo and I had a hard time forming a bond with each other. In our first years together, he did not like my riding style and would refuse to jump, which caused me to fall frequently. I had serious neck injuries that would prevent me from riding for months, nevertheless I continued to persist. After five years of training together and having competed 40 competitions in Mexico, we started at a small height and then as we evolved into more challenging competitions we became more connected to each other and he trusted himself to me, proving to be a brave and loyal horse. This made our growth exponential and I started to feel more connected to him, I began to understand how he functions and began to open myself up to him too. Through Camilo, I learned what carpe diem means and applied it to my life, becoming an adventurous, risk taking person.
As I developed into a young woman, riding and caring for horses has helped me become more confident and trusting, and continued to help me fight for what I believe in. As an artist and a fighter, I want to use my creativity and art as a platform to illustrate the simple signals of vitality through different media. From my rides with Camilo, I use my hands to control movements that resulted in creating seamless jumps. Through clay, I continued to use my hands to create vases like a scribe drawing pictographs in caves from the beginning of time. My performance as a rider relies on my emotions and how well I balance and manage my feelings and techniques. While, when I create works of art, the connection I make with every brush stroke and as a result, each piece represents the current moment and cannot be replicated at a later time. As I grow and learn, my love for horseback riding and art have become more interwoven through the way both require sensibility and complex hand work to create beauty.
Thinking of my future in college, horseback riding, has become a very important element that I will continue at this next chapter. When I get to college, I intend to apply my expressiveness and determination, which I learned from art and horseback riding, in order to tackle my academic life and challenges on campus. Taking my abilities to a next level and to experiment with them while learning new techniques that will make me a better artist and person.
