Tracey and Legend, photo by Alejandra Lara
In my research into the relationship between women, horses and consciousness, I’ve been privileged to interview many women about their calling to horses, and the transformation that has resulted. Tracey Dwyer’s story combines a childhood calling, a midlife first horse and her deep soul connection with an Arabian named Legend that brought freedom to them both.
As a young child growing up in Palos Verdes, California, Tracey Dwyer saw lots of horses around her and desperately wanted a horse and horseback riding lessons. Despite her begging, she never received them. It was not an issue of cost. Her parents encouraged golf and tennis instead.
It was not until she was in her mid-fifties that she rode her first horse in 2022. She and her husband Keith had moved to Park City, Utah. On a visit to nearby Heber for Sunday brunch, they were looking out over a field with horses when she expressed her lifelong desire to ride a horse. With her husband’s encouragement, the next day she took her first riding lesson on a palomino named Taco and Tracey threw herself into learning everything she could about horses, taking riding lessons 2-3 times a week.
Two months later Taco was unavailable for her lesson, so another Arabian was substituted. The moment that Tracey rode Legend, (short for Noble Legend), she felt an immediate soul connection.
The day after riding Legend for the first time, she had a remarkable dream. Tracey had been plagued with a recurring nightmare since her father’s death seven years earlier. In the terrifying nightly dreams, her father said that he was going to kill her. He threatened her with domestic items found in the kitchen—coffee cups and butter knives.
After riding Legend for the first time, she dreamed that her father was dead, and the nightmares never returned. There wasn’t much imagery in the dream, rather a knowing that her malevolent father was dead and no longer a threat.
Her first encounter with Legend healed what had not been accomplished in intensive personal therapy.
Tracey describes Legend as a fancy and powerful horse—she likens him to a Ferrari—and a unicorn. Lightly dappled, the white horse had competed in shows and rodeos, going from barn to trailer to competition and back, never having spent time outdoors or with other horses. Although she had been told that Legend’s owner was adamant that she would never sell him to anyone, Tracey had a gut sense that he would be hers one day. When it happened, it felt magical.
One continuing challenge for the new rider in her lessons was that the transition to canter was not smooth and she was reprimanded by her trainer. Over time, she moved Legend several times to different barns, sensing that there was a different way to be with a horse than the old style of horse training promoting domination and control over the horse. As she investigated Warrick Schiller’s natural horsemanship and Parelli methods, Tracey faced gossip and criticism at the barn that became very personal. She became disillusioned but continued riding and doing groundwork.
At one point, Legend lived outdoors on land but was unable to hold his own getting enough food, “not knowing how to be a horse,” because of his life spent in barns. Ultimately, Tracey found Alejandra Lara, a trainer well versed not only in natural horsemanship but also mindfulness and Jungian psychology. It was a sea change. Lara immediately understood that Legend, the powerful competition horse, was reluctant in the transition to canter in order to protect Tracey—the same protectiveness that translated to her dream life upon their first meeting.
Legend died of a heart attack the morning of July 15, 2024, and when I interviewed Tracey, the grief was fresh. Before he died though, his life going from barn to competition had changed radically. Not only did he have Tracey’s care and companionship, but he experienced the pleasure of being with another horse. He had “fallen in love” with Willow, another white gelding. The two companions would call out to each other if separated.
I asked Tracey, a Jungian psychotherapist, author and life coach, her thoughts on her dream and her relationship with Legend. After decades of her own intensive Jungian analysis, she describes herself earlier in her life as the goal-oriented Greek goddess Athena, seeking acknowledgment from a “good father,” through achievement and outer recognition.
In the Greek myth, Athena was born from the head of her father Zeus, who had swallowed her pregnant mother Metis. Athena arrived at birth fully armored, with a spear in hand. A supporter of the patriarchy, she became her father’s favorite. Athena was the goddess of wisdom, weaving and practical crafts, and the protector of heroes and her beloved city Athens. A virgin goddess, Athena was a masculinized figure associated with logic, the rule of law and the intellect.
In Jungian terms, Tracey describes her dream as the death of her father complex and the beginning of a great love. The dream death of her father was not only about overcoming the ongoing psychic threat of her personal father but also represented a release from patriarchal domination and domestication, symbolized by the domestic kitchen tools.
Athena may have ruled from the head, but from the very beginning, Tracey had a deep soul connection with Legend that opened her heart. As she immersed herself in barn life as a newcomer, Tracey saw how horses were sometimes viewed as tools or a means to an end, such as achieving status through pushing a horse to win a competition or the anger aroused when horses—or riders—did not perform as expected.
The horsewoman used her instincts and intuition to challenge conventional wisdom, and her Athena talents to protect Legend. She did not look to Legend to provide her with personal healing or status. It was a mutual relationship that brought love and freedom to them both.
In a beautiful testament to their relationship is a short video of Legend’s first time running on grass. Run free, Legend.
Notes
1. “In Greek myth, Athena was born from the head,” Bolen, Jean Shinoda. Goddesses in Older Women: Archetypes in Women over Fifty. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001.
2. “In a beautiful testament,” Dwyer, Tracey (parkcityunicorn). “Video of Legend the horse, running on grass.” Instagram video, November 26, 2024.
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