Last week I attended the funeral of a friend’s mom. It was an amazing experience. Instead of hothouse flowers, there were bouquets of laurel, cut from her hillside. That wasn’t to minimize costs. It was to reflect the woman whose life we gathered to celebrate.

For nearly two hours, friends and family told “Rose” stories, and we sat taking in every word. My friend — herself an energetic woman — said it was both a privilege and challenge to be her mother’s daughter. She said it wasn’t until Rose was in her 70s that she could keep up with her. (This from a woman who ran a marathon to celebrate turning 50!)

It seems that Rose was always on a great adventure, and most of them were on horseback. Her penchant for riding where there was no trail turned nearly every ride into a great adventure. A cousin described riding with her as a mixture of fun and terror, all the while learning the name of every plant in the forest. Rose was always hauling kids and ponies around, whether to participate in Pony Club rallies or to ride in the mountains, infecting those kids with the spirit of sportsmanship.

Another cousin said that he learned to “get on, hold on, and go on.” I thought about how appropriate that was, not just for the hair-raising trail rides, but as a metaphor for life. Sure, there are times when we ride in perfect balance, enjoying the rhythm in every stride. But there are also times...

At 71, Rose went on a 7-day horse-packing trip in Wyoming, spending at least six hours a day in the saddle. She never complained. Her last competition was at 76. It was the horse’s first combined-training event. She was described as an excellent, wonderful sport.

Between 76 and 88, Rose lost her sight, and progressively lost her ability to get around. Her caregivers were amazed by her determination to press beyond every obstacle before her.

I wondered what made this woman so extraordinary. The minister said that Rose didn’t quote the word of God, but she walked it. Excellence in character was important, and she was described as having a “hardy grace.”

I came home from that celebration of Rose’s life with a renewed sense of courage. I am never going to have her totally gutsy sense of adventure. But I’d like to have a little more of that hardy grace. And I’m going to remember the words, “Get on. Hold on,” and most especially, “Go on.”

I felt the same way when I read Bob’s blog about his family branding. If you haven’t seen it, you have to take a minute and look at the photos (http://myhorse.com/blogs/bob_welch/index.aspx). The picture of Bob’s little boy fishing in his pockets while his old pony, Frank took a tiny snooze with a “whatever” look on his face, really got me.

The world seems to be going so fast. I rarely see anyone driving without also talking on a cell phone. I know we’re all peddling hard, but I worry that we’re going so fast we don’t notice these tiny, generous moments that help to keep us grounded. If we don’t notice them, we won’t create them for ourselves, other people — or for our horses.

As I talk with people about why they’re drawn to horses, they often reference the sense of peace or connectedness they feel. Yet there’s a tendency to bring our perpetual-motion selves into our horses’ world, and we wonder why they get a bit neurotic. We spend a lot of effort trying to despook our horses. We want them to have nerves of steel, maybe because ours are frequently on edge.

What if we learned to practice the art of taking tiny vacations? Just an extra moment to enjoy the look on a pony’s face or the sweet interaction of a grandma with her granddaughter? Sure, it means breaking our stride, letting our adrenaline settle while we drink in the grace that is around us. My guess is that when we put it into gear after that peaceful pause, we won’t have lost any time, but will have gained something far more valuable. When was the last time you munched on a carrot and just looked at the world around you?

But I think it’s also important to put this in perspective. As I write, there are 200,000 people dead or missing from a cyclone in Myanmar, with the concern that the number could be 500,000 when you include disease and hunger. I can’t imagine what kind of grief people there must be going through. The lack of water, communication, or medical help — it’s overwhelming. In the face of overwhelming numbers, we’re tempted to block it all out.

Anytime you mix horses and speed, there are risks. But there are risks in nearly every aspects of life. We’re approaching prom season, and even though I don’t have teenagers, I get worried. I know the statistics about teen deaths and alcohol (see www.madd.org - “Traffic crashes are the number one killer of teens (15-20 year old), and 31% of teen traffic deaths are alcohol-related.”)

I’m not minimizing the loss of our horses. One of the premises of “Inspired by horses” (www.inspiredbyhorses.com) is that God put something noble inside inside horses that connects with the nobility He put inside of people. Maybe something inside us says we can’t put the world to rights or care intimately about the starving millions, but we can  function fully when it comes to our horses.

Perhaps the loss of a great horse also reminds us of our mortality. When it happens occasionally, we may be tempted to run faster or farther, as if to beat the odds. But when we hear of more than the occasional death, we come to a full stop and look around. As we do, we can become immobilized, as is tempting when we hear about a plane crash, despite that there are 87,000 flights per day over the U.S.

Or in true “carrots for courage” tradition, we can look at the bigger picture, realizing how many races or events have no injuries. We think of all the local shows, and the faithful people running water trucks, dragging rings, insisting on safe jump courses and so forth. And we recognize their contribution. Quite often, they make the difference between a safe event and one where disaster strikes.

Those people often go out of their way to help others, usually in quiet, unrecognized ways. Each time someone checks the cinch for a child before she gets on her horse, or reties a horse tied to the trailer who is about to get loose, they’re making a contribution. I want us to care about Eight Belles and Barbaro, and the old mare in our own pasture, but I also want us to care for the people in the industry, who themselves care a lot about the welfare of horses – and not just their own.

The first session had to do with estate planning. The speaker, Turney Berry of Kentucky (www.wyattfirm.com) gave a “heads up” that taxation laws are likely to change soon. This is really important if you have a farm that you want to stay in the family. He advised horse people who have been fiddling around with trusts or estates to contact a good estate attorney to be sure that your assets will be handled in the way you had in mind.

He also said that more than half of the states now allow you to set up a trust for your animals, to be sure they’re cared for if you should die before they do. I know many horse people include horses in their wills, so I’m going to interview Mr. Berry in the coming months and do an article for Perfect Horse on that topic.

Julie Fershtman of Michigan (www.equinelaw.net) spoke about liabilities involving equipment. She referenced a number of legal cases, many of which involve a saddle slipping, which means that providing a saddled horse for someone may be a liability.

She said horse owners often make the mistake of presuming if they live in a state with an equine activity liability law, they are protected. She said limited liability isn’t zero liability, and the laws generally provide an exception pertaining to equipment.

Horse owners and professionals often have a false sense of security when it comes to matters of liability, often relying on their sense of the law or generic release forms.

I’m laughing to myself, thinking of you reading this and asking, “Maureen, did you really expect to go to a law conference and not hear attorneys say that horse people need good lawyers?” It’s tempting to dismiss the whole thing with that generalization. But sitting there, listening to a reference to case after case told me that matters we took lightly years ago won’t be light matters if it involves us. So a “heads up” is in order on both topics. Of course, you want to operate in as sensible a manner as possible, but that may not be enough these days.

Have a good and safe week, and don’t forget to put a few carrots in your back pocket.