Let’s start by saying I am not terrified of horses or anything. I just have a strong distaste for them. They are HUGE, they have human looking teeth, and their teeth take up more space in their heads than their brain does. I do not see a horse and have the same reaction that I do with a puppy, as some people on this campus do. I see a horse and try to give it its space in case it decides to do a horse freak out and kick someone in the face, cracking their skull. This happened to my mother when she was a child, so her telling me that story probably has something to do with instilling this fear in me.
I did already know that I had this apprehension around horses when I decided to apply early decision to be a Skidmore Thoroughbred. And since I had taken the tour of the campus, I knew that, unlike the Princeton Tigers, we had easy access to the creatures our school so closely identifies with. But I decided that I would push through this trepidation to attend a school I felt I really connected with – despite the knowledge that there would be horses. And horse lovers.
On campus, I don’t have to face my fear too often. While there are little cartoon horses and line drawings to show school spirit, I don’t have to be around an actual horse unless I put myself in that situation intentionally. Although the Thoroughbred costume has a particularly horrifying mask, I have asked, and this disturbs even my horse-loving friends.
Basically, this fear has not caused any real issues in my Skidmore career, and has made for a good anecdote when these seemingly benign animals are brought up. The only issue is when I do meet very horse-centric people they try to convert me to their horse-loving ways, and I still have trouble seeing past all the things about them I find creepy that I mentioned before. But despite all these, I am still happy to be a Thoroughbred.