A few moments after we left the stables, I worried I had made a mistake in my choice of morning activity. It had been years since I had ridden a horse, and the reins felt foreign in my sweaty grasp. The powerful pulse of the noble beast below me made me very aware that I had, to some degree, entrusted my safety to a stranger, my borrowed horse for the morning: Doc. As we rode along a narrow, steep and rocky trail under the hot New Mexico sun, I was feeling uneasy.
At every change in incline, Do...