When you’ve beaten cancer twice, like Rebecca Simon has, you gain a unique appreciation for the word “normal.”

“Normal might not be a strong word, but it’s definitely stuck with me,” the 40-year-old, Portland, Ore., native said.

In today’s day and age, the word “normal” has developed a bit of a bad rep. We are conditioned to stand out in the show ring and are constantly bombarded by graphics and cute clip art on social media telling us to “Dare to be different.” Even Dr. Seuss says, “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

But when life gets tumultuous, we could all use a bit of normalcy. That’s why Simon, a two-time cancer survivor, decided to take the plunge in December and buy her “first real show horse.”

“[During] that 45 minutes to an hour that I’m riding my horse, I just don’t think about anything else,” said Simon, a social worker by trade. “[In the saddle], I’m just thinking about riding, whether or not it’s [my horse] being spooky, or him being funny, or just going on a walking trail ride. There’s this gift of riding that gives you clarity and reminds you to be normal.”

As a 20-year-old studying for her English Literature degree at Luis and Clark College (Ore.), Simon was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system. She temporarily left college to receive treatment, which included mantle radiation, in which her lymph node areas in her neck and chest were radiated, for two months. The aggressive treatment regimen cured Simon of her condition, but it would lead to a troubling development nearly two decades later in 2014.

“They don’t [use that kind of mantle radiation] much anymore, because they found out that years later, it was bringing cancer back in patients,” said Simon, an avid hunter-jumper rider since she fell in love with horses at a summer camp when she was 7 years old. “So, 18 years later, I was taking a shower, and I noticed I had a lump in my breast. I had a mammogram and was told, ‘You had Hodgkin’s Disease when you were 20 years old, and now you’re 38. It’s clockwork.’ That’s the exact words she said: ‘That’s clockwork.’ Aggressive treatments gave me 18 more years and then gave me another challenge, another hurdle.”

Simon was forced to spend a year away from the saddle, undergoing chemotherapy, a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. Her chemo regimen was intense, as she received cycles of potent drugs every three weeks. She completed her final round of treatment on January 28, 2015, and she was back on a horse at her trainer Jill McGrady’s Quiet Rein Riding School in Oregon City, Ore., by May. But recovery from her second bout of cancer left her in a dark place.

“In December, I was riding again and was kind of in a strange place,” she said. “I came to the realization that life is short, and I just wanted to own my own horse. All those posts I would see from my friends on Facebook that said, ‘Life is short. Buy the horse,’ really started to make sense when life can really be potentially short. I just felt like it was something I wanted to do, and I didn’t want to miss the experience.”

With a limited budget, Simon knew she was not going to get a ready-made show hunter; a younger prospect more reasonably fit within her price range. In January, McGrady found her “Uber,” a 4-year-old chestnut Welsh Cob-Hanoverian cross that Simon believes also has some “unicorn” in his pedigree.

Rebecca Simon and her part-unicorn, Uber. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Simon

“I wanted a solid 3-foot, 3’3” packer, but I knew I needed to get something young, and I didn’t care if it was green,” Simon said. “I just wanted a horse that was really sane. He’s just so sane! He’s so gentle and good, and he’s just a good citizen.”

“I probably looked at 30-some odd horses, and he was the first horse that I liked enough to put her on,” McGrady said. “He kind of fell into our lap, and she fell in love with him from the first ride. It was perfect.”

Simon knew immediately Uber was the horse she wanted. Almost magically, the gelding arrived at Quiet Rein on Jan. 28, exactly a year after her final chemo treatment.

What a difference a year makes. Top photo is Rebecca Simon on Jan. 28, 2015 after her final round of chemo, and bottom photo is Jan. 28, 2016, when Uber became hers. Photos courtesy of Rebecca Simon

“Riding has always brought me joy, but horse ownership has brought me a very different experience,” Simon said. “It’s amazing what this little chestnut, dorky, 4-year-old baby horse has been able to teach me.”

Not Broken

In 1999, Simon she spent a year living and working at her childhood mentor Boo Martin’s Touchstone Farm in Temple, N.H. The farm is a non-profit organization that hosts a summer camp called “Pony Farm,” which Simon attended from the time she was 12 until she was a camp counselor in her early 20s, as well as a therapeutic riding program for both the physically and emotionally handicapped called, “Horse Power.”

“When I graduated from college, I worked at a coffee shop, and I sort of had this moment where I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with my life. I bought a ticket to New Hampshire to visit my mentor, and she gave me this wonderful opportunity to teach for a year at her farm,” Simon recalled. “I taught able-bodied kids, but the most extraordinary experience was teaching at her farm’s therapeutic riding program.”

It was during this time that Simon was inspired to pursue social work.

“I got to work with two social workers who were running a grief program for kids in school that had lost a parent,” she explained. “They came [to the farm] and had a Horse Power class and learned how to ride horses, and I fell in love with the structure of it. I decided to apply to graduate school to become a social worker.”

Simon would go on to receive her Master’s degree at Portland State University (Ore.) in 2004. She now works as the family services coordinator at the Pacific Northwest Transplant Bank in Portland.

“Without a doubt, I feel like I am better able to be a support for others, because I have a horse!” she said.

Simon recalled a moment at Touchstone when she taught a Horse Power class of adults who had suffered from head injuries. One of the riders struggled mightily, and after the lesson was over, Simon asked the young woman why she loved to ride so much when it was so difficult for her. The student responded, “Because it makes me feel normal.”

While recovering from breast cancer, Simon truly understood what the young woman meant.

“When I started riding again, I felt so frail,” she said. “I’d read about falling off, and it just started making me remember that day, when Boo said to me, ‘Don’t treat them like they’re broken.’ These folks with head injuries and these folks in wheelchairs are reminded every day that they’re broken, and this is their time to get on a horse and be powerful. Owning my horse has given me back that power.”

Rebecca Simon has a renewed confidence and energy thanks to Uber. Photo by Tais Kulish

“It’s a night and day difference,” McGrady said. “Even if she has an absolutely awful day, when she comes into the barn and sees her horse, that all goes away. It’s all the things that horses should be. This has just been her missing piece.”

Escapism

Riding Uber has become Simon’s escape. She goes to the barn nearly every day after work, and she’s become part of a large community of adult riders at Quiet Rein, many of whom are also relatively new horse owners.

“I have a really sweet barn family,” she said. “They take a lot of photos. Everyone was excited to see me back in the saddle [after recovering from cancer]; they were so supportive. It’s the kind of barn people want to be a part of. It’s a dream barn.

“One of the gifts my barn friends gave me was a renewed subscription to The Chronicle of the Horse,” she added. “So I started reading it again, and I started following the ‘Amateurs Like Us’ series [on Wednesdays on www.coth.com], and it’s a great escape in the middle of the workday to read those articles!”

She and Uber reached their first major milestone together by competing at their first horse show last month, where they contested the green horse division at a schooling show in Molalla (Ore.) on May 27.

“He was a star,” Simon said. “He was hilarious. It was torrentially raining, but he was just a champ. He’s still growing quite a bit, so we haven’t been jumping him too much at home, so six cross-rails in a row was the greatest day ever. He was jumping the standards, so I was grabbing mane. He was adorable; he was wiggling through the entire thing. It was exactly the kind of first show experience that I wanted.”

Uber and Rebecca Simon at their first horse show together. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Simon

“When he went out and jumped the first cross-rail [like it was] 3’6”, it kind of caught her off guard a little bit,” McGrady said. “That was kind of neat. She was like, ‘Oh wow, he’s going to be able to jump big jumps!’”

When it comes to horse ownership, Simon has competitive goals—she would ultimately like to ride Uber in some equitation classes on the west coast circuit—but more important are her personal goals. “I really just want him to bring me joy,” she said. “I want him to remain sound and happy.”

In the meantime, she is content to enjoy her own special feeling of normalcy.

“The 40-year-old I am now is a very different person, and I’m in a very different place now,” she said. “It’s such a privilege to get to ride horses. I feel so lucky to have this unique relationship with an animal.”