By age 21, I had been riding for 16 years. Like many horse-crazy girls, my equestrian education spanned the horizon of New England-based horse camps, riding stables, and, eventually, my own horse. I rode lesson ponies, racehorses, and – my favorite – jumpers. Save the odd trail hack or 25-cent "ride" I took on mechanical horses in childhood, I'd never ridden Western. And never wanted to.

Enter Benton Moore's Ranch in Groesbeck, Texas. Beginning Baylor Law School in May 1998, I searched for a ranch to live on, knowing that English saddles would be as foreign to the cowboys as cutting cattle was to my former New York City neighbors. The day that Benton learned I was a horsewoman (albeit an English one), he pointed to the small bay Quarter Horse on the hot walker and said, "That one there needs riding every day."

"Hmm," I thought. "She looks like a cow pony."

Technically, I suppose she was. Scarcely above 15 hands, the eight-year-old mare Benton affectionately called "Jan" worked the rodeo circuit. She charged from the pen at umpteen-miles-per-hour after a calf to slam on the breaks seconds later. She didn’t trot, she jogged; she didn’t canter, she loped; and – most unfortunate for me – she didn't jump. Used to sport horses, I wasn't too excited about riding a cow pony.

On another level, however, Jan was much more than that. Bred for speed and built to win, she was worth far more than any horse I'd ever ridden. (She was also the only equine I ever saw "practicing" her sport without human direction.) She was, as he dubbed her, Benton’s "Cadillac."

My first ride on the "cow pony" was nothing if not memorable. When I asked her to "lope" on Benton's request, Jan took off around the arena at a gallop that was to mark the beginning of a great friendship. I rode Jan before rodeos; when Benton was away; on weekends; and after class. My lack of a Western education didn't hurt me. "You did a great job riding her," Benton would tell me. "She went perfect."

Of all the horses I’d known, Jan was the only one to which I could tie no vices. She never spooked. She never shied. You never had to kick her. You never had to pull the reins. She walked, jogged, and loped towards home without running. She leapt the huge crater in the ground we came upon at a dead gallop. She barreled through water. She stopped short the day I flew over her ears and looked over at me as if to say, "Did my little "feel-good’ buck do that? Oops! Sorry!"

The last time I rode Jan, she’d undergone treatment for what would prove to be a career-ending injury. Benton tacked her up and sent me out to the meadow to "see what she could do." I know now that it was her heart of gold that kept her jogging, loping, and galloping for me. Ears up and eyes alert, she finished her ride, had her bath, and went to her stall happy. It was to be her last ride.

If there was one enigma about Jan, it was that she – like many a man – seldom expressed emotion. Though I considered us great friends, she turned away each time I went to pat or hug her. (I was sure that she would sigh with relief when – with Benton’s permission – I swapped her heavy Western saddle for my light Crosby. To my chagrin, her expression remained as unexpressive as always.) My last night on the ranch, however, when I rested against her neck, she stepped forward when I stepped back. When I turned to walk away, Jan turned to follow.

Though she never did run again, Jan went on to be a successful broodmare, foaling youngsters with her same heart of gold. And though I went back to my eventers and jumpers, I never did forget that little cow pony I rode in Groesbeck, Texas.

This past summer, in fact, I stopped by a friend’s barn to try out her new Thoroughbred. The 16.3-hand mare trotted, cantered, and jumped. She was exciting.

"How funny," I thought as I dismounted. "I'll never be a cowboy, but the best horse I ever rode was a cow pony."