What happened to me last week was something I don’t know how to begin to explain, and an explanation is necessary because there’s a lot of people who definitely don’t understand it, at least judging from my recent Facebook comments.
Most of us had a toy when we were kids that we were absolutely, positively, obsessively crazy in love with, right? It was this type of excitement that fueled Christmas Eve insomnia, filled our imaginations while bored in class, and that we saved up our allowances for. GI Joe, toy cars, Nintendo games and Cabbage Patch Kids are a few I remember my friends being into, but none of them compared to my ponies.
My Little Ponies are small, colorful ponies with big eyes, cute smiles and hair you can brush and braid. I was eight, or nine, or ten, sometime in the mid-eighties, and my big sister, naturally the embodiment of cool as all big sisters are, gave me a My Little Pony named Firefly. She had wings and was so beautiful.
So I was really into these ponies and ended my pony phase a few years later with over a hundred of them. I was also into horses, period. I took horseback riding lessons twice a week at the Buck Norred Ranch in South San Jose, and continued to ride, jump and do dressage all the way through college. I dreamed of being on a horse and just running away. Not that I was running away from anything; I had and still have a wonderful family. But I was drawn to new experiences, speed and having a special bond with a big, dangerous animal that just needed some good leadership so we could be off having great adventures.
I dreamed of horses and ponies constantly and doodled them in my classwork. My friends would come over with Barbies and I’d make them play ponies instead.
Fast forward twenty years and you’ve got a girl in a woman’s body who hasn’t grown up. I still dream of adventure and an escape from reality (even though reality is pretty damned awesome too). Somehow I stumbled into motorcycling, and weekend rides turned into track days which turned into motorcycle racing. I sometimes find myself at the track, getting ready for a race, wondering how the hell I even got there, but I’m so glad I did.
A year or two ago I was addicted to track days and just starting to have daydreams of racing. It was then that I ran across a photo of a My Little Pony wearing a Kawasaki green motorcycle racing suit! I couldn’t believe it. It was a Jessica Zalusky replica pony. Like, my mind was blown. It was like walking into to your kitchen and seeing a monkey grabbing a beer out of the fridge. It didn’t compute. But I thought it was the most awesome thing I’d ever seen!
The Jessica Zalusky Replica Racing Pony
I eventually found a website called Ponyrific.com, which features the art, humorous commentary and beautifully decorated replica racing ponies made by Angie Loy. What’s even more remarkable about all this is that Angie isn’t just some crazy lady with a lot of cats or some shit like that, she’s the fastest woman racer in the country. Not only that, she’s also beautiful, interesting, and as cool as my big sister.
I’ve been pestering Angie to make me my own replica racing pony ever since.
Friday, I finally got my pony. I know it’s a bit silly, maybe even dorky, but I really do feel the pony magic. I still dream of going fast and running away into the countryside. I dream of going faster around the racetrack. I dream of being really, really good at motorcycle racing. I dream of anything and everything that I want, and I often get it. But even if I don’t, the pony magic fills me up with dreams anyway and my dreams make me happy.
The Christie Cooley Replica Racing Pony
Thanks Angie for putting something so fun and special into the world. Now when are you going to make the Angie Loy Replica Racing Pony, or are me and Krystyna going to have to take care of that?
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