Linda Senser will be 87 years old in December, and continues to ride after 68 years in the saddle. She’s owned more than 60 horses since buying her first, Honey Pot, in 1953, the same year that Queen Elizabeth II was crowned and Eisenhower became the US President. Arthritis, a total hip replacement and back problems may have led her to give up skiing recently, but Linda has absolutely no intention of retiring from riding.
Indeed, Linda has found that at times when she could barely walk due to back pain, the agony could be alleviated through riding.
Linda was born in Alabama in 1933. By 1952, at 18, she was living high on a mountainside west of Boulder, Colorado, and it’s here she started riding under the tutelage of a couple of real, working cowboys from Texas. Honey Pot – “the spookiest horse on earth” – was her first.
“I may not have learned what to do, but I certainly learned what NOT to do from that horse!” she recalls.
“We used to lead the horses down the mountainside twice daily for them to get water from the creek, since we did not have water in the corral. Back then, cowboys didn’t worry about horses always having fresh water as long as they got what they needed. Horse care wasn’t anywhere near as touchy-feely as it is today. We didn’t know any different. We never had a horse become ill or colic.”