PENINSULA HORSEPLAY: ‘Take the Horse and Run’: A friendship story
Published 1:30 am Saturday, June 13, 2026
GLORIOUS TO HEART wrenching to momentous — and a book that will remain in my soul forever — is how I felt after reading former Agnew resident Haylee Graham’s book, “Take the Horse and Run.”
Graham’s talent at descriptive writing immersed me into her life story, beginning at the tender age of 10, when a $60,000 prized show horse entered her life. Soon after, he became her closest friend and companion.
Graham describes the moment she first saw Cartier. It was 2003. After a long day of looking at prospective new show horses for her mother, with Chad (their horse trainer Chad Mahaffey), a groom led a tall, lean and “majestic dark horse into the embrace of the descending sunlight. His coat was like a melted mixture of my favorite milk and dark chocolates, but when the sun hit just right, it gleamed amber. Cartier’s long legs were dipped in midnight, and his black mane and tail flowed in the warm California breeze like wispy shadows … This was a superstar.”
Not long after purchasing him, her mom and step-dad’s already fractured marriage turned into its final stages. As shouting matches rattled the walls and accusations flew, the young girl fell into a pained, sullen silence. She described her first time riding Cartier, at 10, was due to acting out her home-life frustrations by being a brat to Mahaffey. She refused to retrieve his cell phone at the tack room so he could call her mother while he was working with Cartier in the arena. He gave her a choice: either get the cell phone or get on the horse while he retrieved it.
She chose the horse. After Mahaffey lifted her up high onto Cartier’s saddle, she described feeling as if she were on top of a skyscraper. With the trainer watching, she cantered him around the arena. Then, deciding to show Mahaffey how brave she was, she steered the horse toward a small jump. Cartier did what he was bred to do: He jumped it, soaring 3 feet in the air higher than the jump and at a speed so fast Graham was propelled up and out of the saddle before she fell hard on the arena sand.
Only her pride was hurt. Despite vowing never to ride him again, she decided she could still be his friend. Soon she was spending hours in his stall, talking to him, telling him all her woes and secrets while sharing her Skittles with him, writing, “Cartier would listen — truly listen to my ramblings.” She felt safer with him than anywhere in the world. And she started riding him, regularly.
Three years after they met, Cartier and Graham became Southern California show jumping champions of their division.
Disruption
She’d just started sixth grade when her mom’s marriage ended. They got to keep Cartier, but their once-lavish lifestyle ended. Graham and her mom moved into a small dilapidated house in an area overrun with drug dealers and crime. While her mom hung out with a new set of friends and dealt with one problem after another, including another rocky marriage with legal troubles, Graham coped by spending all her free time with Cartier.
A month before her high school graduation, Cartier tore a suspensory ligament. He needed an entire year of stall rest to heal and was only allowed to be hand walked around the ranch. That summer, a onetime close friend of her mother, a lawyer, took legal action to seize ownership of Cartier under the guise of her mother’s legal debt to him — even threatening to sell him to a slaughterhouse to pay it off. After he hired a sleezy private detective to harass and intimidate Graham, her mother urged her to take the horse and run, which is what she did under the cloak of darkness.
Life on the run became dangerous, setting off a tragic chain of events that separated the two and almost cost both their lives. What follows is story of loss, loyalty, hitting rock bottom and, 10 years later, redemption after she regained ownership of Cartier.
In 2023, she took Cartier to Fox-Bell Farm. Graham, now 33, shared, “Under Shelby’s training, and with the care, dedication and support of the Fox-Bell team, Cartier slowly regained his strength, confidence and fitness. That’s when he told us that he wanted to try jumping again — at the astounding age of 28.”
Because of their efforts, she said, “Cartier and I were able to compete together again for the first time in 15 years at Fox-Bell’s 2024 annual Halloween show, a moment I never thought would be possible.”
“They poured so much time, expertise and love into him, and they helped give our story the happy ending I’d hoped for. That is why a percentage of every book sold will be donated back to Fox-Bell Farm & Humane Society to help their ongoing rescue and rehabilitation efforts. Cartier’s happy ending is just one of many Shelby and her mother Martha help make possible, and I am incredibly grateful for the work they do.”
If you’ve ever doubted horses have deep feelings and emotions, then this a must read. Take the Horse and Run is available on Amazon and other book stores. To learn more, visit: www.hayleegrahamwrites.com.
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Karen Griffiths’ column, Peninsula Horseplay, appears the second and fourth Saturday of each month.
If you have a horse event, clinic or seminar you would like listed, email Griffiths at kbg@olympus.net at least two weeks in advance. You can also call her at 360-460-6299.
