Catherine The Great: The OG “Weird Horse Girl”
Editor’s Note: This article addresses some mature adult issues. Please use discretion for underage audiences.
By Cathy Sobke
I prefer to go by the name Cathy, but Catherine is the one on my birth certificate. There is an-other historical figure who has an even better version of my name- Catherine the Great. From my experience, drunk frat boys trying to impress me with their historical knowledge love to mention her when they find out that I am also an equestrian. And then they oh so subtly ask if I know how she died? Wink. Wink.
Sigh.
In case you did not know, Catherine the Great was a Russian Empress who is rumored to have died while participating in certain “equestrian” activities. And no, it is not a discipline regulated by USEF. If you do not know these rumors, you can go ahead and Google it. I will wait. Just be sure to use incognito mode. Here is a hint- it rhymes with “westiality.”
The real shame is that these rumors are totally untrue and were created by a group of Europeans who were trying to tarnish her name and undermine her power and influence. It may just be the longest lasting case of penis envy. Catherine the Great was born 1729 in Prussia and was rejected her whole childhood by her mother for not being born male. She was arranged in marriage to the heir to the Russian Empire, Peter III, who was Austrian-born and never assimilated to Russian
culture. Unlike him, Catherine threw herself into Russian life and was noted for treating everyone with the same level of courtesy, from the Empress Elizabeth (her aunt-in-law) to the servants. Eventually, she was able to parlay her likability and love for her adopted country to overthrow her own husband and take the Russian throne for herself.
Once she ascended to power, she was credited for several moves which brought Russia from disorganized wilderness to a world leader, modernizing it in the process. She was friends with Voltaire – not the saddle maker but the original philosopher who pre-dated the buttery buffalo leather maker by about 300 years. She was very popular with the people, established girls schools, expanded Russian territory, and amassed a personal collection of art which now comprises a museum.
But that is not the legacy that survives. Her sexual activities became fodder for rumor in part because she handled her relationships like any royal man of her time- she had a spouse with whom she had children (although Peter was father in name only, not biology, but that’s a longer story), but she also had “lovers” outside her marriage. So why did a rumor start that she had been crushed by a stallion? Well because she was a powerful woman on the world stage who controlled her own sexuality.
The next time some idiot tries to tell you she was killed when she was taking a horse for a lover, you have the ability, nay, I say obligation, to roll your eyes as far back as possible and respond that she was a powerful and revolutionary woman of history, so much so that the idiots of her time had to taint her legacy with a ridiculous rumor.
What actually killed her? A stroke.