It’s one thing to vaguely like horses, but another thing entirely to be a certified horse girl—a title that Bella Hadid embraced with aplomb when she posted a 10-photo Instagram gallery on Wednesday. They showed her cavorting with equine friends at the Bosque Ranch in Weatherford, Texas, where the National Cutting Horse Association had a show over the weekend.
Is this the influence of her long-rumored cowboy beau Adan Banuelos? I can only assume so, given he was inducted into the National Cutting Horse Association Riders Hall of Fame in 2017, and appears with his fingers intertwined with Hadid’s at the end of the post. But don’t get it twisted: Bella has been a horse girl! She’s an Olympic-class equestrian, so it’s not surprising to see her in the saddle, though competing in cutting—a discipline in which riders demonstrate their horses’ ability to steer cattle—does seem to be a new thing for her.
All that said, I am obsessed with Hadid hard-launching her horse (“Thank you, Tito, I will never stop loving on you like this!”) at the same time as her boyfriend. Men come and go, but horses are forever (or…for a long time? Hopefully? Please hold while I Google “horse life expectancy” and get upset). Yes, Banuelos appears in one of the photos Hadid posted, but Tito is in all of them, which has to mean something.
My favorite aspect of Hadid’s ode to Tito is how, well, deliriously happy she looks while riding him, petting his cute muzzle, and giving him a full-body hug, all while clad in a picture-perfect cowboy hat and some boots that would surely break the internet if their provenance were revealed (speaking of Google, let’s all plug in “Bella Hadid cowboy boots” until we get what we need). The hat, the boots, the chaps, the fringe…it’s all working for Bella and Tito, and I wish them many long and beautiful rides together.