"Riding is my solace” Says Horse-Mad Zosia Mamet

When Girls alum Zosia Mamet posted on Instagram a photo celebrating the one-year anniversary of owning her beautiful grey mare, Ten, it was an occasion many of her fans could relate to.

Mamet posted: “Today is my 1 year anniversary with this magical unicorn. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to describe in words what this animal means to me. To all you horse girls out there, you get it. She has taught me so much and we have grown more in a year than I could have dreamed of. I can’t wait to see where our journey leads us. I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to do this thing I love so deeply with this amazing creature as my partner. I love you Ten.”

The 32-year-old actor is currently on HBOMax’s hit, The Flight Attendant, where she plays BFF to Kaley Cuoco’s lead character. Of course, Cuoco is famously horse-crazy too (and married to top US show jumper Karl Cook). In a recent issue of The New Yorker, Mamet gushes over her grey mare and the gorgeous helmet that Cuoco gifted her on the set of their limited series.

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In the magazine’s profile of her, Mamet explains that this past spring she and her husband, actor Evan Jonigkeit, left Manhattan for upstate New York. It was good timing given the pandemic that hit the world. But the silver lining for the actress was more time with her beloved horse, who she hugs and feeds mints to during the interview. “We ended up having this totally unprecedented pause, which meant I’ve been able to ride Ten five or six days a week,” Mamet said.

Kaley Cuoco and Zosia on the set of the hit series ‘The Flight Attendant’.

The daughter of superstar playwright David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross), Mamet tells the interviewer, “I’ve always been a horse girl,” explaining how when her parents bought her older sister a pony, it was she who went horse-crazy. “From then on, I was hooked, a full-on horse nerd,” she said in the article. “That kind of love is like something in your blood; you either have it or you don’t. Sometimes I describe it like an illness.”

She rides Ten for the reporter, gamely explaining what flatwork is. When it came to explaining where riding fits into her acting career, Mamet was equally clear. “There’s nothing I’d rather do in the world than be an actor,” she told The New Yorker. “But I’ve been kicked in the teeth so many times. It’s such a hard profession; there’s so much rejection, and so much instability and pressure. Riding is my solace.”

And when it comes of all of us horsewomen (and men) and the year that is 2020, riding is solace for us all.