This Alabama great-grandma is proving it's never too late to try something new.
Growing up in Alabama, Mildred Sandlin, 93, always loved horses — but she didn't have much of a chance to ride them.
"When I was growing up, I always wanted to be a cowgirl — you know, when you can imagine being anything," Sandlin told InsideEdition.com. "I just like the idea of wearing Western clothes and riding a horse and meeting a handsome cowboy."
On her family's farm, they had mules — and she did get to ride those. She laughed that she tried her hand at riding a horse once — "100 years ago, I guess," — but when a friend spooked it as a prank, it took off running and she got scared. Sandlin always said to herself she would get back on the horse again, literally.
She decided this would be the year, and told her family at Christmas, "on my 93rd birthday, I was going to ride a horse."
But her granddaughters stepped in to make it happen, reaching out to local stable owner Ginger Stricklin, who was all too happy to help. Sandlin's doctor even gave her his formal permission, writing on a prescription pad: "May ride a horse at 93!"
On March 10, Stricklin donned her cowgirl outfit and saddled up with a horse named Tough.
"You know he had to be tough to hold a 93-year-old woman," she said. "I just loved it, you know, I enjoyed it so much."
She said she already knows what she plans to try on her 94th birthday, too.
"I told them I'd probably bungee jump next year, and my grandson said, 'Mawmaw, I'll be right up there with you,'" she said with a laugh.
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