HORSES ARE WONDERFUL
I have to tell you something that’s important. I hope you pay attention to the life lessons illustrated in my story. This could possibly save your bacon, if you know what I mean.
I’m not trying to invite criticism here, but what I’m saying is that when I was 18, I was ignorant of many things. I risked being severely injured from falling off of a running horse, because I was ignorant and too proud to admit I didn’t know how to ride. A lot of 18-year-olds are a bit like squirrels, at least I was. To me, being 18 meant a lot of running around to go nowhere and everywhere all at once. To be 18 often meant putting your life in harms way just for kicks because you knew that you were immortal. Besides that, every boy knew that you needed to do crazy things to impress the fair sex. Girls will want you forever if you risk your life. Go ahead, ask anybody.
“Horseback riding”, Jerry said. True, there were no girls to impress at that time, but later, it would be a different story. Girls will fall all over me when I tell them of my vast equestrian adventures.
I was on vacation in Southern California and having escaped from my parents for a while, I was having a blast with my friend Jerry. This was my own personal “Rumspringa”.
He said, “ C’mon, let’s go horseback riding “. That sounded like a great thing to do. I had a lot of experience with horses. I think this counts, I watched my dad lasso horses one time and then he tied them to a telephone pole and called the neighbor to come and get them.
Oh, and then there was JoAnn who I still love, but she just played with my heart. She had a horse and she talked about it all the time. I should’ve gone to the stables with her but, don’t you think that me being in love with a girl that had a horse gives me some equestrian credits ? Cmon’ !
I’m saving the best for last. I live near a children’s amusement park called Fairy Tale Town. It was there that I had most of my horse riding experience. If you had the courage you could go on the pony ride. The Shetland ponies would walk around in a circle all day long with very brave kids riding. My favorite was the black one because he seemed like a wild mustang and when I mounted my mighty steed, together we became a tour de force.
They also had a device that enables you to practice horseback riding. It was called a Merry-Go-Round. It’s sort of like a flight simulator because someone made artificial horses that seem to constantly be turning left at tremendous speeds and at the same time, they are trying to throw you off of their backs with up-and-down movements mimicking violent bucking.
So my friend said, let’s go horseback riding and I actually said okay because I had no frontal lobe development. The idea of throwing my life into the wind seemed like a fun thing to do.
We had to drive clear out into the middle of nowhere. Well, truth be told, we never quite made it to nowhere, but we could see nowhere from where we were if we used binoculars.
We finally reached a stable somewhere in San Bernardino County. We found “the guy” and started chatting him up about how much money is it going to cost us for a nice long ride. He looked at us and asked, “ Do you guys know how to ride ? “…………… . Well, my mama didn’t raise no fool. That’s a trick question. If we admit that neither one of us has rarely even seen a real horse, he’s not going to let us have any horses, and we wanted horses……….. so naturally, we lied. We told him that we had plenty of riding experience. He walked off and brought back two horses that were huge to my untrained eye, and scary. I think they were racing horses because they acted like it. Yes, thoroughbred racing horses, I’m sure of it.
Well I bet “the guy” watched us trot off and pretty much laughed because he knew what was going to happen.. He probably knew we were lying about having horse riding experience. He probably thought he would give us a lesson about lying and also give us a thrill. He gave us a couple of high-spirited horses that appeared to have an attitude problem with each other. I’ve never been on an actual horse like this in my life. It’s like, Dad just handed me the keys to the Corvette and said go raise hell and try not to get hurt, but I didn’t even know how to to drive. Every time my horse got anywhere near Jerry’s horse, they both started to stand on their back legs and waving their front legs toward the sky like they were trying to scratch the sun. “Well, I have never had an experience like that before “, I said to myself as I tried to contain all of my bodily fluids. Eventually, the horses got tired of standing on their rear legs and we steered them widely apart.
I watched enough cowboy movies to know that making clucking noises with your mouth says something to the horse. I don’t know what it says to the horse but I think you’re supposed to constantly make clucking noises to put the horse at ease or something.. I know you supposed to kick them when you want them to go, but I think it’s rude to kick the animal. I may have yelled “hyaaa”. That’s horse talk for your rider is a moron.
I think the horses spoke to each other using horse body language. I think they decided that since we obviously didn’t have a clue about how to ride a horse, that they would take matters into their own hands ( ? )and give Jerry and me the ride of our lives.
My horse got fed up with me and basically said the heck with you buddy. I’m going to do exactly what I want and I’m paying no attention to you whatsoever, so hang on and enjoy the ride.
After one last time of my horse standing on his hind legs and clawing at the sun, he set down and we went flying over hills and gorges, leaping ravines and jumping all sorts of fences. I was so scared of falling off and breaking my neck, but fortunately I had very strong legs from swimming and I held onto that beast as if I was a monkey. If we were going uphill at top speed, when we reached the crest and started back down I think we both went airborne.
Then it happened………….. we got turned in the direction of the home corral. I didn’t realize the significance of this but the horse knew. He started heading for home just as fast as he could. If I thought we were hauling bootie before, that was nothing compared to this ride…..
Okay, as I said, I don’t have a clue about how to ride a horse, but I have to tell you that when you are running flat out, it’s like you are riding in a Roll Royce. It is so smooth and freaking mind blowingly amazing. I actually begin to lose my fear. I felt as though I was in a dream and everything was in slow motion. The ride was beyond smooth and I think the best word was luxurious. I was beginning to get used to jumping ravines and fences and I actually begin to enjoy it without fear. I think I had the alpha horse because my horse was always out front leading whatever we did.
We came bursting into the corral at top speed. The horses were all lathered up and excited and there was “the guy” who rented us the horses. We made a point of nonchalantly telling him they were good horses and we had a wonderful ride but we have an appointment somewhere. (I have to go home and feed my goldfish. Yeah, that’s the ticket.) But really, I didn’t think my poor 18 year old heart could take any more horse riding
But this is the honest truth — of all the risks I have taken in my life, that horse ride was one of the most wonderful things I have ever experienced……………and I will never ever ever ever do that again.
