 My most recent horseback ride
happened just last fall when a doctor who was searching around on the Internet was looking
for people in his area with similar interests and found my website where I mentioned
horseback riding was one of those things I'd like to do more of. He e-mailed me and we got
together a few weeks later. This also has a strange angel intervention about it. My mom
has never gone for a horseback ride and always wanted too. She's had back pain for many
years now and even had back surgery to fix a herniated disc. To this day she still has
problems finding a chair she can sit on comfortably for long periods of time. She doesn't
think her back will take the bouncing up and down. It wasn't too long before I met Doc
that I got mom a romance novel about this women who was helping an older retired women get
a dude ranch going. This old woman's son didn't want his mom messing around with horses at
her age and thus the conflict for the story was set. But the real reason I picked up this
novel was because the old woman had imported a special horse from overseas that has a
special way of walking that doesn't bounce the rider - - people with bad backs can ride
these horses with very little discomfort. And so I'd been praying that mom and me could
find a horse like this so she could go riding. Guess what? Doc has one on these horses. Is
this too much or what? Talk about luck! Anyhow, I finally get to Doc's farm after
spending at least an hour lost on several back roads. (Another expression of mine:
"I don't get lost, I just take the long way around sometimes.") Doc's horses are
a story in and of themselves. He was tired of the city and wanted to get back to his
country roots so he bought a little farm about a hour away from his practice in the city.
As part of his agreement to buy the farm, this old defective Belgian horse came
with it. She had something wrong with her one back leg. So here's Doc with a
crippled horse and this pretty good sized farm with barns and stables and someone
suggested since he was already going through the work to keep one horse happy, why not get
a horse he could really enjoy. He did lots of research and ended up getting a female
Norwegian
Fjord from Norway. This horse looks just like a zebra but is
cream in color instead of the strips, and her mane is white at the roots and black at the
top. He only had this horse a short while before he learned she had a son, so he couldn't
break up the family and had him shipped over as well. Then, years later, he got this
Icelandic horse that
was in the romance novel . |
. |
| The day I arrived was a busy one. The
stable man was there cleaning stales and other routine chores. Doc's fairer was there
shoeing the horses. And after that fateful ride, Doc's dad showed up to pick some tomatoes
from the garden. Doc told him about me riding Artie and asked his dad "how he thought
I did?" His dad noticed Doc's dalmation dog siting with me on the swing (and this dog
is afraid of the swing) and said, "since the dog was swinging with me, probably
pretty good!" |
. |
| My ride that day was wonderful. I did
feel a bit embarrassed once again. Here I was with a skilled licensed
doctor, and he had me wear a helmet just in case I fell off. (Christopher Reeve's
helmet didn't protect him.) This brought back not only flashbacks of my first horse ride
with the lime green T-shirt and flip-flops but also a time when my sister was in girl
scouts and they were working on swimming badge and didn't have enough girls in their troop
to get an instructor for lessons, so my cousin and I went along to fill the numbers. There
were only three boys with these girl scouts, and I was the oldest and never learned to
swim. In fact I had a fear of drowning. The other little boy swam like a fish.
Embarrassing indeed.) And with Doc and this helmet - I mean, he is a doctor, if anything
would have gone wrong I was in go hands right? Doc rode his one exotic female and I was on
the horse for back problem people. Doc said, his horse was the fastest in any race, but my
horse always had to win. So, Doc thought at least this way I should get a ride, when his
horse raced off, my horse would want to keep up and try to stay in the lead. I got some
instructions on stopping and stopping, turning and so forth before we left the fenced in
area and headed out into the wild west. It also needs to be mentioned here that all Doc's
horses only know English style riding, not that it makes a big difference story wise, but
I'd never tried English style before and found it a bit awaked with both hands holding
onto the reins. (Sort of like Gene Wilder in that comedy "Frisco
Kid".) There were a couple places where the ride really picked up pass. I
was really enjoying myself because for the first time I had some control over the outcome.
I could stop, start, turn and so one. And this horse was moving. It's didn't stop every
couple minutes to look over the pavement. Since I had just met Doc and am usually nervous
around strangers I just met, my mouth was going like a ducks behind. Several times
Doc had to interrupt to warn me about what was coming up next on our trail ride. At one
point there was this hill, and Doc warned all this horses have been trained to run up the
hills. He was telling me how to pull back on the reins to slow my horse down and by this
time my horse was at a full gallop. Doc's racing up beside me yelling to "pull back -
pull back", and keep in mind that even though his horse was the fastest, my horse
always wanted to win the race, so every time he got close to me, my horse would just got
faster. WEEE! And as soon as it started it was all over as we crested the hill. (Now
I know what it must have felt like when Teddy Roosevelt went charging up San Juan
Hill.) |
. |
| A little later I got to practice my
left and right turns as we crossed a field full of ground hog holes. Couldn't let a horse
step in one of these and break a leg. At a couple places I had to shut up my flapping gums
and really watch what I was doing. I did very well thank you. Then we went down a hill and
came around a bend in the road and right up to another smaller hill. This time I knew what
to expect, and once again the horseflesh between my legs took off charging up that
hill. Doc is of course yelling to pull back once again, I do for about 2
seconds and then think, "fuck it", let my reins fall loose and we fly up and
over that hill. I never felt more alive in my entire life. I was high as a kite for days
after. Couldn't stop talking about it. I got goosebumps just typing these few lines. |
. |
| All my dreams haven't come true just
yet. One of my goals is to learn more about western horseback riding and do it more often.
I'd really like to be able to go to a stable somewhere, saddle up a horse, go out riding
all by myself, and come back and put the horse away again, back where I found him.
There is a dude ranch near Dollywood in Tennessee. They have overnight horseback trips.
I'd really like to do this on one of my next major vacations. But the next time I go
somewhere to rent a horse, I want a horse trained for someone who knows what he's doing
instead of one for a beginner. I want to ride my horse without feeling embarrassed. |
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