The Trouble With Horses
5/30/2014 3:52 PM
Okay, here is why I don’t want ponies at my birthday party.
When I was 4 or 5 (not sure and no one to verify it with, anyway) I was staying at my mother’s sister’s house (just to differentiate between maternal and paternal aunts) in Alabama. She either had a farm or lived close to one but, at any rate, she lived in the country. There was a shallow creek that meandered through the countryside on or near her property. As a child, it appeared to be fairly wide and the channel was fairly deep; as an adult, I would guess that the creek channel was a total of about 6 feet wide and probably 2-3 feet below the surface of the ground. The water was probably no deeper than 5-6 inches but it was deep enough to sit and play in on hot summer days.
One day, my brother, oldest sister and myself (and perhaps various cousins but I don’t know for sure) were playing in the water when I heard the sound of horses running across the ground coming closer and closer. Suddenly, about 10 – 12 horses jumped directly over our heads – a most unnerving experience to me. Fortunately, we were sitting in the water and not standing but I have been distrustful of those beasts ever since.
I have other negative experiences with horses that I will recount in due time – but for now, I am about out of time and I feel ill due to remembering that traumatic childhood event. I must go lay down.
5/30/2014 4:02 PM
The Trouble With Horses (Part 2)
6/2/2014 5:36 PM
Okay – to continue my journey (on foot, obviously!). Time marched on after that affair and, to be honest, I didn’t really know that this experience actually had a lasting effect on me where I would be reluctant to actually ride a horse. I think the first time I ever rode a horse, I was probably 14 or so and I was actually riding behind someone else. I was living in Green Cove Springs, FL and one of my friends came up to my door on a horse and asked if I wanted to ride with him. Now what boy aged 14 is going to admit that he just might be afraid of horses? Not me, for sure. So, somehow I managed to get up behind him (he was on a saddle and I was on the horses haunches – see any issue here, yet?). I did, however, take off my glasses and put them in the new metal case that they had come in (actually just got them that day after being without glasses for a week) because my dad had threatened my life if I damaged or lost them (we were pretty dang poor). No way was I going to risk my new glasses just for a horse ride that I didn’t really want to take. Nonetheless, I got up behind my friend and although it was a little disconcerting to bounce up and down and side to side as the horse walked, it wasn’t all that bad. However, within 5 minutes, my friend urged the horse down into a fairly steep ditch and the side to side, up and down became more than I could deal with. I fell off and, as I did, manage to do a complete flip and land on my butt. Guess where my glasses case was?
6/2/2014 5:46 PM
The Trouble With Horses (Part 3)
6/3/2014 7:17 PM
And then there was San Diego. I was coerced into going horseback riding at a horse stable. How bad could that be, I thought? The horses were (so I assumed) pretty much tame and probably pretty slow as well. When we got there, there were a few people ahead of us and I stood there (sweating in fear) watching them mount the horses and ride away. The horses were in a sort of corral and as one was needed, it was led into a narrow causeway with split rail fences on both sides and gates fore and aft. The customer would climb a couple of stairs to a platform which made it easy to get onto the saddle – not bad! It was getting close to my turn; in fact, I was second in line and the guy in front of me was getting ready to get on his horse. He had no sooner placed a foot in the stirrup (or perhaps his butt in the saddle – not sure now) when the horse went absolutely berserk – wait, berserk is too tame – he went destructively, frenetically violent and pitched, bucked, bit, smashed into the split rails, fell down with the man smashed between the horse (horse? – DEMON) and the fence. Yep, I turned right around even though the guy who was running things promised me that this was really unusual behavior. Right. I believed that a whole bunch – in all probability, all the other horses had really unusual behavior and the one in front of me was normal!