Do you like horses? I still can't decide. I mean, of course I like them, but I don't know if I really REALLY like them. I don't think I would want to own one, or learn to ride one, or take care of one.
When I was little, my best friend Lauren had horses that she and her mom kept at a stable up the street. That's her, in the picture below, with her horse now. I'd often go to her riding lessons with them, following them around the stable with sugar cubes in my hands for the horses I thought were pretty. Her mom rode Max, and Lauren rode Huck. They'd take them out of their stalls and brush them till they shone and hook them up to all sorts of contraptions like bridles and lead ropes and stirrups and I'd stand by idly, watching. I distinctly remember being told that if you stand behind a horse, it will kick you. Hard. I used to make sure I left a five-foot radius between me and any horse's behind so as not to get knocked out. I was petrified.
I'd hang around outside the ring as Lauren had her lesson, watching her go in circles and getting distracted by butterflies and whinnying from the other, lonely horses from the stable. It looked pretty easy. But when she'd ride over to me after her lesson and ask if I wanted a ride, I'd usually decline. It was a feat just getting up there, anyway. The rare times I would accept, I'd hold on for dear life and slump from side to side awkwardly as Huck meandered his way around the ring one more time, impatiently, for a small girl who barely knew the difference between a trot or a canter or a gallop. I was pretty sure he wasn't doing any of those things, and that was fast enough for me. Visions of being bucked off and getting stepped on danced through my head (which actually happened to Lauren--I remember her ankle swelling to the size of a softball) so when I got down, I was usually very relieved.
Eventually Lauren's horses were moved to the pasture behind her house and one summer when they went on vacation, her family asked me to take care of Max. (Huck had been put down. Which always seemed a lot more alarming, since they're such big creatures. That was one sad bus ride home from school, when Lauren cried the whole way and I didn't know what to say. Poor Huck.) Anyways, waking up at 7am for a week of your summer vacation and traipsing all over a field scooping horse poop into a wheelbarrow probably scarred me a little bit. Big horses make big poop.
Moral of the story: Horses are really big, and a little scary. Maybe that's why little girls ask Santa for ponies for Christmas, not thoroughbreds. Either way, I never wanted one. I asked Santa for bunnies and guinea pigs, instead.
(Note: I do love Lauren's current horses in these photos, Ryan and 2Sox. I'm not a horse-hater, I promise. Just a scaredy-cat.)
Our closest neighbors going up had horses and a big ol' red barn to keep them in- they were old retired ones from a summer camp that offered riding lessons. I remember always being shocked by how huge they were. They let us run with them, all over the field, and we probably should have been more scared of them. I was more afraid of the electric fence that held them in (it only takes a couple nasty jolts from sneaking through the wires to keep kids out, that's for sure!)
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, though. I don't really get the horse thing. Pretty to look at, stinky and uncomfortable to ride, and mostly kind of freaky. For me it's a like, not a love.
(wow, novel comment! sorry :) )
I'm sort of meh on horses, myself. I've always thought they were beautiful and magnificent, but if I had to compile my favorite animals list, they wouldn't be very near the top...
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