If you set your mind to it, you can do almost anything, right? Or so I thought when it came to being a horsewoman. I always thought, living on a farm, it should be a cinch. After all, my dad's dad was the "Teamster" at the Experimental Farm at Melfort (also called the Research Station). William George Busby, may he rest in peace, worked hard to care for the Experimental Farm horses. Those would be the days before the automobile took the country by storm. There is a picture of him leading two great big horses away from a barn, him walking between them, holding nothing more than their bridles. Apparently, he was somewhat of a "horse whisperer", because of his gentling methods. He was supposedly good with kids too, so a good person all around. I was only five when he died, so only have fleeting memories of him.
Then there was my Mom, Dorothy, who always rode a horse in her youth and who drove a horse and cutter to school as a very little girl. Funny how I never once saw either my Mom or Dad ride a horse though...hmmmm. She tells the story of she and her little sister, Hazel, driving the horse and cutter to the closest country school (Stoney Creek which was four or five miles away from their farm). It was one frigid, dark winter's morning and the horse up and died. Mom and Hazel had such a fright and probably didn't have a clue what to do. Mom, being the biggest, took it upon herself to run all the way home to get help from her parents. The whole thing ended up being a fiasco though, because she got heck for leaving her little sister back at the cutter to nearly freeze and especially with the dead horse!The first time I heard this, I was floored, because who would dream of letting their kids do that today? They would both be under ten years old at that time, but that was the common practice in those days.
Back to my story, first off, we lived on a farm north of Melfort and we had two huge white horses for awhile. One was named "Peach" and the other "Jean". As a little girl, I was quite concerned that I had been named after a horse...It was wonderful to learn from my parents that in actual fact, I was named after my dad's sister, Dorothy Jean. Hmmmm, I remember feeling so relieved, but I think it was a lucky stroke for them that her middle name was the same as mine.
We also had a much smaller pony named "Dolly". One day, Dad put me (about six) and my little brother Doug (about four) on Dolly's back just for fun. None of us planned it, but that horse took off like a shot and headed straight down the path in the barnyard/pasture that led to the open field. She was trotting fast and if you've ever had the pleasure, that is the roughest ride going, compared to a gallop which is quite smooth. I was hanging onto the mane for dear life and Doug was hanging on to me. I'm sure you could see daylight between our bottoms and the horse's back, because we flew up and down and bounced around from side to side almost dragging on the ground (or so it seemed). Why we didn't just let go and fall off is beyond me. Guess we thought it would hurt. Dad was running as fast as he could behind us trying to catch up and get the horse stopped. Finally, about 1/4 of a mile away he caught up and saved the day. :-) I think lovingly of my Dad today, because January 8 is his birthday and he would have been 83 years old! He passed away in 1992 and is dearly missed by all.
Next, at Hudson Bay, we had a 3/4 Arabian horse called "Misty" who I tried to ride on various occasions. If you know Arabians, the hotter they get, the faster they want to run. I was scared of her because I could hardly get her stopped. She just wouldn't quit, in fact our dog Buffy would race along beside her, wherever we went, but eventually died in the ditch near Ed Hirsekorn's old farm. We didn't notice she was gone at first, but began to wonder why she was missing and went looking her. We decided she probably had a heart attack trying to keep up.
Doug and I would go practice hard ball at our country school (Aspen) and ride Misty there and back, or ride our bikes. He would be in front with the reins and I would be his passenger, sitting behind the saddle and holding onto it. We were teenagers by this time. My job was to bat fly balls for the team to catch. The pitcher was Donnie Foster, a good friend, neighbour, school mate and eventual grad partner. His pitches were overhand and fast, but at one point he accidentally nailed me with the ball right above my left temple. I dropped to the ground, but didn't pass out. I really had my bell rung that day though and it took awhile until I got righted enough to ride home. That ride was almost the same as the runaway ride on Dolly, because I was dizzy and could hardly hang on to the saddle and kept bouncing all over the place, desperate to stay seated.
For me to ride Misty by myself, especialy after she had a colt, became almost impossible. She would let me get her to the end of our long tree-lined lane then buck me off, kick out her back legs, whinney the way horses do, and run smartly and sassily back to the barn and her colt. It took us a while to figure out that the colt needed to go with us if we were going to get anywhere with Misty.
I guess we had a series of horses after that, that didn't stay long. One was this gorgeous gelding thoroughbred that I think we boarded for somebody for awhile. I thought one sunny day as that horse stood majestically behind our barn that I might try crawling up onto his back and see what it would feel like. Up I got, only to be, you guessed it, bucked off...This one was particularly insulting because I landed in an old manure pile...even though dried out, still no less offensive. We had one other small horse. When you tried to ride her she would take off and not let you stop her until she had rubbed you off on a tree or a building or a farm implement. After awhile, that started to hurt, so I gave up the ghost with her. The only horse that was decent to me was one owned by our neighbours the Hooge family. They were dairy farmers. Dale, Doug and I would go riding and I would get to ride their old, broad-backed horse and actually enjoy myself.
Years later, as a full-grown woman, I still had it in my mind that I would love to go horseback riding. So when Anita Stewart, a co-worker started talking about her horses, my ears perked up. She invited me out to go riding. It was then that I came to the realization that I was never and will likely never be a horsewoman. The horse Anita let me ride was lovely, but my back had started hurting before I even got in the saddle. As we rode along, we encountered a huge shaggy, dark brown/black exotic bull in a pasture. I think she said he was some sort of scottish breed or something like that. He looked for all the world like a bear, which is something that terrifies me, but that is another story. The horse was fine on the first pass by, because we all stopped and made friends with the bull...Both horses sniffed the bull's nose across the fence and things were copasthetic (no idea how to spell that old word). We rode just along the ditch and avoided the backwoods trails because apparently, Anita had encountered wolves recently. That was fine with me, wolves aren't my favorite either. As you can tell, I was rattled already and my horse certainly knew it too. On the way back, the bull remembered us and came running across the pasture at a playful trot, but guess what happened? The horse was taken by surprize, I was taken by surprize...After all, both the horse and I knew that all we had between us and that huge black beast was a four strand barbed wire fence. She reared up in fright and started trying to buck, of course. Oh brother, the story of my life. In the end, I managed to stay on her back; the bull did end up slowing down when he got to the fence; and the horse straightened out...probably when she realized this was her new friend. We contined along our way with Anita gently trying to explain to me how horses recognize if their perch is nervous. LOL!! No kidding. The biggest realization I had by the end of the trail and when I was dismounting was that the pain in my back was almost excruciating.
I'm not closing the door entirely on horseback riding, because an old nag and I would likely get along just fine, but truth be told, my dream of being a proud horsewoman, riding a majestic steed, will likely never come to pass.
No comments:
Post a Comment