The kids have moved out and are settled. The college bills are paid, maybe even the wedding, and you're too young to just sit around. You try golfing or skiing or cooking or traveling, and while they are all enjoyable and give you a measure of satisfaction, you still yearn for more. Then one day, while you're driving through the country with the top down on your convertible, (yes you bought a convertible while you were going through that mid-life crisis) you see a beautiful green pasture surrounded by trees and there is a mare and her foal running along the fence line. That's it! You're convinced, you want a horse. The connection with another living thing that is totally dependent upon you to care for it, nurture it, ride it with the wind blowing through your hair. You picture yourself riding freely and easily through a meadow with a blue sky up above, mountains in the background, maybe a stream or river in the distance. This is what you want, this is what you've been missing.
Come on, I can't be the only one who had this happen to them. If you're still reading this, it probably happened to you as well.
Well, if this has happened to you, and you haven't bought the first horse yet, GOOD! STOP! Read this post and those to follow and then, if you want to buy your first horse, go ahead. I'm not trying to talk you out of buying a horse, but I want to share with you the mistakes I've made, the money I've wasted, the sadness I've felt before I realized what I did correctly and what joy I've gotten out of being around the most beautiful animal God ever created.
So I began my equestrian adventure by taking riding lessons. I didn't really know how to go about this but I heard about a farm that was giving lessons, so I called and was told to come out and "we'll see what we can do for you". I get to the barn and it was clean and organized and filled with horses that looked to me like Pegasus. One was black like I pictured the Black Stallion to be, except he was a gelding! I didn't know what that meant yet but I was soon to find out. Then there were three that were spotted with large areas of white. I had a flashback to my childhood. Tonto's horse and Little Joe's horse looked just like this and I said to myself, now that's for me. I told the farm owner that I'd like to learn how to ride one of those and she said "the only one you can ride is a three year and he's not finished but he can use some extra work and if you're willing to try, I'm willing to teach you". (When you are told your horse "is not finished yet" this means it's had a saddle on twice and been ridden once.) Anyone who knows me knows that if someone asks me if I'm willing to try something it's a foregone conclusion that I'm going to jump into the deep end of the pool. There is no such thing as doing things gradually in my way of thinking.
So off we go. I commit to taking one lesson a week on the not quite finished three year old gelding that looked like Tonto's horse, and riding two additional days on my own to practice. The first ride went smoothly enough. We worked only at a walk and a trot. I practiced steering. I practiced stopping. I practiced backing up. All of this seemed easy enough since when I arrived at the barn the horse was saddled, had his bridle on, legs wrapped, and all I had to do was step on and follow the instructor's commands. I thought - this is a piece of cake. Then came the next morning. It turns out that there is a muscle group along the inside of your thighs called the adductor muscles. I found out that you really use these muscles when you ride a horse and apparently I didn't use them for much else. When I woke up the next morning, I could barely get out of bed and when I tried to walk I realized why John Wayne walked the way he did...I was walking the same way, involuntarily! It took two days for the pain and stiffness to subside. This did not discourage me, though, because I thought eventually I'll build up my leg muscles and it won't hurt any more. So off for my first solo practice.
This time Tonto's horse did not have his saddle on and he did not have his bridle on and his legs weren't wrapped and his feet weren't picked, and so on. I've had one lesson on a horse, except the ride on the pony at Belle Isle when I was six (by the way that horse looked like Tonto's horse too), and I've got no one to show me what to do.
This barn had two signs on the wall when you walked in. The first sign was a liability law sign that said if you die, the barn is not at fault and there is a law that says so. The second sign is a list of "Barn Rules", the first of which was written in the following bold letters: IF YOU DON'T KNOW, ASK. Well I don't know, and there is no one to ask, so I tell myself, this isn't rocket science, I've read magazines and seen videos, I can do this.
The process of getting Tonto's horse ready to ride took almost an hour. I had a blanket but no pad, I didn't know what cinch to use, I barely knew what a cinch was (that article was in the next issue of Equus), and I didn't know what bit to use or even how to get it in the horse's mouth. As for wrapping his legs, no one wrapped my legs when I worked out so I figured he didn't really need his legs wrapped. By this time we were ready to ride, Tonto's horse and I were not on good terms, which is a polite way to say he had turned into Custer's horse as he was getting slaughtered at Little Big Horn and just wanted to get out of there. This horse no longer wanted me around, but I thought, I can't give up now so I walked him out to the mounting block in the arena where he stood still just long enough for me to lift my still tender right thigh high enough for me to clear the cantle of the saddle (I read about saddle parts in Horse and Rider so I was an expert), and we were off. He didn't exactly wait for me to get ready but I was just so happy to get on I didn't care. I took two laps at a walk, jumped off satisfied and exhausted and walked Tonto's horse back to the barn to untack. That was my first solo ride.
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