Horse sense

If any of you have spent a lengthy amount of time around my father, you've more likely than not heard his horse stories. Apparently, horses do not like him. I won't divulge details here, because I'm not anywhere near the storyteller he is. I have to say though, that it seems to run in the family. Is it possible to inherit a horse-hating-human gene? To be fair, I love horses. I simply mean, is there some kind of gene that horses recognize that tells them we are not to be liked? I don't know, that's probably for another post.

At Heidi's request, I'll tell the story of what happened to Sandra and me with the horse. It was my Uncle Tom's barrel horse, and he was a beauty. I wanted so badly to ride him, and correct me if I'm wrong, Sandra, but I think he threw you first. Which says a lot about my sense, eh? Or horse sense, if you'll excuse the pun.

Sandra rode the horse one day coming down the road from Tom's house. At a full gallop. I remember seeing it all happen, but that could be my mind playing tricks. What I remember though, is that at top speed, Sandra lost control of her seat. She was thrown from the horse, and landed at the base of one of those monstrous trees that lined Tom's road. She had quite the bruise, I'm sure.

Not to be outdone, I took the horse out soon afterward, probably the next day. It was a simple enough ride--it's not like I was asking him to run in the Derby or anything--but that horse just did not want to go where I wanted him to. I'm sure he could tell I was inexperienced, young, and easy to throw. He wanted some grass from the front yard, and no matter what I did I could not convince him to go anywhere else. He took matters upon himself to get what he wanted, and he started spinning. I held on as long as I could, but soon realized that the horse was a lot more motivated than I was. I let go. The next thing I remember was looking up dizzily and seeing a woman running from the road towards me, asking in a thick (I think German) accent if I was ok. I mumbled something in the affirmative, then stood, shook myself off, and tried not to tell anyone about my bruise--my ego. There was the horse (does anyone remember his name?), calmly munching grass in the front yard. Just like he'd planned all along.

But that's not the end of the story--at our ward Christmas party that year, the person in charge of giving out virtual gifts took it upon themselves to give Sandra and me glue-seated pants to assist in any future horse-riding adventures.

I never did find out who told them. Dad?