Horses

Photo by Alex Ware on Unsplash

It may surprise some of you that I once owned a horse who looked a lot like the one in the above photo. His name was Bud, and he was a very tall, sorrel quarter horse. Essentially, he was my ex-husband’s attempt to entice me into the horse world, so that I could spiral into horse obsession with him. It didn’t work. Even though I tried, I never felt completely comfortable on a horse.

It wasn’t Bud’s fault. He was a good horse, and I did love him. I might have eventually become a better rider if Bud hadn’t unexpectedly died one day after only a few years. The ex went out to the pasture to bring in the horses and returned in disbelief to tell me that Bud was stretched out dead by the fence. We speculated that he might have run into the fence and broken his neck, but we didn’t do an autopsy to find out. The sad fact was that my horse, the only one I’d ever ridden and the only one I felt any comfort on, was dead.

I don’t recall riding much again after that.

However, I want to share a story about the time I fell off Bud.

We were riding with a group of others down some roads and through some pastures near Ewing, Nebraska. It was a beautiful day, and we’d done trail rides before, so I had some experience with distance riding. In fact, I preferred trail rides because they were leisurely affairs — the horses simply walked, so riders could converse and so the horses didn’t tire from the long day.

We reached an open field, and a few riders decided to run their horses across the field. Bud saw this, and he decided that he’d like to run, too. I did not decide this; Bud decided it.

He took off, and I wasn’t ready for it. I would never have been ready for it because I didn’t like to ride a horse that was running. When he lunged forward, my left foot came out of its stirrup, and I started yelling for Bud to stop. “Whoa! Whoa!” That sort of thing, but I wasn’t able to get my foot back into the stirrup because I was bouncing around a lot, too. At first, it was kind of funny, and I was laughing, but as he kept gaining speed, my humor turned to fear and then to panic.

I was tugging as hard as I could on the reins while also trying to lean a bit to get my foot back into position, but then Bud suddenly turned and headed back in the opposite direction. His abrupt pivot threw me violently to the side, and I found myself leaning precariously off the saddle. Now, both feet were out of the stirrups!

By this time, I was really yelling, and, I admit, there was some screaming, too, as I felt myself sliding further and further off the saddle. That commotion along with me hanging off the side of him frightened Bud, so instead of stopping, or even slowing, like I needed him to do, he ran faster and faster.

I slid further and further, and I could see that Bud was taking us right for a barbed wire fence. I could hear other riders shouting things and even coming toward us, but I was too far gone in my panic to know what they were saying to me.

All I saw was that barbed wire fence, and I didn’t want to be dragged through it, and I didn’t want Bud to be cut badly by charging through it, either.

So, I let go.

And hit the ground hard. And rolled head over heels three or four times before landing with a heavy thud on my back in the dirt.

Once I fell off, Bud slowed in time to avoid the fence, and another rider caught his reins and calmed him down.

I lay on the ground and tried to breathe. Every breath had been pounded out of me in my tumble, so I lay there looking up at the blue sky while making futile gasping attempts at breathing — much like a fish that’s been tossed onto the shore.

Faces appeared above me, and they were all asking the same thing. “Are you okay? Can you move?” But I couldn’t answer them. I didn’t have any air for words.

My knees were bent upwards, and one numbskull came over and jerked my legs flat.
I winced at that because my back hurt from the fall. Another rider got angry at the numbskull. Rightly so because if my back had been broken, he could have caused me further harm.

It wasn’t broken, though, but I was in pain for a long time afterwards, and there were substantial bruises in various places. Needless to say, but I did not get back on Bud that day. Another rider rushed back to town and got someone to drive out and pick me up.

Prior to that, I had been leery about riding Bud at anything faster than a canter. After that, I never rode at anything faster than a walk. As I mentioned above, I might have eventually got over my fright and learned to be more comfortable in the saddle because Bud was a good horse, but after his untimely death, I wasn’t interested in riding. Horses, at least. Motorcycles, yes. Horses, no. I can control the speed of a motorcycle. Horses have minds of their own.

Here’s a bit I created for some stand-up comedy material many, many years ago. It’s a list (a somewhat naughty list) of ten reasons that motorcycles are better than horses. Yes, that’s my bike in the above photo.

1. My motorcycle will not kick me when I walk behind it.

2. My bike does not randomly decide to turn its head in the middle of a ride just to bite my leg.

3. My bike does not suddenly stop forward momentum to take a shit in the middle of the road.

4. My bike does not know when we are headed home and thus speed up so it can get back to the garage to hang out with the other motorcycles.

5. It’s much easier to check out hot construction workers astride a motorcycle, and if they turn out to be not so hot after all, then it’s much easier to make a quick getaway, too.

6. I do not have to yell inane commands such as “Whoa!” or “Stop, you stupid, son of a bitch!” to get my bike to do what I want it to do.

7. I don’t have to shoot my bike to put it out of its misery if something on it breaks. I might want to, but I don’t have to.

8. My boobs don’t hurt after riding a motorcycle — unless the guy sitting behind me was holding on too tightly.

9. Motorcycles are shaft driven. Shaft driven. Enough said.

10. My motorcycle has never gotten a sudden compulsion to mount the motorcycle next to it! While I’m on it!

I hope you enjoyed that. If you aren’t yet a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one. The following story, “The Horses of Miller Creek,” is for paid subscribers only. Please share with anyone you know who might like to become a subscriber. Thanks.

Tammy Marshall