I attended Lamar Community College, in Lamar Colorado. The course was called Horse Training and
Management. During our freshman year we
were all assigned a colt to ride, some turned out better than others. It was a learning experience, and I suspect
that some of us learned better than others!
During my sophomore year a couple of buddies ((Guy and Marc) and I had
some extra time during the day.
Looking back I just cannot imagine how that could have been
possible!?!?! I mean we were serious
academic scholars! There wasn’t a night
we didn’t spend studying and aspiring to be academiens. See there?
I learnt enough to make up my own word (Microsoft word does not
recognize it, so it surely is not a word yet!)!
Academiens, I haven’t decided what this means yet….something about a
person being smart and studying….need to think on this for a while. I will need to submit it to Websters as soon
as possible. I wouldn’t want anyone else
to take credit for my word. HA!
Anyway, back to the story.
During this free time we were offered a ¼ credit extra to ride some
extra freshman colts. Of course we
jumped at the chance! The only caveat
was that the instructor (McBee was his name and I would think there would be
some stories about him sometime in the future.) would not ride let us ride them
in the arena with the freshman. He said
we could start out in the round pen, but we had to ride them outside. We all hesitated at this…..for about as long
as it takes to blink and said “ok”. We
were sophomores and our training skill was far and above the need to ride in
the arena. We only would need the round
pen for the first couple of rides anyway.
Wasn’t that the way God intended for cowboys to ride horses anyway? Out in the open, with plenty of space? Nothing to stop or slow down forward
progress?
The horses were another story. One was a pony, which Guy and I voted for
Marc to have. They were built a lot
alike. Low, wide and close to the
ground! That pony was hilarious. Marc was pretty close to the ground anyway,
but even his legs got him almost to the ground when he sat on its back. Of course being the loving, respectful guys
that we were….Marc got harassed about the size of his horse after a little
while. By that I mean as soon as he got
on the pony’s back, we started harassing.
If you have never seen a pony lope, you should…especially a two year
old! That pony moved like he couldn’t
bend his legs and bounced Marc all over the saddle! He loped around the round pen like he was on
the side of a hill, always leaning to the inside! But Marc persevered and eventually the pony
started traveling upright; actually having a pretty good handle!
Guy and I flipped for the others and I got a little sorrel
filly. My and Guys colts were pretty
uneventful. A big difference from the
yella mare, but that is a story for another time. Mine was also pretty uneventful. We rode in the round pen for about three days
and turned ourselves out on the trails.
We got pretty fast at times but, by the end of two weeks all three of
the colts were handling pretty nice (a further testament to the vast horse
training skill we had at the time). When
things are going pretty well, you tend to get a little lax (or cocky in our
case). You remember I said my colt was
pretty uneventful? This is where it got
eventful!
We were riding down a trail one day and we noticed a plastic
Wal-Mart type bag on the ground. And
being the good stewards of the land that we were, we drew straws to see who
would pick it up. I lost. No problem, I was very confident (I think
that meant that I was overconfident) in the colt I was riding. So I just stepped off, dropped the reins and
picked up the bag. If you’ve ever been
to Lamar, then you know the wind blows….a lot!
About that time a particularly hard gust blew up and rattled that bag in
my hands. I did not have time to see if
that scared Guy and Marc’s colts because mine was leaving the area at a very
high rate of speed. At this point, my
ego kicked in. I knew one of the things
that would bring a considerable amount of grief was getting bucked off your horse. I also knew that my fine upstanding friends
would lie like crazy and say that I had been bucked off and no amount of
explanation would be considered as the truth.
So, I just grabbed the saddle horn and swung onto that
sorrel colt. I am now sitting on this
colts back, trying to get my feet in the stirrups and gather my reins in at the
same time. To compound all of this,
Sorrelly was running like her tail was on fire.
The handles of the bag had slipped up my arm, past my elbow and was a
floppin’ and poppin’ behind my shoulder….adding to the excitement of me
scrambling with my feet and hands. I
felt like I was trying to lower a sail on a boat, during a hurricane. I didn’t know which one of these things to
address first. Should I concentrate on
getting my feet in the stirrups first, to help me stay on top of this ducking
and dodging coyote I was riding….or should I gather up my reins to that I could
pull this run-away locomotive in a circle….or get rid of the bag that was
flangling around behind my back. We went
for what seemed like miles….well ok, only couple hundred yards or so; before I gathered
enough reins to pull her into a circle. As
soon as I had her slowed down to light speed, I shucked that bag like I was
letting go of a snake!
Needless to say, there was considerable harassing going on
at the barn. But, I was not bucked off…just
ran away with. This in turn saved my
friends virtue; they did not have to tell lies about why I might have had to
walk back to the barn. There’s a
statement that I bet was never said when it comes to my friends….saving their virtue!
This whole story leads to this thought…..if you want to
build a Kentucky Derby winner, you can start a Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart can provide you the tools to make
any horse run faster!
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