Learning to Ride Horses

I learned how to ride at a rather late age, being in my mid twenties at the time. My wife’s horse at the time was a chestnut Thoroughbred mare with a blazed face that we acquired as a four year-old in 1975. She was a beautiful, energetic horse with a springy trot that almost propelled you out of the saddle. Like most Thoroughbreds she was intended to be a race horse, but her co-owners had gotten into a fight. It was said that this was a literal fight with fists flying, but I do not know that as fact. In any case, her ownership was disputed and she sat out a year of training awaiting a settlement. After the dispute was settled she was too old to start, and her owner sold the horse to my wife as a pleasure horse.

My first introduction to this chestnut mare was not auspicious and resulted in my feet being stepped on not once, but twice. It was the beginning of my education of how to dance under a horse’s hooves. My wife was determined to teach me to ride, and I was more than a little nervous at the prospect. I realize now in retrospect that we should have had me take lessons from a professional on a nice quiet school horse and not this hyper Thoroughbred that we had, but that is not what happened. If you are not a rider and want to learn, you can profit by my mistake. However, I think that I would not go back and change anything if I had it to do over again. I can only smile at the often stupid things I did and thank God that I did not come to any harm.

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