Hahahaha...funny!
My wife and I went riding once at a touristy place, and the guy asked if anyone had any riding experience. I raised my hand, and he brought over a horse and as I climbed on he said “This is “Buck”. You need to be firm with him.” I gulped a little, and hoped his name didn’t have meaning!
They brought over a horse for my wife who has done little to no riding, and said “This is “Wallflower”. She likes to eat out of trashcans. Whatever you do, don’t let her. Just pull back hard on the reins.” As soon as the guy put the reins in my wife’s hands and went to get another horse, the horse calmly walked over to a 55 gallon drum of trash and buried its head in it as my wife tugged in futility on the reins!
Then as we rode the trails, one of the horses (with the helpless rider) took a different fork in the trail and the guy had to go after it and bring it back. He explained the horse apparently didn’t want to carry a rider any more that day, and that trail was a shortcut back to the stables!
Most of the riding I have done in my life has been the “follow the horse in front of you” variety, not all that exciting. But the horseback riding I did at Reba Farm Inn in Bedford, VA (Home of the D-Day Memorial) just off the Blue Ridge Parkway was “horse riding of a different color”!
The guy who runs it with his wife is a real-life “horse whisperer”. I am not kidding. Their specialty it taking in troubled horses and horses with behavioral problems.
He rescues them.
When he gets them, the first thing he does is remove their horse shoes. When you go out to the giant quonset hut where the horses are prepared to go on rides, there is a pile of rusting horseshoes about four feet high. None of his horses have any shoes.
He doesn’t segregate his horses into groups, he just lets them all live together, stallions, mares, and geldings in a huge herd. He says it is how they live in nature, so he lets them. (He did have his prize stallion segregated in a small paddock one day as I reference below, but that was really the only time I saw it in several visits)
As he was explaining this to me, his prize stallion was in the field with all the horses, and was acting up, trying to engage a huge work horse stallion who completely ignored the high-strung stallion. It was comical, and Ron grinned as he pointed this out to me and said “Look at that big lug of a horse...the other one is trying to pick a fight with him, but he couldn’t care less!”
He talks to all of his horses in plain English, and I swear, they understand him. (All these names below are made up since I can’t remember them) I was watching them take out a bunch of horses one day for a group ride. He went to the pasture holding all the horses, opened the gate and yelled “Betsy! Come on.” and a horse peeled off, ran over about fifty yards and right through the partially opened gate, and without any guidance, ran up the hill into the quonset hut and right up to a bucket of oats to eat and wait for a saddle.
He called “Jim! Come on.” and another horse ran over and up the hill into the “stable” to get set up for a ride.
He called out “Strawberry! Come on!” and two horses ran over and both went through the gate. He yelled after one of them “Daisy! Come back...you aren’t going out!” and without hesitation, the horse stopped, turned around and walked back through the still open gate unprompted!
I thought this was amazing-I know some horses are smart, but this guy seemed to have a way with them! When we went inside to saddle the horses, they were all standing where he had placed the buckets of oats and he just walked to each one and clipped their harness to an eye-bolt on the wall. As we were saddling the horses, I heard this ruckus coming from outside somewhere, a horse whinnying loudly and making various horse noises. I was puzzled by this, and didn’t know what was going on, but Ron didn’t even seem to notice it. I said to Ron something like “It sounds like that horse is in trouble or something” and he stopped, went outside and I could see a small one horse paddock about 100 yards away with his prize stallion in it, and the horse was going mental, rearing up, just making a scene. Ron yelled “COWBOY! YOU AREN’T GOING OUT FOR A RIDE TODAY!” and the horse huffed and stamped its front hooves into the ground...hilariously, like a little kid being told he couldn’t play with a toy!
Ron just said “He sees us getting set, and he wants to go with me on the ride.”
I loved it. I had never seen horses in this light before, and I looked at them in a completely different way!
My dream would be after we retire, to buy a big parcel of land somewhere and own a couple of horses! I know I could do it!
(Smile) this reminds me of a certain YouTube channel,
“Think Like a Horse.”
https://www.youtube.com/user/horseawareness
Another great story! Thanks for sharing.
My grandfather and uncle had horses. I never got to ride my grandfather’s horse because I was too young at that time. However, I did get to ride my uncle’s horses.
Oh, I forgot; actually I had 3 different horses take off running when I was riding them; not 2. I forgot about the one at a touristy place. That horse decided it didn’t want to slowly walk the trail like the other horses. He wanted to run through the forest with me on his back. I stooped down low to avoid the branches hitting me in the face and held on for my life. We got got back much quicker to the stables than the other horses and my siblings...lol
Maybe it was like you said, he was done giving rides for the day.
Even with 3 very exciting experiences riding horses, I still love them. They are magnificent animals.
What a great picture you create! Keep writing, I’m enjoying it all.
When you have your land and horses, share and I’ll come by.