< May 21, 2004 Doc: Bronco!!!

 
May 21, 2004 Doc: Bronco!!!

The weather here in Cool, CA has been very strange, radically changing from one minute to the next. Electrical storms, clear sunny, overcast cold and biting, to warm, dark yet forboding. It has been a good time to stay off horses which, of course, if you know me at all by now, you know I don't tend to do.

Give me a day that most folks stay off their ponies and I will take it as a chance to train.

I guess this morning was one of those mornings. In all honesty, here at home, the sky was sunny and the weather was a bit windy and cool. But it wasn't anything much to be worried about... or so I thought. Yet no sooner did we start driving down the road with the horses in the back, then we saw we were incased in dense fog and the temperature dropped significantly. This, just 5 minutes up the street from our house!

Undaunted, we saddled and made ready. Off we went. In fact, the horses headed off with less protest than the last few rides. Sometimes we have a slow start as they would rather munch all the green grass that is growing everywhere, than make way down the trail.

It was after several crossings, which Doc made quite easily I might add!, that Doc became clearly upset by something he heard, smelled or saw off to the left in the stand of trees or beyond. I knew this was a "Spooky Place" for him.

Now I have been riding my own horses for only a short while, admittedly. I know even less about green, young horses than I do about old tried and true trail horses like all of the horses I have ridden in the past (before I got my own). But even with as little knowledge as I possess about young, green horses, I know that one thing you do NOT want to do is RUN with a horse when he is scared. Especially a green horse who maybe doesn't have much experience carrying a rider at a canter. I KNOW this, you see. But somehow, something stupid possessed me to say, "Sure Doc...if you want to run from The Spooky Place, go for it!" Off we flew!

Well, with Doc, I was adding two things to his already fearful frame of mind: 1. Adrenalin (not something good to add as it increases the fear factor) and 2. Argument for Doc that there really WAS something terrible to run from.

Horses aren't just afraid that they will be hurt when they get scared. In a horse's world--a world where you are prey and everything else is the predator--you fear that you will be killed and eaten. So Doc was already afraid that he was going to be killed. I added to that the wonderful ingredients of adrenalin and "the human you have been trusting is scared for her life, too" and it was a recipe for disaster. (Can you see where this is going?)

When you consider how little experience Doc has carrying a rider anything faster than a trot (we have only cantered together a very few steps five times), you get an even more powerful recipe for some...uh..."excitement."

So, off we went, faster than Doc has ever gone with me on his back. Like a loon, I was grinning from ear to ear. I hate to admit that, but I realize now that I was totally taking advantage of his fear...using it to derive pleasure...I wanted to see what he could do! Well, I sure did...100 feet or so after we started our bolt away from The Spooky Place, Doc figured he could get going a heck of a lot faster if he could get rid of the load that had latched on to his back. Uh...that "load" would be me. I never saw it coming. He began the buck while moving forward at a canter, then stopped quickly...needless to say, I did NOT stop quickly...forward momentum kept me moving forward and a bit to the side... and he kept on bucking after I was still writhing around on the ground in a ton of pain, fearing that I had broken my back.

I was hollering at my poor husband that my back was injured when some modicum of logic entered my brain and I realized that if I could writhe in pain that way, it couldn't be broken...or it wasn't likely, anyhow. Doc kept bucking...in place. He had forgotten his goal of escaping the supposed predator I guess. After all, now he was upset because his human had abandoned ship!

Pony boy recovered ok...and I found a spot where I could heave myself, injury and all, up onto his 16.1 hand heighth. Admittedly, the pain was excruciating down my left hip...Thank God for padding!

Do you know that it is a long way down from a 16.1hands high horse to the ground? On the way down I had time to think about what it would be like to break my neck...

Well, all that said, I did get back on Doc (in spite of my husband suggesting that it's even father to haul my broken body should something else go wrong...) and we had a "nice" if not painful ride for another 45 minutes. I spent most of the ride trying NOT to move. For you horse people, I think that amounted to a BIG brace on my part and my pony, who has trouble offering soft anyhow, found me more braced than ever before.

I will probably give Doc a couple of days off before we head out again.

Thanks for caring. Oh, and if you all feel like it, please pray for my backside. I am in excruciating pain...can't quite manage to get to the doctor, though... the thought of having my hiney examined just doesn't seem to thrill me.


Copyright © 2008 - Heidi Bylsma
All Rights Reserved
Webmaster: Spirit of Equus