Last Freestyle Blog

A Fine Day for a Ride

It was a pretty nice day until my friend Luke told me I was riding the two year old. I was spending the week out at his place to help his family out, and goof around in general (e.g. 'become a man').

He decided that This Morning was the right time for a ride, and I asked why, and he said because it was This Morning. Fine. But instead of riding the older horse, who was solid muscle, I got his sister's two year old, who had muscles as well. They were, however, not solid, but jumpy, rather like a yorkie dog.

Apparently he needed some "experience".

I knew what that meant.

It meant get on and mentally beseech any and all deities you could think of. But, above all, and this is important around young horses, never SHOW YOUR FEAR. They could pick up on that, like a dog picks up the scent of... those biscuits they're always running ten miles home to eat in the commercials. So, I didn't SHOW MY FEAR. It was actually kind of easy. Kind of like trying to be extra sober. Things look clearer.

We'd made it a few miles from the house when the world exploded.

From our point of view, anyway. From the young horses' point of view, it must have been the

world chasing them. Too bad you can't get away from something that big.

To be honest, it was bandits.

To be really honest, we were riding past a shack that had hidden several other horses behind it. It waited until we were right beside it on the road, and then must’ve convinced the horses that racing to the west pasture was more fun than standing in the shade.

So, our horses took off too. Well, after the bucking and hopping stopped. I stayed on well enough, but Luke’s horse went into the ditch…

… and spilled Luke…

… into a barbed wire fence…

… whereupon he said something like, “Ouch.”

I didn’t feel like writing what he really said.

We then decided that he was too hurt (and bloody; the fence had ripped his shoulder open) to try and ride just yet. I said to make a poultice of prickly pear, and he asked why, and I said because it seemed like The Thing to Do. He didn’t do it.

So, I rode to the next house…

…almost.

There was still the matter of the bridge. Luke’s sister had said to be careful, because the two year old hadn’t “been near it yet”.

Anyway, we just kept going, and he ran over it fine. Like it wasn’t even there (wasn’t much of a stream to cross anyway, as I recall). So, I tell the person who comes out of the house to please call Luke’s house, and get his parents down here.

At this point I turned around and saw Luke riding up, embarrassing seven kinds of hell out of me for making it sound like his arm had been taken off by razor wire, put back on by Dr. Moreau, and taken off again by a mad gorilla with a chainsaw.

His mom drove up, but we ended up riding home anyway. It felt more natural.

By now it was evening, and the family called a local doctor who came and stitched Luke up. Luke still has three huge scars on his left shoulder today. But we’d had an Adventure, so we felt it was a pretty good day, all in all.

(Incidentally, this was how we e.g. became men).