I was speaking with my friend Jody the other day and she was commenting on the recent post I added, “Things in the trees”, she brought up a good point. Since the story was about a ride I had a year ago she wondered if other readers would think I haven’t ridden since then as I had no new riding posts for this year. Well in case you readers are wondering… yes, I have ridden since last year! Not as often as I would like too, but I do ride when I get the chance. And here are a couple pictures that mom caught of me riding Slick and Pal recently as proof!! Of course it would have been great for all of you if mom would have been outside the day I decided to ride Chief after lunging him in a surcingle and pad…
Yeah, my 40 year old brain kicked in and started reminding my how the 21 yr old girl that I work with, Sarah, rides her horse all the time in a bareback pad…
Ya know the ol’ brain tricks…
“Yeah let’s see if you can even get on your horse with just a pad on… Sarah can…” (For those of you that don’t know Chief he is a BIG boy, all I have in the arena area is a tree root…) The first attempt I just knocked the wind out of myself as my chest hit squarely on his side! “Sarah can probalby jump higher than that!”yeah yeah shut up brain… I did somewhat better the second try, but on the third try I was able to scramble up. Of course the pad was completely in front of my lap and I was sitting back almost on his rump… did I mention what a great horse Chief is??? So I then did a few yoga moves I have seen and managed to get the pad back under my hind-end.
“HA! Let’s see Sarah try that!” I told my brain as we began walking around.
“So your on, big deal, you are walking, woooooo impressive, ya know Sarah can ride Rocky in a pad at a trot…” (I tried this with Chief and was pretty successful. In fact it wasn’t bad at all. Pretty easy…)
then my brain says
“well Sarah can ride Rocky in a pad at the canter!”… (I tried this and was pretty successful until the fourth left turn… ) You see what my brain forgot to remind me was that the girth I was using on the surcingle with a pad was certainly not snug, in fact I could get my whole arm under the thing! Nope, that had completely slipped my mind as I was proudly cantering around the ring thinking…
“HA Brain take that! I can still… AAARRRGGGGHHHH!! Whoa, fence!” (and once again I am left to wonder as I am sliding off the right side of Chief, surcingle,pad and all, watching the pipe fencing go by me ever so slowly… why again did I roach (cut off) all of Chiefs mane, and why did I listen to my stupid brain, I am not 21 years old any more! Needless to say I have the best gosh darn horse in the world as I pulled myself back up off of his right side using the left rein! sheeshh! and all he did was quietly come down to a walk, turn his head and eyeball me with the look of ”hmmmm listening to your brain again huh?”
Right after I recovered my heart from my thoart my mom came outside with her camera… “Oh are you all done riding?” So I proceded to tell her of my harrowing account of nearly sliding off of my horse and over the fence into the hay field and my wonderful loving mother says… “Shoot! I would have liked to get a picture of that!!”
Hope ya’ll enjoy the boring pictures of me staying on the horses!
