Yesterday afternoon my wife and I went riding and enjoyed a bright, but cool April Sunday. There were three of us riding. Our friend Steve was riding his horse Mariah, my wife was riding her horse Sioux, and I was riding our newest horse Maggie. We didn’t know very much about how well Maggie was going to do, but Steve had ridden her once and I had ridden her once. She seemed reasonably well trained and we figured it was time to find out.

Now let me state publicly that I am NOT an experienced rider. I’ve ridden horses less than a dozen times in my whole life. Fortunately, Steve IS an experienced rider and whenever I got in over my head, he was quick to shout advice to me before I got into too much trouble — and we did manage to find a bit of trouble on our ride.

The first bit of trouble was when we were more than a mile from the farm. We were riding on a gravel country road when we noticed that a farmer with an extremely LARGE tractor was creeping up behind us. The tractor was so large that it took the entire width of the road. Clearly he wanted to get by us, but we were in a section of road that had no driveways for several hundred yards so we needed to exit the road in order for him to get past us. To do this, meant coaxing the horses into the ditch beside the road. None of the horses were excited to do this, but after a bit of coaxing, they all did manage to get into the ditch and stand nicely while the tractor passed. When we rode back out, Maggie decided that this was a good opportunity to head for home. She went back towards the farm and the other two went towards the Luce Line Trail, which was our next destination. It took some coaching from Steve to get her to turn back around as she was totally ignoring my signals that I was giving.

Once on the trail, things went smoothly until we got fairly close to the farm again. About three feet from us, a pheasant, scared by our presence, immediately took flight. None of us saw it until it flew away — including the horses. Both Maggie and Sioux were badly spooked by the sudden departure of the pheasant and nearly dropped to their bellies out of fear. I somehow managed to hold on for dear life and calm Maggie down before she threw me. My wife, unfortunately, was pitched right off of Sioux and landed on her butt. She literally bounced back to her feet and before she was able get back to Sioux, Steve had managed to grab her reins and keep her from running off. All of this happened in a split second and I’m amazed that none of us got more than a few bruises.

The last adventure happened just a few hundred yards from Steve’s driveway. A pickup truck was approaching from behind us on the gravel road and throwing up quite a lot of dust and making a lot of noise. Concerned that Maggie would be spooked, I road her off into the grass and asked her to stand while the truck passed us. As the truck approached she became more nervous and wanted to move and I tried to hold her at a stand. As the truck was practically upon us, Maggie made it apparent that she REALLY wanted to move and reared up on her back legs as I held on for dear life. I heard Steve yell from behind me, “Let her go!” and I immediately slackened the reins. Maggie responded by immediately dropping back onto all four legs and broke into a leisurely walk. Steve’s only comment was a nonchalant, “Nice Hi Ho Silver there Pete.” I wish I could have seen it!

All in all, I thought the ride went well, despite the adventure. You’re probably thinking that we have a bunch of untrained horses to ride. Actually, I think the bigger problem is that I’m a very inexperience rider! We probably road four miles total. Oh — and if you’re wondering — Yes. I am sore today!

–Pete