Welcome to the Wild, Wild West

Legs stiffly bowed we sat in the car with the windows rolled down and let the warm air blow the mixture of sweat, dirt and horse hair dry against our skin. I gazed out at the golden fields of slick looking hay and wonder what Lea thought of it. As a child I loved playing on the hay bales until they splintered and flicked into my hair or face making me itch. I met Lea when I lived in Ireland and now she’s on holiday here in Utah. I’m not sure that she’s ever jumped on hay bales and though I don’t know how to make that happen I did organize a day of horseback riding.

In the four years since my last cowgirl stint things haven’t changed. I still managed to get the horse that yearns to be free from the pack (or maybe horses really do pick up on what you’re feeling) and I was either coaxing from behind to catch up or apologizing for my lack of control as Blaze and I raced up the hill to the front. I apologized because we couldn’t just beat our competition but Blaze felt the need to run them off the trail. And all this close proximity led to my habitual injury.

There’s a reason I haven’t touched a horse in four years. My best friend in college owns horses and as it turns out her family keeps them at their mountain side home in Orem. Easy access, difficult rides. I can count scars on every part of my body from our jaunts to Squaw Peak. But one not so pleasant morning I returned to the corral with a wrapped hand (holding on for dear life when the saddle slid sideways), a blood-soaked tank top (horse took a stunted jump and the saddle horn took a chunk of my stomach) and angry red welts from the trees and bushes that slapped me.

Yes, it was painful but also a lesson. I carefully monitor the saddling of my horse. I treat the saddle horn like a hot iron. And I stick to the middle of the road far from the reach of clawing branches. But what I couldn’t control was Lea’s horse moseying on over to say hi. As I smiled at her the horse mistook my leg for a scratching post and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed and then when I thought the Nazi horse torture done, he turned up the intensity by pushing my foot. The bend of a swollen twisted ankle caused me to yelp. My exclamation of pain meant nothing to either horse except to move a little bit closer. You can imagine what I would have said if I hadn’t been biting my lip. I do know this I take back every mean thought I had about Tom Cruise when he punched that horse in Far And Away. They have it coming.