Commentary by Christy Solo
While writing last week’s horse-themed All Things – especially the section on Appaloosas – I was reminded of my childhood horseback riding lessons – and one particular Appy who embodied all the best traits of the breed.
Like, I don’t know, every girl ever, I pretty much came out of the womb wanting a pony. When I was very young, we had a few friends and relations who had horses, but somehow I still was only granted the occasional riding foray.
When I was seven or so my godmother – who lived just a few miles away and raised and showed Morgans – gave me riding lessons for my birthday. However, only a few lessons were ever given. Probably due to some “grownups are busy” stuff I was never made aware of.
I got some basics at least.
When I was 10 my cousin Katie said she’d share her horse with me. This was great, except she lived six hours away (so might as well have been on the moon in terms of the travel abilities of a 10-year-old) but at least I “had” a horse and got to ride her a couple of times.
That same year my parents finally gave in and got me “proper” riding lessons at a local ranch.
I say “proper” because those lessons came with a big dose of “do not try this at home!” attached.
Bear in mind this was the pre “mandatory bike helmets for kids” era.
What I will say, is, I really did learn how to ride.
That said, our whole class is pretty lucky we came out of it alive.
Our riding instructors were a couple of local…maybe 15-year-olds, maybe. Could’ve been 14 or even 13 (when you’re 10 every girl old enough to wear lipgloss without getting grounded seems oh-so-mature).
We did learn how to handle horses, bridle them, groom them, feed them (possibly just doing the instructors’ work for them – but lessons well learned nonetheless) as well as the basics – and then some – about Western riding.
What we did not learn was how to saddle our horses. We never used saddles, just all-purpose bareback pads. My guess is that was much less work for the instructors, however there were times during our classes it seems with hindsight things like…oh stirrups would’ve been prudent, or at least handy.
We all survived though.
Back to the Appaloosa. Her name was Fancy and she was a splash white, black Appy (something for you to look up on the internet later). For some reason no one ever wanted to ride her, which meant I didn’t want to ride her (though I had no real idea why) but I’d arrived last to class that one particular day, so it was me and Fancy.
Had she not been purchased soon after, it would have been me and Fancy every Saturday after that first Saturday.
I was a few months into my lessons at this point, and our teen instructors were forever looking for ways to either keep us wee students engaged or possibly to keep themselves entertained (probably at our expense).
On this Saturday they decided we’d all play a game of “Red Rover, Red Rover” on horseback following our usual drills and instruction.
Dear reader – it’s exactly what you’re imagining. Eight young girls using only bareback pads on a few thousand pounds of horses – four to a side facing each other across the riding ring.
Now because horses were involved, we did change up the rules from “you have to break through the opposing team’s clasped hands” to “you had to get your horse through two of the other team’s riders without getting tagged.”
On the “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Christy right over!” command, I got Fancy to a full gallop aimed at the four-girl opposing team. Basically I assumed I was going to my death, or at least my utter humiliation (same thing to a 10-year-old) because I was on Fancy, and no one ever wanted to ride Fancy.
Fancy had other ideas, and she dug deep into her Appaloosa heritage – true to her breed she wove through the opposing line as cleanly as a hot knife through butter, no one got a hand on Fancy or me. And she did it all with a gallop so smooth I could’ve been sipping tea from a porcelain cup for the duration and not spilled a drop.
A few weeks later when we put on a horse show for all our respective parents, I was back on my usual horse Big Red. My 3rd Place ribbon was for barrel racing (Big Red was a champion in his pre-kid-toting days). I always wondered if my ribbons would’ve been a bit bluer if I’d have had Fancy that day too…
