Flash forward a half of a lifetime to Lake Tahoe, California on February 14, 1996 the afternoon of my wedding day. An elevated wooden boardwalk with a string of pleasure horses alongside the boardwalk, and my beautiful Bride smiling and saying, "Surprise, I booked a toy trot for us, and we get to ride across the Truckee River." I remember looking down at the horses backs and mumbling something like, " I didn't realize that they were this big." Second mistake, the first was acting like a landlocked Eastern man and not wanting to take my socks and shoes off at the beach in Encinitas. After all my wife was Western, so western they filmed all the western horse movies next to where she grew up. All the movies I grew up watching and wished I was out West were at her finger tips, places like Vasquez Rocks, and the Western Town of Calico. The ride was a real experience and we rode our horses almost belly deep in water across the Truckee River. Years later, after gaining much horse experience I would marvel at the audacity of the outfitters to take a pack string of inexperienced riders across a major river.
It was the very beginning of my horse career. I would later work with hundreds if not thousands of horses through our Massage School and gain invaluable knowledge and have incredible adventures. I learned very important lessons.
Lesson # 1. Never tie a horse or horses to a movable object. I tied three horses that I was grooming for the school to an empty round bale feeder. Everything thing was O.K. until I tried spraying them with fly spray. When one of the horses spooked, I suddenly had a whirling dervish of horses spinning across the field like a top. Lucky for me, Kathy and the students showed up on cue to help rescue me from this predicament.
Lesson # 2. Never bring more than one Stallion into a enclosed pen with lead ropes. I accompanied three young stallions into a small pen. Once the gate closed behind them they decided to play lets all stand on our hind legs and paw at each other and the air while this dumb cowboy stands in the middle with no where to go.
Lesson # 3. If you are going to work with show animals you need to ask if they have any special cue movements they respond to. While a group of students were massaging several brood mares in a row of stalls. I was in the pasture in front of the stalls with Bo, The Buckskin Stallion. He was being a pest and stalking the mares. I immediately rushed toward him and began shooing him away from the mares. Unbeknownst to this cowboy, I was giving him the cue to rear up and to strike at the sky. Not a pretty picture of safety.
I could fill the pages here with inexperienced horse virgin stories. I choose to remember all the wonderful miracles of the horses lives we touched and helped through the years. I am working on a collection of horse stories about our years on our ranch and work with Horse Rescue and Teaching Equine Massage. They are stories of joy, triumph, tragedy, and sorrow. I wouldn't have traded one moment on the ski slopes for a second of wonderment of my time with horses.
Today's Song
"Wild Horses," Gram Parsons and The Flying Burrito Brothers
