I have been afraid of horses for as long as I can remember. I've always believed that horses are the real reason why cowboys carried guns. There can simply be no other reasonable explanation. The outlaws were just an excuse to allow everyone in the Old West to be armed anytime they were around horses.
I'm not exactly sure why I'm afraid. I think it can be traced back to the time we vacationed in Colorado (When Your Sister's A Dog) and Mom and Dad decided we should all go on a trail ride. Mom insisted that these old horses only knew to follow the horse in front of them. She believed they were loving, gentle beasts.
Maybe the one she rode - but not mine.
My horse was named Diablo - a beast from the very pit of hell. He constantly turned his head in such a way as to make sure I would see him looking at me. His eyes were deep, dark pools of evil. His lips curled back over the bit as if to remind me that He was in charge; not me.
Mom should have been arrested for child abuse right then and there. I was only about five years old and she was putting me on a vicious beast with evil intentions.
"Just lay the reins against the side of his neck to turn him," she said. Maybe the one she rode - but not Diablo! She was obviously quite confused about horses. There was no way I could "lay the reins against the side of his neck" while holding on to the saddle horn for dear life! What's worse; I didn't even have a toy gun to trick the beast into believing I could just shoot him and walk away!!!
I pulled on the reins with all my might; but he just turned his head to look at me with those dark pools of evil again.
He was Diablo..
Part of our ride took us on a path with a steep drop-off to one side. Diablo kept taunting me; tipping just a bit toward the drop-off; teasing that he would send me plunging into the ravine below.
Mom just laughed. I'm pretty sure she was enjoying my distress but I couldn't turn to look at her because that would force me to take my eyes off of the dark pools of evil that kept peering back at me from his evil brown face.
Eyes that were taunting.
No, I had to keep my eyes on him to provide even a moment of warning that he was about to act on his diabolical plan.
As the ride neared its merciful end; Dad decided to prod his horse to run ahead so he could get the movie camera ready to capture - in full color, no less - his loving (and terrified) family returning from the torturous ride. His horse; which must have been the Son of Diablo, reared up; its front legs pawing at the empty air as it tried to throw him to the ground.
That was it!!! I had seen enough. It was time to get off of that beast and get as far away from it as I could.
Diablo just watched me as I backed away; snorting and shaking his head in one final taunt.
Yes that was pretty much exactly the way it happened, as I recall. My sisters would probably love to chime in with all sorts of lies and falsehoods surrounding this incident; but it's my blog so it is built on my memories! In any case, that was probably the start of my fears. Through the years, various people have claimed that they could teach me to ride and overcome my fear. Perhaps no threat was more to be feared than the one from Colleen.
Colleen is a wonderful woman whose job was being the producer for our video production crew. While the producer has many roles; perhaps none is more important than charming the client to keep them from becoming a pain in the neck for the production people. When it came to charming clients - Colleen was, and I'm sure still is, the champ.
But Colleen had an evil side.
Colleen was a dressage rider.
Dressage is merely a fancy word for, "wears funny pants and a tiny hat while riding a horse around a ring." Dressage riders also carry a whip - they call it a crop to make it sound less threatening - in order to beat the horse into submission if it attempts to act on its diabolical plans.
Colleen laughed at my fear of horses. She thought I was being silly. She claimed that I just didn't understand horses. She even went so far as to claim that the horse knows when the rider is afraid and then acts out. She never believed the historical record of cowboys carrying guns to keep horses from acting out on their threat of violence.
Colleen promised to teach me to ride. She brought it up several times through the years. I was always much too busy, of course. There was no way I was going to allow her to put me on a horse; especially if it required me to wear funny pants and a tiny hat. No; I simply would always be too busy to go riding.
Our careers eventually took us in different directions. Although we still keep in touch a bit; Colleen never did get me on a horse.
Sometimes, a promise not kept is the best gift of all.
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