[RC] The first horse I fell off. . . - Mike & Laurie Hilyard
was Blaze, my first pony. She was 11 hands,
about 15 years old, and wouldn't move forward unless you could countinuously cue
her (kick, switch, whatever). Since a saddle was too complicated for my
complete inexperience (I was 9 years old), I slid off her sides frequently when
she would swerve into any convenient driveway/gate that we passed on the
road. The faster you tried to go, the longer it took to get
there.
I loved that horse - got her back when I grew up
and she survived until her mid 30s.
I used to be able to ride bareback pretty well - by
the time I outgrew her, I could walk, trot, canter, jump 18 inches, back,
pretty much anything, bareback. Didn't really ride with a saddle until I
was in my mid 20s, when the ground got a lot harder.
