Well, I didn't get my own first horse til I was 12, but before that, at age 3, I climbed a fence and rode a mare named Friday who had just bucked my dad off that day. I also climbed fences and rode horses at a local boarding stable.. OMG can you imagine the law suit factor now with a neighbor kid climbing a fence and getting on your horse! Of course i was always sans tack doing this...
My grandma in Salt Lake City leased the perfect kids horse for me one summer. Babe was a nondescript bay mare, but she was My Friend Flicka to me! Had a grand time with her and she was so patient and good.
My own first real horse was a gorgeous black and white pintabian we called Cherokee. NOT a good kid's horse. She knew every trick in the book and every time I'd cry to my mom about Cherokee biting or kicking or avoiding the saddle, she'd say, OK, we'll sell her then...
and I'd trudge back out there for another go... Cherokee and i eventually became ood friends and we had grand times together. I lived near a county park with lovely wooded and tough horse trails and spent allmost all my waking free time there.
I lived 5 miles from the county fairgrounds and we didnt' have a horse trailer, so if I wanted to go to a show, I had to ride my horse there, do the classes and then ride home. Is there any wonder I took up distance riding sports, LOL...
--- On Wed, 12/3/08, Jay Randle <splendacrest@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Jay Randle <splendacrest@xxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: [RC] My first horse To: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Wednesday, December 3, 2008, 10:29 PM
Hi All
What great stories!!! Can I join in?
My first horse was a shetland pony mare called Patsy, who had just had a foal weaned off her the first time I rode her at Pony Club (at the age of 3). The foal was in a yard at the top of a hill, and the Pony Club activities were at the bottom of the hill.
Patsy decided that she really wanted to return to her foal, and did so with me tagging along. Very fast. My father was on his thoroughbred mare, and he couldn't catch us! Until Patsy got to the yards at the top of the hill and stopped. The distance would have been about 1/2 mile.
I had been riding other horses belonging to various family members prior to this stage, however my favourite memory (would have been about 2 years old or so) was my father lassooing the top of a tall skinny eucalyptus sapling, and bending it down to ground level, where he tethered it. He
then made a wooden seat in the shape of a saddle, and mounted the seat onto the end of the sapling. I would be placed on this seat, and my father would let the rope out and pull it back in... a bit like a swing. I would be so high that I could see the top of Dad's head, and it was like flying! Good memories......
