| General Non-Fiction posted March 4, 2011 | Chapters: |
...35 36 -37- 38... 
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A true tale about a horse
A chapter in the book Chasing the Elusive Dream
Lucky
by BethShelby
I'm not sure luck was with us the day my husband, Evan and I decided to buy the colt. We named him Lucky anyway, although at the moment, I can't remember why. He was a sorrel chestnut colored quarter horse with a star-shaped splash of white in his face, and there was fire in his eyes.
I was excited because, at one time like most teenage girls who read the classic horse books, I wanted a horse of my very own. In truth, the only time I'd ever been on the back of an animal was when my grandpa let me sit bareback on his old plow mule as he led her back to the stable.
Evan had owned a horse when he was a child, but the horse had managed to throw him and dislocate his shoulder. The point is that neither of us had any business owning a horse. We knew nothing of breaking or training one, and besides that, we lived in the city and had no place to keep a horse.
There is the saying, "You can take a boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy." For Evan, his dream of having a ranch someday was his motivating factor. Although being a rancher's wife wasn't high on my priority list, we did have a daughter who was starting to dream of horses. In the end, I wasn't hard to persuade, especially after I saw him. He was beautiful. The colt belonged to one of Evan's co-workers, and the price was right.
Unwilling to pay to board him, we carted him off to my in-laws' farm several counties away to grow up with their cattle. Since Evan's parents were getting on in years and had no use for a horse, Lucky was left undisciplined and on his own. We saw him occasionally and dreamed of when we'd buy a piece of land and bring him home to live with us.
By the time he was two, we realized our own country place was not going to materialize in the near future. We needed a trainer if we were ever to be able to ride our horse. We found a man who kept a few horses and worked with them in the evenings and on weekends. Unfortunately, his job in the city left him little time for training horses. After a couple of months, he gave us a call and said he'd managed to saddle the horse and ride him. He said our horse was very unpredictable, and he would like us to move him as he wasn't getting along with his horses.
I don't think the word 'unpredictable' registered with us at all. What we heard was the horse could now be ridden. We went over immediately to have our turn in the saddle. To Evan's credit, he was able to ride around the pasture without any major mishaps, and then it was my time.
It should have been a tip-off to the part-time cowboy and my loving mate that I was a greenhorn, when I attempted to mount from the wrong side of the horse. Then, I almost ended up facing his rear when I put the wrong foot in the stirrup. But they patiently helped boost me into the correct sitting position and handed me the reins. If they didn't notice my ignorance, Lucky did. He read me like a flashing neon billboard.
I bravely dug my toe into the horse's side, slapped the reins, and shouted, "Get up!" Well, he got up all right. He took off like someone had lit a match to his tail. I dropped the reins and grabbed the saddle horn and his mane and held on like an embedded tick. This horse knew every low hanging branch on all of the many trees scattered throughout the pasture, and he didn't miss a single one that appeared capable of decapitating a rider. I flattened myself out along his back and prayed. All the time, we were being pursued by my husband, my three kids, and the week-end cowboy all shouting, "Pull up on the reins!" The problem was that they were too far back in our dust, and I was too preoccupied to hear anything.
Eventually, after he had been unsuccessful at scraping me off, he headed toward a high barbed wire fence. I had visions of him going air-borne or else crashing through. Instead he came to an abrupt halt, no doubt expecting me to go flying over his shoulders into the next field. At that point, I managed to regain control of the reins and get out a belated and shaky, "Whoa, boy!" He probably had himself a horse laugh over that. I could almost hear him saying "Yeah, like she had anything to do with me stopping."
My family caught up and helped me to the ground. My legs were almost incapable of holding me, and I was forever cured of visions of galloping across golden fields on my own stallion.
As for luck, I felt very lucky to be alive. We were also lucky he was a beautiful horse and there was another would-be-cowboy willing to take him off our hands for a decent price. Hopefully, Lucky turned out to be lucky as well and got a trainer with the patience of Job. I hope for his sake, his story ended well.
I'm not sure luck was with us the day my husband, Evan and I decided to buy the colt. We named him Lucky anyway, although at the moment, I can't remember why. He was a sorrel chestnut colored quarter horse with a star-shaped splash of white in his face, and there was fire in his eyes.
I was excited because, at one time like most teenage girls who read the classic horse books, I wanted a horse of my very own. In truth, the only time I'd ever been on the back of an animal was when my grandpa let me sit bareback on his old plow mule as he led her back to the stable.
Evan had owned a horse when he was a child, but the horse had managed to throw him and dislocate his shoulder. The point is that neither of us had any business owning a horse. We knew nothing of breaking or training one, and besides that, we lived in the city and had no place to keep a horse.
I was excited because, at one time like most teenage girls who read the classic horse books, I wanted a horse of my very own. In truth, the only time I'd ever been on the back of an animal was when my grandpa let me sit bareback on his old plow mule as he led her back to the stable.
Evan had owned a horse when he was a child, but the horse had managed to throw him and dislocate his shoulder. The point is that neither of us had any business owning a horse. We knew nothing of breaking or training one, and besides that, we lived in the city and had no place to keep a horse.
There is the saying, "You can take a boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy." For Evan, his dream of having a ranch someday was his motivating factor. Although being a rancher's wife wasn't high on my priority list, we did have a daughter who was starting to dream of horses. In the end, I wasn't hard to persuade, especially after I saw him. He was beautiful. The colt belonged to one of Evan's co-workers, and the price was right.
Unwilling to pay to board him, we carted him off to my in-laws' farm several counties away to grow up with their cattle. Since Evan's parents were getting on in years and had no use for a horse, Lucky was left undisciplined and on his own. We saw him occasionally and dreamed of when we'd buy a piece of land and bring him home to live with us.
By the time he was two, we realized our own country place was not going to materialize in the near future. We needed a trainer if we were ever to be able to ride our horse. We found a man who kept a few horses and worked with them in the evenings and on weekends. Unfortunately, his job in the city left him little time for training horses. After a couple of months, he gave us a call and said he'd managed to saddle the horse and ride him. He said our horse was very unpredictable, and he would like us to move him as he wasn't getting along with his horses.
I don't think the word 'unpredictable' registered with us at all. What we heard was the horse could now be ridden. We went over immediately to have our turn in the saddle. To Evan's credit, he was able to ride around the pasture without any major mishaps, and then it was my time.
It should have been a tip-off to the part-time cowboy and my loving mate that I was a greenhorn, when I attempted to mount from the wrong side of the horse. Then, I almost ended up facing his rear when I put the wrong foot in the stirrup. But they patiently helped boost me into the correct sitting position and handed me the reins. If they didn't notice my ignorance, Lucky did. He read me like a flashing neon billboard.
I bravely dug my toe into the horse's side, slapped the reins, and shouted, "Get up!" Well, he got up all right. He took off like someone had lit a match to his tail. I dropped the reins and grabbed the saddle horn and his mane and held on like an embedded tick. This horse knew every low hanging branch on all of the many trees scattered throughout the pasture, and he didn't miss a single one that appeared capable of decapitating a rider. I flattened myself out along his back and prayed. All the time, we were being pursued by my husband, my three kids, and the week-end cowboy all shouting, "Pull up on the reins!" The problem was that they were too far back in our dust, and I was too preoccupied to hear anything.
Eventually, after he had been unsuccessful at scraping me off, he headed toward a high barbed wire fence. I had visions of him going air-borne or else crashing through. Instead he came to an abrupt halt, no doubt expecting me to go flying over his shoulders into the next field. At that point, I managed to regain control of the reins and get out a belated and shaky, "Whoa, boy!" He probably had himself a horse laugh over that. I could almost hear him saying "Yeah, like she had anything to do with me stopping."
My family caught up and helped me to the ground. My legs were almost incapable of holding me, and I was forever cured of visions of galloping across golden fields on my own stallion.
As for luck, I felt very lucky to be alive. We were also lucky he was a beautiful horse and there was another would-be-cowboy willing to take him off our hands for a decent price. Hopefully, Lucky turned out to be lucky as well and got a trainer with the patience of Job. I hope for his sake, his story ended well.
 Recognized |
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This is a true story written for a writing prompt for a club of which I'm a member The prompt subject was "Luck".
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one point
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