El Monte, California, early 1960s.
We had a friend, let's call her Edna because that's not her name, who had a horse, harness and training cart. She went for a drive one day and somehow got kicked in the jaw, which shattered. She spent quite a lot of time in the hospital on a liquid diet because her jaws were wired shut.
She had no idea of how the accident happened. She didn't even remember getting out of the cart. One moment she was happily driving, and the next moment she was in the hospital.
Although she didn't remember any of the circumstances, she decided to avoid a repetition of the incident by giving away the cart and harness. She offered them to Joanne. Free. She accepted gladly. She was not discouraged by the fact that she knew nothing about driving a horse or training a horse to drive.
Joanne chose Legend for her driving experiment. Poor Legend. She was our guinea pig horse. She'd been trained for endurance riding, had been used for trail riding, jumping, fox hunting (off Mulholland Drive – runaway there, but that's another story). Joanne had the mare lined up for tap dancing lessons when the cart and harness opportunity came along.
We lived near a riverbed that led from the San Gabriel Mountains to the Pacific and there was a trail beside it. Lest you get a wrong idea about elegance here, the river bed had been converted into a concrete ditch by the flood control people and we could have bowled from our house to Long Beach. But the trail did exist, and that's where Joanne taught Legend to drive.
Since neither horse nor driver knew what they were doing, it took a while before the lessons were learned. But once she had this driving thing down, Legend absolutely love it! She could move out. She didn't have some big lummox floundering around on her back. The cart was light. It was almost like being free, and she showed it. She'd go into an extended trot and her tail would come up and blow in the breeze.
The other horses on the trail did not share Legend's enthusiasm. They wondered what that awful thing chasing that poor horse was. The fled, leaped, crowhopped, climbed telephone poles. Legend and Joanne left a trail of panicked horses behind them, but who cared? It felt wonderful to move freely, let her tail blow in the wind, fly her flag.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
How to Milk a Mare
Poor Legend. Hapless horse, mistreated mare, picked on person, yes, she was all of these, and while she was a very proud mother, we must remember that she wasn't even consulted in the matter. It was all just a hare-brained Harris-Daniels scheme, a wouldn't it be great if... .
And as any human mother can attest, not everything is universally pleasing about early maternity. For Legend, it was nursing. Her bag filled with yummy mare's milk, but it was very tender. Did her foal care? He did not! If milk were not forthcoming in sufficient quantity, he would give her bag a firm swipe with his muzzle. She flinched with pain but persisted. The baby, Secret, had to be fed. Ah, the joys of motherhood.
Weaning time came when Secret was about four months old. Legend's bag was still filled with yummy mare's milk but without a colt to drink it, she had to be milked by hand. She had a big bag and little spigots. It was thumb and forefinger work all the way.
As luck would have it, it was also time for the Tevis Cup ride. I had already earned my buckle on the aforementioned Legend and figured out that since I only wore one belt at a time, I only needed one buckle. But Legend and I had taken up the charitable activity of riding drag from Michigan Bluff to Auburn. Drag riders try to make sure that everyone makes it into the fair grounds on time and earns a buckle. We especially try to make sure no one gets lost in the volcano beds and river bottoms along the way. Legend and I couldn't let the side down, now, could we?
So we showed up at Michigan Bluff, ready and loaded for milking. Legend's bag was full. Very full. I had to milk her before we left and I wanted to drain her bag dry. So, with thumbs and forefingers, it was squeeze and squirt, squeeze and squirt. Cramp time. Switch to thumb and middle finger. More cramp time. Very good, I've milked for five minutes and I'm already cramped from fingers through elbows to shoulders. Can knees be far behind?
And, as has happened so often in my life, a female came to save me, this time in the person of a young girl whose mare's foal had died. She had become an expert mare milker, and offered to do the job for me, since she couldn't tell who was in greater misery, Legend or me. In very short order, she had emptied Legend's bag of milk and we were ready to take up the drag.
And that's how you milk a mare – find a teenage girl to do it for you.
And as any human mother can attest, not everything is universally pleasing about early maternity. For Legend, it was nursing. Her bag filled with yummy mare's milk, but it was very tender. Did her foal care? He did not! If milk were not forthcoming in sufficient quantity, he would give her bag a firm swipe with his muzzle. She flinched with pain but persisted. The baby, Secret, had to be fed. Ah, the joys of motherhood.
Weaning time came when Secret was about four months old. Legend's bag was still filled with yummy mare's milk but without a colt to drink it, she had to be milked by hand. She had a big bag and little spigots. It was thumb and forefinger work all the way.
As luck would have it, it was also time for the Tevis Cup ride. I had already earned my buckle on the aforementioned Legend and figured out that since I only wore one belt at a time, I only needed one buckle. But Legend and I had taken up the charitable activity of riding drag from Michigan Bluff to Auburn. Drag riders try to make sure that everyone makes it into the fair grounds on time and earns a buckle. We especially try to make sure no one gets lost in the volcano beds and river bottoms along the way. Legend and I couldn't let the side down, now, could we?
So we showed up at Michigan Bluff, ready and loaded for milking. Legend's bag was full. Very full. I had to milk her before we left and I wanted to drain her bag dry. So, with thumbs and forefingers, it was squeeze and squirt, squeeze and squirt. Cramp time. Switch to thumb and middle finger. More cramp time. Very good, I've milked for five minutes and I'm already cramped from fingers through elbows to shoulders. Can knees be far behind?
And, as has happened so often in my life, a female came to save me, this time in the person of a young girl whose mare's foal had died. She had become an expert mare milker, and offered to do the job for me, since she couldn't tell who was in greater misery, Legend or me. In very short order, she had emptied Legend's bag of milk and we were ready to take up the drag.
And that's how you milk a mare – find a teenage girl to do it for you.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
A Birthing
As you might have suspected, there is more to this story of breeding Legend to Monandan. Unfortunately, the cover took. I remember thinking, it couldn't get worse. Could it?
It got worse. In due course, Legend’s time for delivery arrived. We regularly checked her nipples for waxy deposits, colostrum. I began to have second and third thoughts about the wisdom of our actions. After all, Legend was not a girl, but a grown mare, a matron. Was pregnancy really the right thing to do?
We had pretty well decided on what night she would deliver, based on our studies of Legend’s udder and the calendar. That fateful night we put her in a smaller pasture next to the house. I woke up every 45 minutes to check on her and make sure that she wasn’t trying to do this mad thing alone. I didn’t need to worry because when her time came, she walked to that part of the pasture closest to the bedroom window and bellowed, “You got me into this, boneheads, now get me out!”
Joanne and I quickly put on our clothes and met Legend at the pasture gate. She lay down and Joanne shined a flashlight on the delivery area. We could already see front feet and a nose presented. This was a help, because it wasn’t a breech birth and we didn’t have to call the vet. However, we could also see that this wasn’t going to be particularly easy. Legend lay on a slope so that her head was uphilol. That was good. She was going to let gravity work for her. As it turned out, gravity worked for all of us..
Soon enough of the foal was presented so that Joanne and I could get our hands on it. Every time Legend had a contraction we would pull. In the meantime we murmured words of encouragement. Running through my mind were positive thoughts like: I am so stupid! How could I do this to my friend? We’ve made the Tevis Cup ride together. A hundred miles in twenty-four hours. We’ve ridden cross-country from Barstow to Las Vegas and slept in adjoining stalls at the fair grounds. She helped me sing for my drinks in Goodsprings, Nevada. We’ve even jumped off a cliff together. “Oh, Legend, my friend, how could I have been so goddamned stupid, I’m sorry, push, baby, push!”
While Joanne and I pulled at the foal's hooves every time Legend had a contraction, I noticed that its front feet were delicately folded together with its nose resting on them so as to present the smallest front possible. The hooves were very soft, rubbery, like cuttlefish, so that they wouldn't tear anything on their way out. Well, not very much anyway. When the foal came, he slipped out all at once. Joanne and I probably took ten or fifteen minutes off Legend’s delivery time.
It was a boy, a colt. A slimy little guy, slick with afterbirth. We slid the foal uphill toward Legend’s head and she began to lick him clean, clearing the sack away. This is the way it happened, and if it grosses you out, don’t blame me. Blame God. If this is intelligent design, I’ll take vanilla.
Very soon the colt raised its head to Legend and made a strange little sound in the back of his throat. Legend repeated the sound, the only time I ever heard her make it in her life. The imprint was completed. They knew who each other was.
Joanne and I left the two together and returned to the house to remove some really filthy clothes and shower.
By good daylight the foal was running around the pasture enjoying the first morning of his life. He was totally lacking in color and all other Appaloosa characteristics. He was a thoroughly sound mongrel colt. Dan and Joan couldn’t boast of the color, and so they named him Montanden’s Secret. But the Daniels' disappointment aside, it was clear that the colt and his mother thought he was the finest creature ever born. Joanne and I were pretty proud of ourselves, too. What a way to start a day.
It got worse. In due course, Legend’s time for delivery arrived. We regularly checked her nipples for waxy deposits, colostrum. I began to have second and third thoughts about the wisdom of our actions. After all, Legend was not a girl, but a grown mare, a matron. Was pregnancy really the right thing to do?
We had pretty well decided on what night she would deliver, based on our studies of Legend’s udder and the calendar. That fateful night we put her in a smaller pasture next to the house. I woke up every 45 minutes to check on her and make sure that she wasn’t trying to do this mad thing alone. I didn’t need to worry because when her time came, she walked to that part of the pasture closest to the bedroom window and bellowed, “You got me into this, boneheads, now get me out!”
Joanne and I quickly put on our clothes and met Legend at the pasture gate. She lay down and Joanne shined a flashlight on the delivery area. We could already see front feet and a nose presented. This was a help, because it wasn’t a breech birth and we didn’t have to call the vet. However, we could also see that this wasn’t going to be particularly easy. Legend lay on a slope so that her head was uphilol. That was good. She was going to let gravity work for her. As it turned out, gravity worked for all of us..
Soon enough of the foal was presented so that Joanne and I could get our hands on it. Every time Legend had a contraction we would pull. In the meantime we murmured words of encouragement. Running through my mind were positive thoughts like: I am so stupid! How could I do this to my friend? We’ve made the Tevis Cup ride together. A hundred miles in twenty-four hours. We’ve ridden cross-country from Barstow to Las Vegas and slept in adjoining stalls at the fair grounds. She helped me sing for my drinks in Goodsprings, Nevada. We’ve even jumped off a cliff together. “Oh, Legend, my friend, how could I have been so goddamned stupid, I’m sorry, push, baby, push!”
While Joanne and I pulled at the foal's hooves every time Legend had a contraction, I noticed that its front feet were delicately folded together with its nose resting on them so as to present the smallest front possible. The hooves were very soft, rubbery, like cuttlefish, so that they wouldn't tear anything on their way out. Well, not very much anyway. When the foal came, he slipped out all at once. Joanne and I probably took ten or fifteen minutes off Legend’s delivery time.
It was a boy, a colt. A slimy little guy, slick with afterbirth. We slid the foal uphill toward Legend’s head and she began to lick him clean, clearing the sack away. This is the way it happened, and if it grosses you out, don’t blame me. Blame God. If this is intelligent design, I’ll take vanilla.
Very soon the colt raised its head to Legend and made a strange little sound in the back of his throat. Legend repeated the sound, the only time I ever heard her make it in her life. The imprint was completed. They knew who each other was.
Joanne and I left the two together and returned to the house to remove some really filthy clothes and shower.
By good daylight the foal was running around the pasture enjoying the first morning of his life. He was totally lacking in color and all other Appaloosa characteristics. He was a thoroughly sound mongrel colt. Dan and Joan couldn’t boast of the color, and so they named him Montanden’s Secret. But the Daniels' disappointment aside, it was clear that the colt and his mother thought he was the finest creature ever born. Joanne and I were pretty proud of ourselves, too. What a way to start a day.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Breeding Legend
We were living in Auburn, Placer County, California at the time. We had five fenced and cross fenced acres upon which we grazed and raised our horses, cats, dogs, and sometimes other livestock. Among our horses was my very good friend, Legend, an Arab-American Saddlebred cross. She was about fourteen years old and had never had a foal.
Our neighbors, Dan and Joan Daniels, lived over the hill on their own five acres. They were going to make their fortunes raising Appaloosa horses and had acquired some very nice mares from Utah. But they had no stallion and so had to trailer their mares to stallions on other ranches and pay a hefty stud fee. This was not cost effective. A successful horse ranch needs a resident stallion, even though they are assertive and unreliable at best.
So Dan and Joan picked up an untested young horse, Montanden. Monty, as he was called, had never bred a mare for reasons that are peculiar to the Appaloosa trade. Appaloosas have certain physical characteristics, striped hooves, white sclera, mottled skin around the eyes and rectum, and Appy foals are checked rigorously for these distinctive qualities. It’s embarrassing, if you’re the foal. But the most coveted characteristic of them all is the color, either the rump patch or the leopard skin pattern. With brilliant colors the animal is worth beaucoup bucks. Without any color at all, he’s dog food.
Monty was untested, a virgin stallion, because nobody was going to entrust their mare to a stud that might not throw color. And until Monty had some foals on the ground, nobody knew for sure what he could or couldn’t do. It’s like an acting job in Hollywood; you can’t get a job unless you’re in the union, and you can’t get in the union unless you have a job. What to do? What to do?
The Harrises and the Danielses put their pointy little heads together and came up with a splendid idea. Why don’t we breed Legend to Monty? Neither has ever been bred; it will be an experience for both of them. Moreover, maybe the foal will be brilliantly colored and be worth thousands!
On the day Legend showed up in heat, Joan and Dan brought Monty calling. In the horse world it is sometimes difficult for a mare to distinguish between passionate love making and outright rape. So we decided we would use breeding hobbles to keep the mare from changing her mind in mid event. The Danielses hauled out enough leather straps to harness three horses, and decked and festooned poor Legend from head to tail and side to side. She looked like Gulliver in Lilliput.
At last the poor mare was ready and Monty was decorated with a leather-and-chain headstall positioned, with Joan on the end of a rope and armed with a whip. So there we were, four humans, two horses, and whips and chains. And not a clue in the crew. Joan pointed Monty in the right direction and the stallion stood on his hind legs and charged, nailing Legend in the ribs. A second try scored on her left ear. A dozen more tries produced a very frustrated stallion, but finally, with the help of all human hands, Monty found the right place.
It was then that Legend decided to object. She took off running, she entangled in the hobbles, Monty entangled in the hobbles, and both of them entangled with each other. Monty bounced off of Legend and came down to her left side just as Legend decided to run through a pile of junk wood I had stacked for later burning. Boards flew everywhere, rusting nails pointing out. Once through the wood pile, adding large pieces of wood to their leather ensemble, the horses headed for a barbed wire fence. I imagined a small child at a spelling bee standing in front of a large audience saying, “stupid, H-A-R-R-I-S, stupid,” to resounding applause.
Dragged down by large pieces of lumber and stumbling over each others feet, the horses stopped just short of the barbed wire fence. Very quietly we approached them and began the grand disentanglement. Once peace and order had been restored, we decided that if this covering did not take, there would not be another. Forget the horses, the humans weren’t up to it.
But the cover did take and Legend found herself in a family way. Well, thought I, that’s over. It’ can’t get any worse, can it?
Our neighbors, Dan and Joan Daniels, lived over the hill on their own five acres. They were going to make their fortunes raising Appaloosa horses and had acquired some very nice mares from Utah. But they had no stallion and so had to trailer their mares to stallions on other ranches and pay a hefty stud fee. This was not cost effective. A successful horse ranch needs a resident stallion, even though they are assertive and unreliable at best.
So Dan and Joan picked up an untested young horse, Montanden. Monty, as he was called, had never bred a mare for reasons that are peculiar to the Appaloosa trade. Appaloosas have certain physical characteristics, striped hooves, white sclera, mottled skin around the eyes and rectum, and Appy foals are checked rigorously for these distinctive qualities. It’s embarrassing, if you’re the foal. But the most coveted characteristic of them all is the color, either the rump patch or the leopard skin pattern. With brilliant colors the animal is worth beaucoup bucks. Without any color at all, he’s dog food.
Monty was untested, a virgin stallion, because nobody was going to entrust their mare to a stud that might not throw color. And until Monty had some foals on the ground, nobody knew for sure what he could or couldn’t do. It’s like an acting job in Hollywood; you can’t get a job unless you’re in the union, and you can’t get in the union unless you have a job. What to do? What to do?
The Harrises and the Danielses put their pointy little heads together and came up with a splendid idea. Why don’t we breed Legend to Monty? Neither has ever been bred; it will be an experience for both of them. Moreover, maybe the foal will be brilliantly colored and be worth thousands!
On the day Legend showed up in heat, Joan and Dan brought Monty calling. In the horse world it is sometimes difficult for a mare to distinguish between passionate love making and outright rape. So we decided we would use breeding hobbles to keep the mare from changing her mind in mid event. The Danielses hauled out enough leather straps to harness three horses, and decked and festooned poor Legend from head to tail and side to side. She looked like Gulliver in Lilliput.
At last the poor mare was ready and Monty was decorated with a leather-and-chain headstall positioned, with Joan on the end of a rope and armed with a whip. So there we were, four humans, two horses, and whips and chains. And not a clue in the crew. Joan pointed Monty in the right direction and the stallion stood on his hind legs and charged, nailing Legend in the ribs. A second try scored on her left ear. A dozen more tries produced a very frustrated stallion, but finally, with the help of all human hands, Monty found the right place.
It was then that Legend decided to object. She took off running, she entangled in the hobbles, Monty entangled in the hobbles, and both of them entangled with each other. Monty bounced off of Legend and came down to her left side just as Legend decided to run through a pile of junk wood I had stacked for later burning. Boards flew everywhere, rusting nails pointing out. Once through the wood pile, adding large pieces of wood to their leather ensemble, the horses headed for a barbed wire fence. I imagined a small child at a spelling bee standing in front of a large audience saying, “stupid, H-A-R-R-I-S, stupid,” to resounding applause.
Dragged down by large pieces of lumber and stumbling over each others feet, the horses stopped just short of the barbed wire fence. Very quietly we approached them and began the grand disentanglement. Once peace and order had been restored, we decided that if this covering did not take, there would not be another. Forget the horses, the humans weren’t up to it.
But the cover did take and Legend found herself in a family way. Well, thought I, that’s over. It’ can’t get any worse, can it?
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The Duck Pond
When Joanne first attended the University of California Riverside in the fall of 1954, she brought her two horses, Sheba and Legend, with her. Naturally. Since the two horses wouldn't blend in very well in the apartment Joanne shared with three other young women, she boarded them at a ranch owned by Ken and Joy Haiks in West Riverside.
For some reason I've never understood, West Riverside lies just north of Riverside on the other side of the Santa Ana River. The Santa Ana River, at that point, is nowhere near the city of Santa Ana. Not even in the same county. Go figure.
The horses loved it at Haiks' ranch. There was plenty of room and it had a duck pond. During the months when the flies got numerous and bothersome, Sheba immersed herself in the pond. All you could see was nostrils and eyes as she swam in circles. The flies then moved their swarm to Legend who never put it together that she could go swim the duck pond too.
Haiks didn't keep a pond for the purpose of raising ducks. But he loved the fact that ducks would come there because then he could shoot them. If only he had a duck blind. If only.
Pastures tend to be devoid of cover. The cows and horses take care of any ambitious grass searching for height. Haiks devised an ingenious duck blind. He used Legend. Legend was still learning how to be a horse, and she didn't realize that what Haiks was doing was not acceptable. You ride horses, jump them, have them pull your carts. They do not tap dance, cook your dinner or answer your phone. And they do not stand still while people hide behind them and shoot shotguns.
Legend didn't know that, so she became Haiks' duck blind. I hope that she got extra oats out of that.
That's life. If you don't learn to swim, you may end up as somebody's duck blind.
For some reason I've never understood, West Riverside lies just north of Riverside on the other side of the Santa Ana River. The Santa Ana River, at that point, is nowhere near the city of Santa Ana. Not even in the same county. Go figure.
The horses loved it at Haiks' ranch. There was plenty of room and it had a duck pond. During the months when the flies got numerous and bothersome, Sheba immersed herself in the pond. All you could see was nostrils and eyes as she swam in circles. The flies then moved their swarm to Legend who never put it together that she could go swim the duck pond too.
Haiks didn't keep a pond for the purpose of raising ducks. But he loved the fact that ducks would come there because then he could shoot them. If only he had a duck blind. If only.
Pastures tend to be devoid of cover. The cows and horses take care of any ambitious grass searching for height. Haiks devised an ingenious duck blind. He used Legend. Legend was still learning how to be a horse, and she didn't realize that what Haiks was doing was not acceptable. You ride horses, jump them, have them pull your carts. They do not tap dance, cook your dinner or answer your phone. And they do not stand still while people hide behind them and shoot shotguns.
Legend didn't know that, so she became Haiks' duck blind. I hope that she got extra oats out of that.
That's life. If you don't learn to swim, you may end up as somebody's duck blind.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
9L Cattle
One summer we shot 9L cows. Not fatally. We used a 4-10.
The 9L was Alexander Rudnik's brand. He ran his cattle up on Paiute. Nobody liked them because they overgrazed. Years and years before there had been certain kinds of flowers, but they disappeared with the overgrazing.
This one summer too many 9L cattle were hanging around the cabin. We’d dust their hides, but because we were by a creek, it was hard to get rid of them. We tried to hit their flanks. We didn’t want to blind anybody. There was one old bull who came around every day. I guess when we shot him we put a little shot into his scrotum because he really jumped and took off.
The 9L rounded up this big herd of cows and calves. They missed a little two-year-old steer. The steer, I guess, was lonesome because he kept hanging around the cabin. We knew the roundup had been held and we said, “Mom, can we kill that steer?”
She said, “Absolutely not. That’s criminal. That’s not like poaching, that’s thievery." But we nagged her and nagged her and nagged her for over two weeks until she finally said, “Oh, all right, go kill the goddamned thing, but do it a long ways from the cabin.”
The day that decision was made, he didn’t show up. We tracked him, and that dumb little animal had left the cabin, headed over the ridge, down Kelso Creek and off the mountain. Smart, smart. I wonder if we were sending out bad vibes?
The 9L was Alexander Rudnik's brand. He ran his cattle up on Paiute. Nobody liked them because they overgrazed. Years and years before there had been certain kinds of flowers, but they disappeared with the overgrazing.
This one summer too many 9L cattle were hanging around the cabin. We’d dust their hides, but because we were by a creek, it was hard to get rid of them. We tried to hit their flanks. We didn’t want to blind anybody. There was one old bull who came around every day. I guess when we shot him we put a little shot into his scrotum because he really jumped and took off.
The 9L rounded up this big herd of cows and calves. They missed a little two-year-old steer. The steer, I guess, was lonesome because he kept hanging around the cabin. We knew the roundup had been held and we said, “Mom, can we kill that steer?”
She said, “Absolutely not. That’s criminal. That’s not like poaching, that’s thievery." But we nagged her and nagged her and nagged her for over two weeks until she finally said, “Oh, all right, go kill the goddamned thing, but do it a long ways from the cabin.”
The day that decision was made, he didn’t show up. We tracked him, and that dumb little animal had left the cabin, headed over the ridge, down Kelso Creek and off the mountain. Smart, smart. I wonder if we were sending out bad vibes?
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Night on Bald Mountain
One August around 1963 or 1964 Joanne and I rode into Desolation Valley and camped by Phipps Lake at the foot of Phipps Peak. According to Google sources, Phipps Peak is 9,234' above sea level. And what a view. To the west you could see the coast mountain range and to the east, pretty as could be, Lake Tahoe and then the high desert heading towards Utah. I don't think we could actually see Utah, but we could see a really long way.
Joanne rode her large Thoroughbred type gelding, Sam (a shortened form of Samsonite because his original owner thought he had a head resembling a piece of luggage) while I rode Legend. We had enough food for ourselves and grain for the horses for a couple of days camp out.
Phipps Lake is but one of many tiny lakes. I'm sure that in Minnesota they would be called ponds. But each tiny lake provided home to golden trout. Golden trout are really rainbows who live at a high altitude and develop an oily, salmon-like flesh. The trout in Phipps Lake didn't like worms and salmon eggs were blech, but they adored helgramites. We were lucky enough to find a few and enjoyed a golden trout dinner.
At 9000+ feet spring comes late and lasts only a few weeks at most. We were lucky enough to be there for Phipps Peak's spring. We even found heather blooming, and wild daffodils blooming around tiny little elven pools. On the second day of our camp out we rode around the area for several hours, stopping here, gaping there, and at last decided to return to camp. That's when I learned that Sam and Legend were two different horses.
Sam wanted to return to camp the way we had come, following his hoof prints back to camp. If we wandered around lost on the way up, he wanted to wander around lost on the way back.
Legend, however, had a different idea. She wanted to go back to the trailer parked some miles away on a flat just west of Highway 89. And she wanted to go straight. If that meant jumping off a cliff, she would have wanted to do that.
Neither of these horses had really great ideas for getting back to camp, but Sam's was far safer. I can truthfully say that Legend never had a good idea in her life, and you could really get damaged if you let her do the thinking for the two of you. I know. And I'll tell you all my sad story soon.
But meanwhile we had spent a couple of nice days. We had come up with three other riders the first night, but they left the following morning and we were by ourselves. Joanne was in charge of making our beds which she did by laying our sleeping bags out side by each and then setting up our saddles at the heads. Then she spread a clear tarp over the whole thing, thereby improvising a tent. Stirrups dangled down to each side and everything smelled of horse, but I've smelt and slept worse.
The sun went down, darkness came, we put out our fire and went to bed. One good thing about sleeping in a shelter improvised from clear plastic tarp, you can see the sky. One bad thing about sleeping in a shelter improvised from clear plastic tarp, you can see the sky.
The night started out clear. The stars twinkled and did all of that start stuff. But soon a wind came up and clouds covered up our lights show. Not to worry. Another lights show came along. Thunder, this time, and lightning. Winds to bend the tall trees surrounding the glad where we camped. Lightning striking all around us. Did we tie the horses securely? Or are we going to have to walk home carrying our saddles? And it went on and on. Rain fell. Wind tugged at the tarp.
There is this one thing about me. When things get tough and more than I can manage, I drift off to sleep. And that's what I did here. If we were going to be killed by lightning, I didn't want to be around when it happened.
The next morning was crystal clear. We saddled up and returned to the flatlands of Lake Tahoe as though nothing had happened. And in nature's overall scheme, nothing had happened. Nothing at all.
Copyright Ken Harris 2009
Joanne rode her large Thoroughbred type gelding, Sam (a shortened form of Samsonite because his original owner thought he had a head resembling a piece of luggage) while I rode Legend. We had enough food for ourselves and grain for the horses for a couple of days camp out.
Phipps Lake is but one of many tiny lakes. I'm sure that in Minnesota they would be called ponds. But each tiny lake provided home to golden trout. Golden trout are really rainbows who live at a high altitude and develop an oily, salmon-like flesh. The trout in Phipps Lake didn't like worms and salmon eggs were blech, but they adored helgramites. We were lucky enough to find a few and enjoyed a golden trout dinner.
At 9000+ feet spring comes late and lasts only a few weeks at most. We were lucky enough to be there for Phipps Peak's spring. We even found heather blooming, and wild daffodils blooming around tiny little elven pools. On the second day of our camp out we rode around the area for several hours, stopping here, gaping there, and at last decided to return to camp. That's when I learned that Sam and Legend were two different horses.
Sam wanted to return to camp the way we had come, following his hoof prints back to camp. If we wandered around lost on the way up, he wanted to wander around lost on the way back.
Legend, however, had a different idea. She wanted to go back to the trailer parked some miles away on a flat just west of Highway 89. And she wanted to go straight. If that meant jumping off a cliff, she would have wanted to do that.
Neither of these horses had really great ideas for getting back to camp, but Sam's was far safer. I can truthfully say that Legend never had a good idea in her life, and you could really get damaged if you let her do the thinking for the two of you. I know. And I'll tell you all my sad story soon.
But meanwhile we had spent a couple of nice days. We had come up with three other riders the first night, but they left the following morning and we were by ourselves. Joanne was in charge of making our beds which she did by laying our sleeping bags out side by each and then setting up our saddles at the heads. Then she spread a clear tarp over the whole thing, thereby improvising a tent. Stirrups dangled down to each side and everything smelled of horse, but I've smelt and slept worse.
The sun went down, darkness came, we put out our fire and went to bed. One good thing about sleeping in a shelter improvised from clear plastic tarp, you can see the sky. One bad thing about sleeping in a shelter improvised from clear plastic tarp, you can see the sky.
The night started out clear. The stars twinkled and did all of that start stuff. But soon a wind came up and clouds covered up our lights show. Not to worry. Another lights show came along. Thunder, this time, and lightning. Winds to bend the tall trees surrounding the glad where we camped. Lightning striking all around us. Did we tie the horses securely? Or are we going to have to walk home carrying our saddles? And it went on and on. Rain fell. Wind tugged at the tarp.
There is this one thing about me. When things get tough and more than I can manage, I drift off to sleep. And that's what I did here. If we were going to be killed by lightning, I didn't want to be around when it happened.
The next morning was crystal clear. We saddled up and returned to the flatlands of Lake Tahoe as though nothing had happened. And in nature's overall scheme, nothing had happened. Nothing at all.
Copyright Ken Harris 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Tevis Ride 1963
Joanne originally intended to make the Tevis ride in 1961 but her intended mount, Legend, popped a curb. She went anyway to crew for our neighbor, Doris Levingston, who was also making the ride. But instead of crewing for Doris, she made the ride on a borrowed white mule, Chongo. The mule was not always cooperative and at one point threatened to go no further. Joanne, following the advice of a seasoned mule handler, convinced Chongo that she was going to beat him to death with a tree limb and leave his lifeless carcass by the side of the trail. Chongo at once perceived the error of his ways and Joanne and he finished the ride on relatively good.
Joanne gained a lot of local fame in the Auburn area as a strong, capable rider and as the first person ever to complete the ride on a mule. When we moved to Auburn we became part of a community of riders who soon began asking, “Well, Ken, when are you going to make the ride?” Life is full of choices, but this was one I was not going to get to make.
Our friend, Jean Leininger, took Legend on the ride in 1962, so that got me off the hook temporarily. I crewed for Jean on that ride and had the opportunity to observe for myself what went on. Also it gave me a season to help mark the trails. Finally, Legend was in fine condition for the 1962 ride, so all I had to do was keep her that way for 1963.
We trained. We made at least one ride weekly of at least forty miles. We practice over Cougar Rock, the Elephant's Trunk, the twin canyons just before you reach Michigan Bluff, the stretch from Foresthill to Fiddler's Green that I knew I would have to navigate in the dark. When the time for the ride rolled around Legend and I knew every inch of the trail.
I experimented with the practice of “tailgating” out of the Michigan Bluff canyons. Tailgating is a technique involving dismounting, hanging onto the reins (that's pretty important), grabbing your horse's tail and letting her tow you up the hill. It's easier on both of you. She doesn't have to carry your corpulent carcass up a hill and your walk is much easier for being towed by your horse. Tailgating was not a universally approved technique in 1963 and it may not even be used now, but I believe it helped Legend. I was no featherweight back then, weighing around 200 pounds. That plus the weight of the saddle and the candy bars in my shirt, that's quite a load for a horse to pack uphill.
Came time for the ride, and we were ready. The horses are always checked for soundness on the day before the ride. The vets are very thorough. Nobody really cared about the riders. If they're that stupid, they deserve what they get. But the horses have no real choice, so the vets check them thoroughly on the day before the ride. Then the rider is assigned his number and the same number spray painted onto the horse's haunch.
While I'm on the subject, there were three enforced rests stops in those days where the horses were vet checked coming in and going out, Robinsons Flats, Michigan Bluff and Fiddler's Green. If the horses didn't meet some rigorous physical standards, they didn't continue. (The stops aren't the same now as they were in 1963. I just looked on their website and didn't recognize much of anything. Here's a news flash. I just looked in the mirror. It's not 1963 there, either.)
Horses need those stops. They are such giving creatures. “Sure, boss, you want me to go 'til I drop dead? I'll do it.” And it has happened. But no veterinarian wants it happening on his watch.
In '63 the vet checks were done on the shores of Lake Tahoe. “Run your horse down the beach and back,” the vet instructed me. I gave Legend a vocal signal and began to run down a sandy beach as fast as I could run on a sandy beach in high heeled boots. Legend broke into her rockinghorse canter, matching my pace exactly, so you know we weren't going to set any land speed records. She felt so good she “flew her flag,” tail up and swirling. Man, we both felt good – we were ready!
But we weren't ready for John Robie's reveille. We had to be up early on the morning the ride because started at 5:00 a.m. So at o'dark-thirty John Robie blatted his bugle and produced an effective but in no way melodious result.
At 5:00 a.m. sharp we rode as a group from Tahoe City to the area below Squaw Peak. The trail ran through a grove of tall cedars. It was darker than Satan's armpit, so dark I couldn't have seen a white horse if I'd been riding it.
There weren't many surprises on the ride itself. The first sixty miles went well, although when we pulled into Michigan Bluff Legend's pulse was so elevated that the vet checking her told Joanne that the mare would never continue. But Legend was in great shape and her recovery rate was wonderful.
We cleared the volcano flats during the last light of day and it was quite dark when we checked into Fiddler's Green. By then Legend was in better shape than I was. My legs had given out. I could no more support my weight than I could fly. But it would have been bad to sit in the saddle and bounce around like I was duct taped there. Hard on Legend's kidneys. So I elected to lean forward and push down on the saddle horn with the palm of my hand. That worked for both of us, although I did have a blistered hand the next morning.
We arrived with five minutes to spare, but we were tired, the both of us. I took Legend to a stall that had been rented for her at the district fair grounds where the finish line was. A thick bed of bedding straw becked her and she gently lay down and groaned. She wasn't in extremis. She was just very, very tired and that fresh straw felt and smelled so good.
I was looking forward to the same kind of rest when I got home, but I was so tired I couldn't sleep. Even a hot bath and brandy in my chocolate didn't help. And for me not to go to sleep within five minutes of the time I hit the pillow is unheard of.
Eventually I did drift off for a few hours but woke up sore in every muscle and joint, and stiffer than a pine tree. Legend was pretty stiff, too. We went for a gentle walk that afternoon, maybe a mile, just to work some of the kinks out.
That evening all the other riders chauséed and pas de basqued up to get their buckles. I hobbled. Barely. It produced quite a laugh because the other riders thought I was putting them on. I wish they'd been right.
Joanne gained a lot of local fame in the Auburn area as a strong, capable rider and as the first person ever to complete the ride on a mule. When we moved to Auburn we became part of a community of riders who soon began asking, “Well, Ken, when are you going to make the ride?” Life is full of choices, but this was one I was not going to get to make.
Our friend, Jean Leininger, took Legend on the ride in 1962, so that got me off the hook temporarily. I crewed for Jean on that ride and had the opportunity to observe for myself what went on. Also it gave me a season to help mark the trails. Finally, Legend was in fine condition for the 1962 ride, so all I had to do was keep her that way for 1963.
We trained. We made at least one ride weekly of at least forty miles. We practice over Cougar Rock, the Elephant's Trunk, the twin canyons just before you reach Michigan Bluff, the stretch from Foresthill to Fiddler's Green that I knew I would have to navigate in the dark. When the time for the ride rolled around Legend and I knew every inch of the trail.
I experimented with the practice of “tailgating” out of the Michigan Bluff canyons. Tailgating is a technique involving dismounting, hanging onto the reins (that's pretty important), grabbing your horse's tail and letting her tow you up the hill. It's easier on both of you. She doesn't have to carry your corpulent carcass up a hill and your walk is much easier for being towed by your horse. Tailgating was not a universally approved technique in 1963 and it may not even be used now, but I believe it helped Legend. I was no featherweight back then, weighing around 200 pounds. That plus the weight of the saddle and the candy bars in my shirt, that's quite a load for a horse to pack uphill.
Came time for the ride, and we were ready. The horses are always checked for soundness on the day before the ride. The vets are very thorough. Nobody really cared about the riders. If they're that stupid, they deserve what they get. But the horses have no real choice, so the vets check them thoroughly on the day before the ride. Then the rider is assigned his number and the same number spray painted onto the horse's haunch.
While I'm on the subject, there were three enforced rests stops in those days where the horses were vet checked coming in and going out, Robinsons Flats, Michigan Bluff and Fiddler's Green. If the horses didn't meet some rigorous physical standards, they didn't continue. (The stops aren't the same now as they were in 1963. I just looked on their website and didn't recognize much of anything. Here's a news flash. I just looked in the mirror. It's not 1963 there, either.)
Horses need those stops. They are such giving creatures. “Sure, boss, you want me to go 'til I drop dead? I'll do it.” And it has happened. But no veterinarian wants it happening on his watch.
In '63 the vet checks were done on the shores of Lake Tahoe. “Run your horse down the beach and back,” the vet instructed me. I gave Legend a vocal signal and began to run down a sandy beach as fast as I could run on a sandy beach in high heeled boots. Legend broke into her rockinghorse canter, matching my pace exactly, so you know we weren't going to set any land speed records. She felt so good she “flew her flag,” tail up and swirling. Man, we both felt good – we were ready!
But we weren't ready for John Robie's reveille. We had to be up early on the morning the ride because started at 5:00 a.m. So at o'dark-thirty John Robie blatted his bugle and produced an effective but in no way melodious result.
At 5:00 a.m. sharp we rode as a group from Tahoe City to the area below Squaw Peak. The trail ran through a grove of tall cedars. It was darker than Satan's armpit, so dark I couldn't have seen a white horse if I'd been riding it.
There weren't many surprises on the ride itself. The first sixty miles went well, although when we pulled into Michigan Bluff Legend's pulse was so elevated that the vet checking her told Joanne that the mare would never continue. But Legend was in great shape and her recovery rate was wonderful.
We cleared the volcano flats during the last light of day and it was quite dark when we checked into Fiddler's Green. By then Legend was in better shape than I was. My legs had given out. I could no more support my weight than I could fly. But it would have been bad to sit in the saddle and bounce around like I was duct taped there. Hard on Legend's kidneys. So I elected to lean forward and push down on the saddle horn with the palm of my hand. That worked for both of us, although I did have a blistered hand the next morning.
We arrived with five minutes to spare, but we were tired, the both of us. I took Legend to a stall that had been rented for her at the district fair grounds where the finish line was. A thick bed of bedding straw becked her and she gently lay down and groaned. She wasn't in extremis. She was just very, very tired and that fresh straw felt and smelled so good.
I was looking forward to the same kind of rest when I got home, but I was so tired I couldn't sleep. Even a hot bath and brandy in my chocolate didn't help. And for me not to go to sleep within five minutes of the time I hit the pillow is unheard of.
Eventually I did drift off for a few hours but woke up sore in every muscle and joint, and stiffer than a pine tree. Legend was pretty stiff, too. We went for a gentle walk that afternoon, maybe a mile, just to work some of the kinks out.
That evening all the other riders chauséed and pas de basqued up to get their buckles. I hobbled. Barely. It produced quite a laugh because the other riders thought I was putting them on. I wish they'd been right.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tevis 1962, or Legend's Death Wish
Joanne was supposed to ride Legend on the Western States Trail Ride in 1961, but that plan unravelled when Legend popped a curb. Joanne went up to Tahoe City anyway to crew for our neighbor, Doris Levingston, and ended up making the ride anyway on a borrowed white mule named Chongo. By the time she finished the ride she was so beat and battered that she vowed never to return to Auburn again or even fly over it.
But within twenty-four hours of coming home to El Monte in southern California she had not only changed her mind about returning to Auburn, but decided that we were all going to move there, the kids, the horses, I, “Uncle Tom Cobley and all”.
The plan had several components; selling our home, buying one with a place for horses, resigning our jobs, getting new jobs. And, of course, we wanted it all done today. Yesterday would have been better.
In the meantime another friend, Jean Leininger, had decided that she wanted to make the ride and Legend was elected to be her travel companion.
Legend stayed and trained with Jean and her mother, who lived on a bluff overlooking Arroyo Burro Beach near Santa Barbara, a wonderful place to live but not much for conditioning endurance horses. To cut some slack here, nobody really know much about conditioning horses for an extreme endurance ride. It was such a new event back then, nobody knew much about anything.
Wendell Robie's technique for training horses was interesting. He had some vertical real estate on the south bank of the American River across from Auburn upon which he ran a small herd of iron Arab horses. He put our feed but mostly they were on their own. When he wanted to ride, he'd catch a horse, any horse, saddle up and ride off. They were slightly better than wild. If you could catch and saddle one, you could ride him. I think more than one of his Tevis horses was the unlucky guy who was caught and saddled the day before the ride, the day the horses were vetted.
That was in the Dark Ages, the middle-fifties to middle-sixties. The event was so new that one year Sports Illustrated sent out a reporter on at least two occasions that I can think of, and (don't hold my feet to the fire on this) I think NASA sent out some people to look at these extremely well conditioned athletes (the horses, not the riders).
Within a month of the ride we had purchased a place and installed our horses before we even had any buildings on the property. Jean came up and made a few training rides in the area. On one memorable occasion she and I were heading up the Old Stage Coach Road off Robie Point outside of Auburn. It's a steepish trail coming up from the American River into town. This was the last part of the Western States Trail. We made that ride as often as we could because the horses are very tired after they have moved out for 80 miles or so and it gives them heart to recognize when they are near the end of the trail. On this one occasion we came to spot where (horrors) water trickled across the road. Legend, as might be expected, did something stupid.
She forgot entirely about her broken tail. She forgot entirely that she was supposed to do what the rider told her to. She absolutely refused to cross the water. She reared, she spun, she snorted, and in the process fell off the trail. This was a grievous miscalculation on her part since a very steep slope led several hundred feet to the river below. Jean crawled out of the saddle and over Legend's neck and head, leaving the mare with her front hooves gripping the trail, her rear hooves digging into the slope and an “Oh Shit” look on her face.
I was so angry with Legend I would cheerfully have shoved her in the river, but Jean was made of more compassionate stuff. She grabbed the reins and pulled on them, giving Legend enough guidance to where she could scramble back on the trail. After that, we remounted our horses and Jean and Legend crossed the trickle of water uneventfully to finish the ride.
The 1962 ride was uneventful, as far as Jean and Legend were concerned. Legend had no trouble passing the vet check, they came in towards the last at each check point, but in good shape, and finished the ride in over 22 hours. As for Legend I would like to say that that she never did another stupid thing.
I would like to say that, but it would be a lie.
But within twenty-four hours of coming home to El Monte in southern California she had not only changed her mind about returning to Auburn, but decided that we were all going to move there, the kids, the horses, I, “Uncle Tom Cobley and all”.
The plan had several components; selling our home, buying one with a place for horses, resigning our jobs, getting new jobs. And, of course, we wanted it all done today. Yesterday would have been better.
In the meantime another friend, Jean Leininger, had decided that she wanted to make the ride and Legend was elected to be her travel companion.
Legend stayed and trained with Jean and her mother, who lived on a bluff overlooking Arroyo Burro Beach near Santa Barbara, a wonderful place to live but not much for conditioning endurance horses. To cut some slack here, nobody really know much about conditioning horses for an extreme endurance ride. It was such a new event back then, nobody knew much about anything.
Wendell Robie's technique for training horses was interesting. He had some vertical real estate on the south bank of the American River across from Auburn upon which he ran a small herd of iron Arab horses. He put our feed but mostly they were on their own. When he wanted to ride, he'd catch a horse, any horse, saddle up and ride off. They were slightly better than wild. If you could catch and saddle one, you could ride him. I think more than one of his Tevis horses was the unlucky guy who was caught and saddled the day before the ride, the day the horses were vetted.
That was in the Dark Ages, the middle-fifties to middle-sixties. The event was so new that one year Sports Illustrated sent out a reporter on at least two occasions that I can think of, and (don't hold my feet to the fire on this) I think NASA sent out some people to look at these extremely well conditioned athletes (the horses, not the riders).
Within a month of the ride we had purchased a place and installed our horses before we even had any buildings on the property. Jean came up and made a few training rides in the area. On one memorable occasion she and I were heading up the Old Stage Coach Road off Robie Point outside of Auburn. It's a steepish trail coming up from the American River into town. This was the last part of the Western States Trail. We made that ride as often as we could because the horses are very tired after they have moved out for 80 miles or so and it gives them heart to recognize when they are near the end of the trail. On this one occasion we came to spot where (horrors) water trickled across the road. Legend, as might be expected, did something stupid.
She forgot entirely about her broken tail. She forgot entirely that she was supposed to do what the rider told her to. She absolutely refused to cross the water. She reared, she spun, she snorted, and in the process fell off the trail. This was a grievous miscalculation on her part since a very steep slope led several hundred feet to the river below. Jean crawled out of the saddle and over Legend's neck and head, leaving the mare with her front hooves gripping the trail, her rear hooves digging into the slope and an “Oh Shit” look on her face.
I was so angry with Legend I would cheerfully have shoved her in the river, but Jean was made of more compassionate stuff. She grabbed the reins and pulled on them, giving Legend enough guidance to where she could scramble back on the trail. After that, we remounted our horses and Jean and Legend crossed the trickle of water uneventfully to finish the ride.
The 1962 ride was uneventful, as far as Jean and Legend were concerned. Legend had no trouble passing the vet check, they came in towards the last at each check point, but in good shape, and finished the ride in over 22 hours. As for Legend I would like to say that that she never did another stupid thing.
I would like to say that, but it would be a lie.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The Popped Curb
It was May in 1961. Legend and I had just returned from our week's ride from Barstow to Las Vegas. Unfortunately, she had been kicked by someone on the ride on the left hind leg below the hock and above the ankle joint. It didn't seem to bother her any.
I returned her to Joanne to resume conditioning for the Western States Trail Ride. One of the first things Joanne did was to ride from our house down the San Gabriel River to the ocean near Long Beach. The ride was at least 30 miles and the river bed by this time was nothing more than a concrete ditch. You could have rolled a bowling ball from our house to the beach.
Next on the training agenda was a ride into the San Gabriel Mountains. Joanne and our neighbor, Doris Levingston, trailered the horses to the Arroyo Seco Stables in South Pasadena and headed up the trail towards the mountains.
A little south of the Rose Bowl, Legend suddenly went from go-go to no-go. Joanne dismounted and discovered that Legend couldn't put her left hind foot on the ground. A huge lump, hot to the touch, had suddenly appeared between the hock and the ankle areas. She had become an instant three-legged horse. Joanne managed to walk Legend to the Rose Bowl while Doris drove the trailer up there. From there everyone came home.
A vet later explained to Joanne what had happened. There are twin parallel tendons running down the hind leg and they move against each other, or at least in opposing directions, when the horse walks. Apparently Legend had been kicked there and the resultant swelling of either the tendons or the muscle tissue surrounding them caused the tendons to rub against each other. This friction resulted in Legend's disability. And believe me, she was disabled.
Not much to do about it. Rest. Massage some lotion onto the area to increase the circulation. We did that twice a day. It got so Legend would see us coming with the lotion and she would just stand there and wait.
It didn't take too long before she was ready to take easy rides, but the time for training was over. So Joanne left for Tahoe City to accompany our neighbor Doris to help her on the ride and to see what went on there. She intended to complete the ride the next year.
Legend and I were left to guard the chickens and she didn't make the ride until the following year, 1962.
Copyright Ken Harris 2009
I returned her to Joanne to resume conditioning for the Western States Trail Ride. One of the first things Joanne did was to ride from our house down the San Gabriel River to the ocean near Long Beach. The ride was at least 30 miles and the river bed by this time was nothing more than a concrete ditch. You could have rolled a bowling ball from our house to the beach.
Next on the training agenda was a ride into the San Gabriel Mountains. Joanne and our neighbor, Doris Levingston, trailered the horses to the Arroyo Seco Stables in South Pasadena and headed up the trail towards the mountains.
A little south of the Rose Bowl, Legend suddenly went from go-go to no-go. Joanne dismounted and discovered that Legend couldn't put her left hind foot on the ground. A huge lump, hot to the touch, had suddenly appeared between the hock and the ankle areas. She had become an instant three-legged horse. Joanne managed to walk Legend to the Rose Bowl while Doris drove the trailer up there. From there everyone came home.
A vet later explained to Joanne what had happened. There are twin parallel tendons running down the hind leg and they move against each other, or at least in opposing directions, when the horse walks. Apparently Legend had been kicked there and the resultant swelling of either the tendons or the muscle tissue surrounding them caused the tendons to rub against each other. This friction resulted in Legend's disability. And believe me, she was disabled.
Not much to do about it. Rest. Massage some lotion onto the area to increase the circulation. We did that twice a day. It got so Legend would see us coming with the lotion and she would just stand there and wait.
It didn't take too long before she was ready to take easy rides, but the time for training was over. So Joanne left for Tahoe City to accompany our neighbor Doris to help her on the ride and to see what went on there. She intended to complete the ride the next year.
Legend and I were left to guard the chickens and she didn't make the ride until the following year, 1962.
Copyright Ken Harris 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Legend and Beanblossom
In March, 1961, we were living in El Monte and actively involved with children, jobs, and, whenever we could find the time, horses. Equestrian Trails, Inc., or ETI as we all knew it, was a large statewide organization dedicated to procuring, retaining and maintaining riding trails throughout rapidly urbanizing Southern California. Work at the local level was done by individual local chapters called “corrals.” We belonged to Corral 36. ETI corrals provided our social lives with trail rides, barbecues, entry-level horse shows and gymkhanas.
Barstow’s ETI corral annually put together a week-long trail ride from Barstow to Las Vegas. I had a little vacation time coming from Occidental Life and so took a week off to make the safari with my wife’s sorrel mare, Legend. Joanne had been conditioning the mare to make the 100-mile-in-24-hours Tevis race from Tahoe City to Auburn. There was no question in my mind that an animal able to cover 100 miles over the Sierra Nevada mountains in 24 hours could easily go 130 miles from Barstow to Las Vegas in one week. Legend would probably think she was on vacation as well as I.
We had a neighbor who regularly made this ride and through a cost sharing arrangement with him I was able to get Legend to Barstow. We couldn’t have made it on our own because we had neither horse trailer nor pickup to pull it with. We arrived in Barstow after dark and threw out our sleeping bags and I drifted off to sleep assuming everything was well.
It wasn’t.
It was a strange, but throughout her life most horses hated Legend on sight. They struck at her with their forehooves, slashed at her with their teeth, squealed insults at her. True to form, the other horses in the van on the way to Barstow brutalized Legend so that by next morning she was hunched up like she was standing in a blizzard. Her urinary bladder was stopped up. Or her kidneys. Or something.
Her condition put me in a quandary. The horse transportation had already departed and if Legend were too sick to make the trip to Las Vegas she and I would be stranded in Barstow without shelter, food, love or money. On the other hand, if we attempted the ride and she broke down, then we would be stranded in the desert, same situation except more cactus and no telephone. I decided to go for it and began the ride on a borrowed horse leading Legend at the gentle walk. By now there were about a dozen riders.
We ambled along for a half hour when Legend decided to urinate. And so she did. And did. And did. After a while she commanded quite a bit of attention from everyone else. If I had known she was going to present such a virtuoso urinary display, I would have sold tickets in advance.
I say that other horses did not like Legend. There was one exception. Beanblossom, a large, rangy buckskin gelding with a forceful personality, homely to look at but more intelligent than most humans I’ve dealt with. Not that Old Bean ever misbehaved. He was very well trained and did whatever his rider wanted, but you had the idea that he was well aware that he had options and was just going along with the gag.
Beanblossom had been a range horse and I think there was a lot of mustang in him. He had been trained by a teenage male who had some curious training tactics. For instance, he would approach the horse, whip out a hidden loaded water pistol and squirt him in the face. Most horses would have responded badly, but not Old Bean. He thought it was a great joke. He immediately took to holding a last mouthful of water when he drank and then sneaking up behind someone and letting him have the whole liter. Beanblossom had quite a sense of humor and it made him famous throughout the Barstow area.
Beanblossom’s owner, if such a horse can be said to have an owner, was Jobert Williams, an Armenian-Cherokee American who had been a bull rider, run his own undercapitalized saddle shop which failed, and was the mover and shaker in a local fast-draw gun club. I would never have the nerve to go into business for myself and you couldn’t get me into the same corral with a bull, let alone on his back. And I don’t believe in playing with guns. Talk about the odd couple. Nevertheless, we got along great together and so did our horses. We rode most of the 130 miles together.
A truck carried our sleeping bags and other gear and met us each night at the new camp site. More importantly, the truck met us twice a day, at 10:00 and 2:00 with beer for the humans and water for the horses. Well, there was one day when the terrain was too rough for the beer wagon. The horses knew when 10:00 had arrived as surely as if they had tuned into a satellite, and when it became apparent that water was not to be forthcoming, they made their displeasure known.
A motorized chuckwagon provided civilized food. So in the evenings we didn't have to eat meat that had been wrapped around a stick and undercooked over an open fire. Instead, we sat around the open fire and pretended we were real cowboys. And cowgirls. We would talk about things that concerned riders. One evening the subject was tethering.
Most of the riders used the Horseman’s Knot to tether their horses. It’s a nifty little hitch made with a couple of quick flips of the wrist. The beauty of the Horseman’s Knot is that a horse cannot free himself by pulling back on the rope, but the rider can untie it by simply pulling on the loose end. One tug, a flying mount, and you’re on your way out of Dodge leaving the sheriff in a cloud of dust, spluttering and gnashing his teeth. Joe Williams didn't use the Horseman's Knot because Beanblossom had figured it out. Easy, easy, easy.
But, me, I didn’t know how to tie the Horseman’s Knot. Joanne had tried to teach me several times, but I have this problem, have had it all my life. Joanne says I’m stubborn, but I think I’m just unable to tie knots. “Well, I never use the Horseman’s Knot. I just use a bowline.” I didn’t mention that I used the bowline because it is one of the two knots I know how to tie. “I’ve never had a horse get away from me yet,” I added.
Everyone burst out laughing. That puzzled me because I didn’t think it was one of my better one-liners. Then I looked behind me. You guessed it. There stood Legend, looking for me, dragging her lead rope behind her. Apparently my heralded bowline had simply dropped off and Legend had come to me for advice.
Two days out of Las Vegas we crossed into the Great State of Nevada and camped at the town of Goodsprings. We were 12 miles east of Sandy Valley and 7 miles north of Jean, to locate this place precisely for you. In 1961 Goodsprings was as close to a ghost town as you could get and still not be haunted. There were around 20 old houses in varying states of disrepair and two others were actually occupied.
Goodsprings also sported a weathered hotel that looked like it was falling apart. But it had a well-stocked bar. Unfortunately, I had very little money with me, so the abundance of alcohol was really irrelevant. Then I had a happy thought. I sang my repertoire of Tom Lehr songs and Jobert added a few golden ditties he’d picked up on the rodeo circuit and that provided a few drinks while my trusty steed stood by the campfire. I would have invited her into the bar with me, but I was afraid she would fall through the floor.
Meanwhile, I can tell people I’ve entertained in Nevada, in a hotel just outside of Las Vegas.
The night after Goodsprings we camped at a hobo jungle near a railroad track. The campsite provided an epiphany for Legend in the form of an artesian well. She had never seen water just come out of the ground like that. She wouldn’t even go near it. I had to fill a bucket with water for her so she could drink.
That night we made sure all the horses were secured to the picket line and that the pickets were firmly anchored into the earth. I especially double checked my bowline. We thought the midnight special might come by and frighten the horses into pulling their pickets. The visual of a dozen horses connected by 50 feet of chain running through the desert was not a pretty one.
Jobert also made sure Beanblossom was tied and double tied because Old Bean would think it a great joke to untie himself and all the other horses and go into Las Vegas without us. But we weren’t as careful with our beer cans, and Beanblossom found one. He worked it to where it lay between his front hooves and then gently kicked it from left hoof to right hoof. And then back again. Click click click. Click click click. We all lay awake listening. Click click click. Finally, our ride leader, a heretofore gracious lady, could stand it no longer. “Williams, take that goddamned beer can away from your goddamned horse!” she screamed. Jobert did, but Beanblossom gave him his innocent, “what did I do?” look.
We finally made it to Las Vegas in time to participate as a riding unit in their Pioneer Days parade. But our horses, so surefooted over sand, rock, and shale, stumbled and slid all over the pavement. Luckily, no one was hurt, but it wasn’t our fault.
Eventually we fetched up at the Clark County fair grounds where Joanne met me. She had found a sitter for our two little ones, probably her long suffering mother, and came up to spend a wild night on the town with me. Legend had her stall, a very nice one with new straw for bedding. Joanne and I had the stall next to hers, and we had clean bedding straw as well. Jobert and his wife and Beanblossom were in stalls across the aisle. Life was good.
Copyright 2009 Ken Harris
Barstow’s ETI corral annually put together a week-long trail ride from Barstow to Las Vegas. I had a little vacation time coming from Occidental Life and so took a week off to make the safari with my wife’s sorrel mare, Legend. Joanne had been conditioning the mare to make the 100-mile-in-24-hours Tevis race from Tahoe City to Auburn. There was no question in my mind that an animal able to cover 100 miles over the Sierra Nevada mountains in 24 hours could easily go 130 miles from Barstow to Las Vegas in one week. Legend would probably think she was on vacation as well as I.
We had a neighbor who regularly made this ride and through a cost sharing arrangement with him I was able to get Legend to Barstow. We couldn’t have made it on our own because we had neither horse trailer nor pickup to pull it with. We arrived in Barstow after dark and threw out our sleeping bags and I drifted off to sleep assuming everything was well.
It wasn’t.
It was a strange, but throughout her life most horses hated Legend on sight. They struck at her with their forehooves, slashed at her with their teeth, squealed insults at her. True to form, the other horses in the van on the way to Barstow brutalized Legend so that by next morning she was hunched up like she was standing in a blizzard. Her urinary bladder was stopped up. Or her kidneys. Or something.
Her condition put me in a quandary. The horse transportation had already departed and if Legend were too sick to make the trip to Las Vegas she and I would be stranded in Barstow without shelter, food, love or money. On the other hand, if we attempted the ride and she broke down, then we would be stranded in the desert, same situation except more cactus and no telephone. I decided to go for it and began the ride on a borrowed horse leading Legend at the gentle walk. By now there were about a dozen riders.
We ambled along for a half hour when Legend decided to urinate. And so she did. And did. And did. After a while she commanded quite a bit of attention from everyone else. If I had known she was going to present such a virtuoso urinary display, I would have sold tickets in advance.
I say that other horses did not like Legend. There was one exception. Beanblossom, a large, rangy buckskin gelding with a forceful personality, homely to look at but more intelligent than most humans I’ve dealt with. Not that Old Bean ever misbehaved. He was very well trained and did whatever his rider wanted, but you had the idea that he was well aware that he had options and was just going along with the gag.
Beanblossom had been a range horse and I think there was a lot of mustang in him. He had been trained by a teenage male who had some curious training tactics. For instance, he would approach the horse, whip out a hidden loaded water pistol and squirt him in the face. Most horses would have responded badly, but not Old Bean. He thought it was a great joke. He immediately took to holding a last mouthful of water when he drank and then sneaking up behind someone and letting him have the whole liter. Beanblossom had quite a sense of humor and it made him famous throughout the Barstow area.
Beanblossom’s owner, if such a horse can be said to have an owner, was Jobert Williams, an Armenian-Cherokee American who had been a bull rider, run his own undercapitalized saddle shop which failed, and was the mover and shaker in a local fast-draw gun club. I would never have the nerve to go into business for myself and you couldn’t get me into the same corral with a bull, let alone on his back. And I don’t believe in playing with guns. Talk about the odd couple. Nevertheless, we got along great together and so did our horses. We rode most of the 130 miles together.
A truck carried our sleeping bags and other gear and met us each night at the new camp site. More importantly, the truck met us twice a day, at 10:00 and 2:00 with beer for the humans and water for the horses. Well, there was one day when the terrain was too rough for the beer wagon. The horses knew when 10:00 had arrived as surely as if they had tuned into a satellite, and when it became apparent that water was not to be forthcoming, they made their displeasure known.
A motorized chuckwagon provided civilized food. So in the evenings we didn't have to eat meat that had been wrapped around a stick and undercooked over an open fire. Instead, we sat around the open fire and pretended we were real cowboys. And cowgirls. We would talk about things that concerned riders. One evening the subject was tethering.
Most of the riders used the Horseman’s Knot to tether their horses. It’s a nifty little hitch made with a couple of quick flips of the wrist. The beauty of the Horseman’s Knot is that a horse cannot free himself by pulling back on the rope, but the rider can untie it by simply pulling on the loose end. One tug, a flying mount, and you’re on your way out of Dodge leaving the sheriff in a cloud of dust, spluttering and gnashing his teeth. Joe Williams didn't use the Horseman's Knot because Beanblossom had figured it out. Easy, easy, easy.
But, me, I didn’t know how to tie the Horseman’s Knot. Joanne had tried to teach me several times, but I have this problem, have had it all my life. Joanne says I’m stubborn, but I think I’m just unable to tie knots. “Well, I never use the Horseman’s Knot. I just use a bowline.” I didn’t mention that I used the bowline because it is one of the two knots I know how to tie. “I’ve never had a horse get away from me yet,” I added.
Everyone burst out laughing. That puzzled me because I didn’t think it was one of my better one-liners. Then I looked behind me. You guessed it. There stood Legend, looking for me, dragging her lead rope behind her. Apparently my heralded bowline had simply dropped off and Legend had come to me for advice.
Two days out of Las Vegas we crossed into the Great State of Nevada and camped at the town of Goodsprings. We were 12 miles east of Sandy Valley and 7 miles north of Jean, to locate this place precisely for you. In 1961 Goodsprings was as close to a ghost town as you could get and still not be haunted. There were around 20 old houses in varying states of disrepair and two others were actually occupied.
Goodsprings also sported a weathered hotel that looked like it was falling apart. But it had a well-stocked bar. Unfortunately, I had very little money with me, so the abundance of alcohol was really irrelevant. Then I had a happy thought. I sang my repertoire of Tom Lehr songs and Jobert added a few golden ditties he’d picked up on the rodeo circuit and that provided a few drinks while my trusty steed stood by the campfire. I would have invited her into the bar with me, but I was afraid she would fall through the floor.
Meanwhile, I can tell people I’ve entertained in Nevada, in a hotel just outside of Las Vegas.
The night after Goodsprings we camped at a hobo jungle near a railroad track. The campsite provided an epiphany for Legend in the form of an artesian well. She had never seen water just come out of the ground like that. She wouldn’t even go near it. I had to fill a bucket with water for her so she could drink.
That night we made sure all the horses were secured to the picket line and that the pickets were firmly anchored into the earth. I especially double checked my bowline. We thought the midnight special might come by and frighten the horses into pulling their pickets. The visual of a dozen horses connected by 50 feet of chain running through the desert was not a pretty one.
Jobert also made sure Beanblossom was tied and double tied because Old Bean would think it a great joke to untie himself and all the other horses and go into Las Vegas without us. But we weren’t as careful with our beer cans, and Beanblossom found one. He worked it to where it lay between his front hooves and then gently kicked it from left hoof to right hoof. And then back again. Click click click. Click click click. We all lay awake listening. Click click click. Finally, our ride leader, a heretofore gracious lady, could stand it no longer. “Williams, take that goddamned beer can away from your goddamned horse!” she screamed. Jobert did, but Beanblossom gave him his innocent, “what did I do?” look.
We finally made it to Las Vegas in time to participate as a riding unit in their Pioneer Days parade. But our horses, so surefooted over sand, rock, and shale, stumbled and slid all over the pavement. Luckily, no one was hurt, but it wasn’t our fault.
Eventually we fetched up at the Clark County fair grounds where Joanne met me. She had found a sitter for our two little ones, probably her long suffering mother, and came up to spend a wild night on the town with me. Legend had her stall, a very nice one with new straw for bedding. Joanne and I had the stall next to hers, and we had clean bedding straw as well. Jobert and his wife and Beanblossom were in stalls across the aisle. Life was good.
Copyright 2009 Ken Harris
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Pegasus
My wife, Joanne, and I lived in Auburn, California in the mid-1960s, and involved ourselves with the Tevis Cup One Hundred Mile ride group. We had both done the ride and wanted to keep our horses in condition. Often we spent our weekends with Wendell Robie marking trail for the next ride. Wendell was the guiding light for the Tevis Cup ride and, as I stop to think of it, figured in several of our misadventures.
On one of these expeditions we found ourselves on a steep hillside. Usually when I tell this story, it’s a cliff. But the slope wasn’t ninety degrees, it was more like seventy. It was certainly too steep for ballroom dancing. The slope had a few oak trees growing on it, but you couldn’t see their sides, only their tops.
Wendell was in the lead, followed by Joanne on her horse, Country Girl, followed by me on Legend. We came upon a pine tree that had fallen over during the winter rains leaving its rootside uphill of the trail and the topside dangling out into the air. Wendell rode around the obstacle. A horse is perfectly capable of negotiating a seventy degree slope if the rider just gets out of his way and lets him do it. Joanne didn’t want to go around the tree, she wanted to jump it. And jump it she did.
Legend got ready to jump the tree from a standstill, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to go around the obstacle, not over it. I pulled back on the reins and turned her out facing the slope. I figured we would go off the trail and down the slope, around the tree and up the slope, the way Wendell had done. I had forgotten my earlier jumping lessons at the Arroyo Seco Stables in South Pasadena. I had forgotten that to Legend could and would jump from a standstill.
She did jump from a standstill.
I wish you had been there to appreciate the look of amazement on Legend’s face when she saw nothing but air and tree tops below her instead of firm ground. I was there and I did see it. I really wish you had been there instead of me. As soon as I realized we were airborne, I let go of the reins, kicked my feet clear of the stirrups and tried to abandon ship. But the higher I went, the higher she went. My ship wouldn’t let me abandon her. I don’t know what she thought I was going to do, but it was clear that she expected me to save us.
Fortunately, we landed in the top of an oak tree where we parted company. If we had augured into the ground I wouldn’t be writing this story now. We filtered through the tree and fell to earth, taking branches with us, and landed one on each side of the trunk.
Joanne tells me I was knocked unconscious, but I don’t believe it. I was merely laying face down wiggling fingers and toes, rejoicing in the movement of each digit. It took a while. After all, there are twenty of them. Legend had a scrape above her left eye and I didn’t get a scratch, although some years later a chiropractor looked at an x-ray and asked me about my whiplash.
The rest of the crew continued with clearing the trail, but Joanne and I repaired to a sandy beach on the river and fished what was left of our lunch out of the saddle bags. Our friends said that if I’d do it again they’d bring a cameraman along and we could all split the money. I have such good friends.
Meanwhile, I learned two important lessons. One: horses can’t fly. Two: I can’t either.
Copyright Ken Harris 2006
On one of these expeditions we found ourselves on a steep hillside. Usually when I tell this story, it’s a cliff. But the slope wasn’t ninety degrees, it was more like seventy. It was certainly too steep for ballroom dancing. The slope had a few oak trees growing on it, but you couldn’t see their sides, only their tops.
Wendell was in the lead, followed by Joanne on her horse, Country Girl, followed by me on Legend. We came upon a pine tree that had fallen over during the winter rains leaving its rootside uphill of the trail and the topside dangling out into the air. Wendell rode around the obstacle. A horse is perfectly capable of negotiating a seventy degree slope if the rider just gets out of his way and lets him do it. Joanne didn’t want to go around the tree, she wanted to jump it. And jump it she did.
Legend got ready to jump the tree from a standstill, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to go around the obstacle, not over it. I pulled back on the reins and turned her out facing the slope. I figured we would go off the trail and down the slope, around the tree and up the slope, the way Wendell had done. I had forgotten my earlier jumping lessons at the Arroyo Seco Stables in South Pasadena. I had forgotten that to Legend could and would jump from a standstill.
She did jump from a standstill.
I wish you had been there to appreciate the look of amazement on Legend’s face when she saw nothing but air and tree tops below her instead of firm ground. I was there and I did see it. I really wish you had been there instead of me. As soon as I realized we were airborne, I let go of the reins, kicked my feet clear of the stirrups and tried to abandon ship. But the higher I went, the higher she went. My ship wouldn’t let me abandon her. I don’t know what she thought I was going to do, but it was clear that she expected me to save us.
Fortunately, we landed in the top of an oak tree where we parted company. If we had augured into the ground I wouldn’t be writing this story now. We filtered through the tree and fell to earth, taking branches with us, and landed one on each side of the trunk.
Joanne tells me I was knocked unconscious, but I don’t believe it. I was merely laying face down wiggling fingers and toes, rejoicing in the movement of each digit. It took a while. After all, there are twenty of them. Legend had a scrape above her left eye and I didn’t get a scratch, although some years later a chiropractor looked at an x-ray and asked me about my whiplash.
The rest of the crew continued with clearing the trail, but Joanne and I repaired to a sandy beach on the river and fished what was left of our lunch out of the saddle bags. Our friends said that if I’d do it again they’d bring a cameraman along and we could all split the money. I have such good friends.
Meanwhile, I learned two important lessons. One: horses can’t fly. Two: I can’t either.
Copyright Ken Harris 2006
Friday, February 20, 2009
Jumping With Legend
Jumping with Legend
© Ken Harris 2008
Joanne was taking English riding lessons from Bobbi Williams in 1957. That’s where you bounce up and down in the saddle like you had springs in your pants. I was not really gifted in this activity.
Bobbi had heard of a splendid scheme to improve indifferent riders by teaching them to jump. The supposition was they would be too busy just trying to stay on their horse to worry about niceties like balance. They would automatically become better riders if they never succeeded in taking a jump. Assuming they survived.
By the end of several weeks of this untender tutelage, I had not fallen off my horse even though I looked as if I stayed stayed in the saddle by duct tape. But I had been riding school horses, not our own true Legend. I made the comment that although I had not been riding long, I had not yet been thrown. What follows is confirmation of my theory that not only is there a God, but she doesn’t like loudmouths.
Most sensible horses will stop in front of a jump if you haul on the reins hard enough and roar “whoa” in their ears. Some horses will ignore you and jump anyway. Legend did both. She came to a complete stop. And then she jumped. She went up and up and I went up and up and up. We came down on the other side of the jump, so I guess you could say we took the jump. We just came down about ten feet apart.
Legend would do that. She would take a jump from a standstill. Just to prove something to somebody, we did a repeat performance, but differently, five minutes later. This time she went up and forwards and I went up and backwards. Gravity exerted its inevitable effect and this time we ended up on opposite sides of the jump.
Joanne reminded me that I still hadn’t been thrown. Falling off doesn’t count.
© Ken Harris 2008
Joanne was taking English riding lessons from Bobbi Williams in 1957. That’s where you bounce up and down in the saddle like you had springs in your pants. I was not really gifted in this activity.
Bobbi had heard of a splendid scheme to improve indifferent riders by teaching them to jump. The supposition was they would be too busy just trying to stay on their horse to worry about niceties like balance. They would automatically become better riders if they never succeeded in taking a jump. Assuming they survived.
By the end of several weeks of this untender tutelage, I had not fallen off my horse even though I looked as if I stayed stayed in the saddle by duct tape. But I had been riding school horses, not our own true Legend. I made the comment that although I had not been riding long, I had not yet been thrown. What follows is confirmation of my theory that not only is there a God, but she doesn’t like loudmouths.
Most sensible horses will stop in front of a jump if you haul on the reins hard enough and roar “whoa” in their ears. Some horses will ignore you and jump anyway. Legend did both. She came to a complete stop. And then she jumped. She went up and up and I went up and up and up. We came down on the other side of the jump, so I guess you could say we took the jump. We just came down about ten feet apart.
Legend would do that. She would take a jump from a standstill. Just to prove something to somebody, we did a repeat performance, but differently, five minutes later. This time she went up and forwards and I went up and backwards. Gravity exerted its inevitable effect and this time we ended up on opposite sides of the jump.
Joanne reminded me that I still hadn’t been thrown. Falling off doesn’t count.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Riding Side Saddle
Riding Side Saddle
Copyright Ken Harris 2008
I had very little going for me when I first learned to ride. I had almost no experience with horses, indifferent coordination, and a total lack of common sense. Even so, after I had learned enough by riding Sheba to go where I wanted most of the time, Joanne let me ride her horse, Legend.
I didn’t have much experience as a rider, but Legend didn’t know much about being a horse either. We were green together.
I was very impressed by Joanne’s riding technique. She always cinched her saddle very loosely. You could usually insert a finger between the cinch strap and her horse’s belly. I tried saddling the same way, but when I tried to mount found myself lying on the ground wondering what happened. “Balance,” my soon to be blushing bride told me. “Balance is the key.”
After some practice I managed to learn to mount with a loose saddle and, at the walk, comport myself comfortably. We rode in the Rio Hondo, a Los Angeles County river, the bed of which is now completely encased in concrete. You could roll a bowling ball from the San Gabriel Mountains to Long Beach. But in those days, the mid-1950s, it was sand and brush and rocks. We liked to trot and canter over the sand dunes. I felt like I was Lawrence of Arabia. That is, I felt like I was riding a camel.
One day while cantering over the dunes I noticed the horizon in front of me tipping to my right. I figured out instantly that I was falling off the horse. Among real horsemen grabbing the horn is for sissies. I grabbed the horn.
It didn’t fix the problem; the horizon tilted even faster. Down I went, saddle and all, until the saddle ended up almost underneath Legend and most of me lay on the ground, all but my right foot. My left foot had come out of the stirrup easily enough, but the right foot might as well have been welded in.
If Legend had known anything about being a horse, she would have bolted in hysteria, dragging my lifeless body under her belly, mashing my head into pulp with her iron shod hooves at every frenzied step. But she didn’t do that. Instead, she stopped and looked at me in amazement. You could read amazement in her eyes. “Ken, what the hell are you doing?!”
Joanne rode up and, after first making sure that she wasn’t a widow before she was even a bride, asked, “Ken, what the hell are you doing?!”
Both of them were asking the wrong person. I obviously didn’t know.
Copyright Ken Harris 2008
I had very little going for me when I first learned to ride. I had almost no experience with horses, indifferent coordination, and a total lack of common sense. Even so, after I had learned enough by riding Sheba to go where I wanted most of the time, Joanne let me ride her horse, Legend.
I didn’t have much experience as a rider, but Legend didn’t know much about being a horse either. We were green together.
I was very impressed by Joanne’s riding technique. She always cinched her saddle very loosely. You could usually insert a finger between the cinch strap and her horse’s belly. I tried saddling the same way, but when I tried to mount found myself lying on the ground wondering what happened. “Balance,” my soon to be blushing bride told me. “Balance is the key.”
After some practice I managed to learn to mount with a loose saddle and, at the walk, comport myself comfortably. We rode in the Rio Hondo, a Los Angeles County river, the bed of which is now completely encased in concrete. You could roll a bowling ball from the San Gabriel Mountains to Long Beach. But in those days, the mid-1950s, it was sand and brush and rocks. We liked to trot and canter over the sand dunes. I felt like I was Lawrence of Arabia. That is, I felt like I was riding a camel.
One day while cantering over the dunes I noticed the horizon in front of me tipping to my right. I figured out instantly that I was falling off the horse. Among real horsemen grabbing the horn is for sissies. I grabbed the horn.
It didn’t fix the problem; the horizon tilted even faster. Down I went, saddle and all, until the saddle ended up almost underneath Legend and most of me lay on the ground, all but my right foot. My left foot had come out of the stirrup easily enough, but the right foot might as well have been welded in.
If Legend had known anything about being a horse, she would have bolted in hysteria, dragging my lifeless body under her belly, mashing my head into pulp with her iron shod hooves at every frenzied step. But she didn’t do that. Instead, she stopped and looked at me in amazement. You could read amazement in her eyes. “Ken, what the hell are you doing?!”
Joanne rode up and, after first making sure that she wasn’t a widow before she was even a bride, asked, “Ken, what the hell are you doing?!”
Both of them were asking the wrong person. I obviously didn’t know.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Tail of a Tale
Tale of a Tail
©Ken Harris 2008
Legend was not a very intelligent horse. She made up for her lack of intelligence by being stubborn as a pig. Joanne and I have many Legend stories that could start out with these sentences.
One of her little quirks was her reluctance to cross water. Not just reluctance. Oh, my, no. Aversion, intransigent refusal, outright turn red in the face and pound her four heels on the ground refusal.
We’re not talking significant water here. We’re talking puddles, creeks, damp pavement. Any time we encountered water, there was going to be a fight. Legend was stubborn.
But Joanne was stubborner.
She decided that she had put up with Legend’s temper tantrums long enough and the next time the two of them met water, Legend would cross it or die.
The test was not long in forthcoming. We were both riding near the San Gabriel River bottom when we came to a puddle. It wasn’t even a big puddle, maybe six inches of water. Fetlock deep. There was an 18” bank on either side of the puddle. This was not a formidable barrier.
Legend, naturally enough, refused to cross the water. Joanne put a loop of rope around her neck, not a hangman’s noose, although we considered that option from time to time. She then used the same rope to throw a half hitch around the mare’s nose. Then Joanne crossed the puddle, put the remainder of the rope behind her and sat on the bight. When she did that, the half hitch contracted, inflicting pain in Legend’s nasal area and restricting her ability to breathe. As Joanne exerted pressure on the rope, Legend pulled backwards, exerting more pressure on the rope and further restricting her efforts to breathe. Did I mention that Legend was not bright?
Legend still refused to cross the water in spite of all Joanne’s encouragement, so she asked me to pound on the mare’s rump with a quirt. I set to my task with vigor and Legend reared up, protesting this assault on both ends. As she did so, the bank gave way and gravity exerted its inevitable effect. Legend fell and landed on her tail. Great was her pain, great enough to make her cross the water.
Joanne thought Legend had broken her tail because when she finally stood she had a hump in her back like a camel and her tail was tightly clamped down to her body. Fortunately the tail was not broken. Legend recovered from this little contretemps, but she never again resisted anything so strenuously. And she always crossed water, but sometimes under protest.
©Ken Harris 2008
Legend was not a very intelligent horse. She made up for her lack of intelligence by being stubborn as a pig. Joanne and I have many Legend stories that could start out with these sentences.
One of her little quirks was her reluctance to cross water. Not just reluctance. Oh, my, no. Aversion, intransigent refusal, outright turn red in the face and pound her four heels on the ground refusal.
We’re not talking significant water here. We’re talking puddles, creeks, damp pavement. Any time we encountered water, there was going to be a fight. Legend was stubborn.
But Joanne was stubborner.
She decided that she had put up with Legend’s temper tantrums long enough and the next time the two of them met water, Legend would cross it or die.
The test was not long in forthcoming. We were both riding near the San Gabriel River bottom when we came to a puddle. It wasn’t even a big puddle, maybe six inches of water. Fetlock deep. There was an 18” bank on either side of the puddle. This was not a formidable barrier.
Legend, naturally enough, refused to cross the water. Joanne put a loop of rope around her neck, not a hangman’s noose, although we considered that option from time to time. She then used the same rope to throw a half hitch around the mare’s nose. Then Joanne crossed the puddle, put the remainder of the rope behind her and sat on the bight. When she did that, the half hitch contracted, inflicting pain in Legend’s nasal area and restricting her ability to breathe. As Joanne exerted pressure on the rope, Legend pulled backwards, exerting more pressure on the rope and further restricting her efforts to breathe. Did I mention that Legend was not bright?
Legend still refused to cross the water in spite of all Joanne’s encouragement, so she asked me to pound on the mare’s rump with a quirt. I set to my task with vigor and Legend reared up, protesting this assault on both ends. As she did so, the bank gave way and gravity exerted its inevitable effect. Legend fell and landed on her tail. Great was her pain, great enough to make her cross the water.
Joanne thought Legend had broken her tail because when she finally stood she had a hump in her back like a camel and her tail was tightly clamped down to her body. Fortunately the tail was not broken. Legend recovered from this little contretemps, but she never again resisted anything so strenuously. And she always crossed water, but sometimes under protest.
Monday, January 26, 2009
The Wild Weasel Hunt
The Wild Weasel Hunt
© Ken Harris 2008
We rode in the Rio Hondo a lot back in the late 1950s, before the river became a huge, concrete drainage ditch. Then the riverbed had nice, deep sand. If either Sheba or Legend had eaten too many oats for breakfast and yearned to be wild and free, a brisk, hundred-yard canter through deep sand would adjust his or her attitude. Too many oats have much the same effect on horses that too much single malt has on humans.
On this particular morning I was riding Sheba and Joanne was riding Legend. As we drowsily plodded through the river sand in the morning sun, a weasel suddenly ran in front of us, gasped, and frantically darted about looking for a hole. We had accidentally gotten too close to him. I don’t know whether it was the human smell, the horse smell, or an unpleasant combination of both, but he wanted to put as much distance as he could between us and him -- if he could only remember where his hole was. As he ran, Sheba caught sight of him and took off in hot pursuit. Something to stomp, oh joy, oh bliss. I literally went along for the ride. With a hip hooray and a what the hey, I went wild weasel hunting with Sheba.
Joanne and Legend joined the chase. That poor weasel ran from bush to bush for five minutes, looking for his personal bush with his personal bolt hole while we chased furiously. When I say “we” I mean Joanne and Sheba. Legend was typically clueless, had no idea what we were chasing. She never saw the weasel. All she knew was Joanne was for some reason asking her to go very fast and move in several different directions at once. I had no control over Sheba, so I went where she did feeling lucky not to continue heading west while she suddenly wheeled to the south. Sheba was agile. Really, really agile. I stayed on her back only because I maintained a death grip around her middle. I may have even had my feet crossed underneath her belly.
The hunt came out in the very best way possible. Nothing happened. The weasel survived to tell his grandchildren about his memorable day in the Rio Hondo river bed. Neither horse nor rider broke a leg, so we didn’t have to shoot anybody. It was a fine hunt.
© Ken Harris 2008
We rode in the Rio Hondo a lot back in the late 1950s, before the river became a huge, concrete drainage ditch. Then the riverbed had nice, deep sand. If either Sheba or Legend had eaten too many oats for breakfast and yearned to be wild and free, a brisk, hundred-yard canter through deep sand would adjust his or her attitude. Too many oats have much the same effect on horses that too much single malt has on humans.
On this particular morning I was riding Sheba and Joanne was riding Legend. As we drowsily plodded through the river sand in the morning sun, a weasel suddenly ran in front of us, gasped, and frantically darted about looking for a hole. We had accidentally gotten too close to him. I don’t know whether it was the human smell, the horse smell, or an unpleasant combination of both, but he wanted to put as much distance as he could between us and him -- if he could only remember where his hole was. As he ran, Sheba caught sight of him and took off in hot pursuit. Something to stomp, oh joy, oh bliss. I literally went along for the ride. With a hip hooray and a what the hey, I went wild weasel hunting with Sheba.
Joanne and Legend joined the chase. That poor weasel ran from bush to bush for five minutes, looking for his personal bush with his personal bolt hole while we chased furiously. When I say “we” I mean Joanne and Sheba. Legend was typically clueless, had no idea what we were chasing. She never saw the weasel. All she knew was Joanne was for some reason asking her to go very fast and move in several different directions at once. I had no control over Sheba, so I went where she did feeling lucky not to continue heading west while she suddenly wheeled to the south. Sheba was agile. Really, really agile. I stayed on her back only because I maintained a death grip around her middle. I may have even had my feet crossed underneath her belly.
The hunt came out in the very best way possible. Nothing happened. The weasel survived to tell his grandchildren about his memorable day in the Rio Hondo river bed. Neither horse nor rider broke a leg, so we didn’t have to shoot anybody. It was a fine hunt.
Friday, January 23, 2009
How I Learned to Ride Horses
How I Learned to Ride Horses
©Ken Harris 2008
It was 1955. I had decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Joanne Heyser, even though it meant I was going to have to learn to ride a horse. I had never ridden much.
I started with Sheba, The Horse With The History. At first Joanne did all the saddling and bridling. Sheba, all 14 hands 2 inches of her, knew a lot about riding and I knew nothing. Fortunately for me she had a kindly disposition.
On weekends I would drive from Riverside to El Monte and spend the weekend with the Heyser family. Each afternoon Sheba took me out for a ride and brought me back. The took great care that I didn’t fall off. She had to because there were so many things I didn't know.
I didn't know, for instance, that you don’t sit in a saddle. You stand in a saddle with the balls of your feet in the stirrups and your weight on your heels. This keeps you from rubbing a large blister at the base of your spine. I know that now.
Also, when you're in the saddle, if it feels like you are sitting (oops, standing) up straight, you aren’t. You stick your chest out and arch your back until it feels like you’re doing a swan dive. This keeps you from developing blisters in your thighs. I know that now.
Finally, you point your toes out when you stand in the saddle. This keeps you from developing blisters on the inside of your knees. I know that now.
I was no challenge for Sheba. She dozed through our excursions. My first clue was her ears. A horse’s ears point to whatever she’s looking at. Sheba’s ears flopped back and forth as we walked and her eyes were closed. She didn’t actually snore, but she was sound asleep. Once she stumbled over a cigarette butt.
Gradually, as Joanne and I rode to more interesting places, Sheba began to stay awake. I realized that I had passed some sort of milestone when she actually crow-hopped a little bit with me. Not enough to dislodge me; just enough to register her displeasure with something I had done. That meant that she felt I had progressed enough to be reprimanded for my shortcomings.
After that, I began riding Legend, the Horse With The Problem, from time to time. “What a thrill,” I thought at the time. And, as it turned out, there were many thrills in the ensuing years.
©Ken Harris 2008
It was 1955. I had decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Joanne Heyser, even though it meant I was going to have to learn to ride a horse. I had never ridden much.
I started with Sheba, The Horse With The History. At first Joanne did all the saddling and bridling. Sheba, all 14 hands 2 inches of her, knew a lot about riding and I knew nothing. Fortunately for me she had a kindly disposition.
On weekends I would drive from Riverside to El Monte and spend the weekend with the Heyser family. Each afternoon Sheba took me out for a ride and brought me back. The took great care that I didn’t fall off. She had to because there were so many things I didn't know.
I didn't know, for instance, that you don’t sit in a saddle. You stand in a saddle with the balls of your feet in the stirrups and your weight on your heels. This keeps you from rubbing a large blister at the base of your spine. I know that now.
Also, when you're in the saddle, if it feels like you are sitting (oops, standing) up straight, you aren’t. You stick your chest out and arch your back until it feels like you’re doing a swan dive. This keeps you from developing blisters in your thighs. I know that now.
Finally, you point your toes out when you stand in the saddle. This keeps you from developing blisters on the inside of your knees. I know that now.
I was no challenge for Sheba. She dozed through our excursions. My first clue was her ears. A horse’s ears point to whatever she’s looking at. Sheba’s ears flopped back and forth as we walked and her eyes were closed. She didn’t actually snore, but she was sound asleep. Once she stumbled over a cigarette butt.
Gradually, as Joanne and I rode to more interesting places, Sheba began to stay awake. I realized that I had passed some sort of milestone when she actually crow-hopped a little bit with me. Not enough to dislodge me; just enough to register her displeasure with something I had done. That meant that she felt I had progressed enough to be reprimanded for my shortcomings.
After that, I began riding Legend, the Horse With The Problem, from time to time. “What a thrill,” I thought at the time. And, as it turned out, there were many thrills in the ensuing years.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Legend, the Horse with the Problem
Legend, the Horse with the Problem
Copyright Ken Harris 2009
If Sheba was The Horse with The History but no one knew what it was, Legend was The Horse with The Problem that everyone knew about. She was antisocial. In spades, vulnerable, doubled and re-doubled.
There is some sort of madness that drives horse owners to accumulate more horses than they need. The Heyser family had one person in the family who rode, Joanne. It stood to reason that they needed two horses.
That was where Legend came into the picture. Joanne’s parents, Sid and Esther Heyser, decided that it would be a good thing to get their daughter a colt. It would keep her out of trouble and give her something to do after school besides think about boys. They could learn about horse training together.
A little vocabulary here before we go on. All horse-babies are foals. A foal is either a colt (male) or a filly (female). At some time early in a colt’s career, its owner decides whether he will ever be used for stud purposes. If not, then his testicles are neither useful nor decorative and are therefore removed. And that’s how colts become geldings. Otherwise, they remain horses until they are actively put to stud, at which time they become stallions. Stallions are chock-a-block full of hormones and it’s not safe to take liberties with them. Fillies remain so until around four, at which time they become mares.
Joanne’s parents “commissioned” a foal by an Arab stallion named Khazel out of a grade mare named Lady. “Grade” means “mixed-blood.” She was half Arab, half American Saddle Bred. There was nothing grade about Khazel, though. He was by Abu Farwa out of Kharafia. We are not just talking blue blood here, folks; Abu Farwa bled turquoise, azure, cobalt, Prussian, you name it, it was blue. Lineage doesn’t make much difference to a horse, but to the horse’s owner the longer the pedigree, the better.
Louie and Nellie Goldfarb, the husband and wife couple managing the ranch where Legend was born, were in the midst of a domestic dispute that eventually led to their divorce. Louie didn’t like Arab horses, he didn’t like the ranch and he didn’t like Nellie. Not only that, Louie didn’t apparently see much virtue in work. According to what Joanne told me, Louie was supposed to feed the colts, and make sure they were halter broken and semi-civilized. Louie fed, and that was it. Nellie worked off the ranch as many ranch people, maybe even most of them, have to do. She caught up with her ranch work in her off hours.
Eventually, when Joanne decided to work with Legend a little bit, she found a filly untouched by human hands. She couldn't lead the foal, couldn't even get near her. She brought in a trainer who halter broke the filly in one hour. It was an intense hour, but the deed was done.
It became apparent that Louie wasn’t doing his job. There’s nothing a person who’s not doing their job hates more than having people know about it. So Louie decided that he would prove that this filly, Legend, had been ruined by the trainer who had spent an hour halter breaking her. Louie didn’t feed her. He threw things at her. He saw to it that Legend developed a genuinely bad attitude.
When Joanne picked her up to take her home she was stunted and had a pot belly. And she was very antisocial. She tried to bite and kick people and sometimes succeeded. She motivated Joanne’s brother, Fritz, to abandon the corral by leaping over the top rail. He later always claimed that the principal thing he admired about the French was that they ate horses.
Come to think of it, Joanne’s sister Audrey almost suffered a similar fate. Neither of them would willingly go out and try to do something with Legend. Even Joanne felt the force of her hooves and it became apparent that this girl who had never trained a horse was not going to succeed with this horse who had never been trained.
Another trainer “green broke” the filly so that she could at least begin her Horse 101 lessons. It fell to Joanne and Sheba to educate Legend further.
Sheba was outright mean to Legend and put up with no crap whatever. The filly learned her lessons or paid with her hide. But when turned into pasture, Sheba put Legend into an open corral. Then, while she slept, Sheba stood guard at the front gate, her front legs astraddle the sleeping filly, and protected the filly from other horses with hoof and tooth. Sheba could brutalize Legend, but nobody else better try.
When I first started hanging out with Joanne, she considered it her duty to teach me to ride. But I also heard all these stories about Legend, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to even be in the same county with her. Not to worry, said she. She would ride Legend, and I would get to ride Sheba. It would be like riding a lawn chair.
Copyright Ken Harris 2009
If Sheba was The Horse with The History but no one knew what it was, Legend was The Horse with The Problem that everyone knew about. She was antisocial. In spades, vulnerable, doubled and re-doubled.
There is some sort of madness that drives horse owners to accumulate more horses than they need. The Heyser family had one person in the family who rode, Joanne. It stood to reason that they needed two horses.
That was where Legend came into the picture. Joanne’s parents, Sid and Esther Heyser, decided that it would be a good thing to get their daughter a colt. It would keep her out of trouble and give her something to do after school besides think about boys. They could learn about horse training together.
A little vocabulary here before we go on. All horse-babies are foals. A foal is either a colt (male) or a filly (female). At some time early in a colt’s career, its owner decides whether he will ever be used for stud purposes. If not, then his testicles are neither useful nor decorative and are therefore removed. And that’s how colts become geldings. Otherwise, they remain horses until they are actively put to stud, at which time they become stallions. Stallions are chock-a-block full of hormones and it’s not safe to take liberties with them. Fillies remain so until around four, at which time they become mares.
Joanne’s parents “commissioned” a foal by an Arab stallion named Khazel out of a grade mare named Lady. “Grade” means “mixed-blood.” She was half Arab, half American Saddle Bred. There was nothing grade about Khazel, though. He was by Abu Farwa out of Kharafia. We are not just talking blue blood here, folks; Abu Farwa bled turquoise, azure, cobalt, Prussian, you name it, it was blue. Lineage doesn’t make much difference to a horse, but to the horse’s owner the longer the pedigree, the better.
Louie and Nellie Goldfarb, the husband and wife couple managing the ranch where Legend was born, were in the midst of a domestic dispute that eventually led to their divorce. Louie didn’t like Arab horses, he didn’t like the ranch and he didn’t like Nellie. Not only that, Louie didn’t apparently see much virtue in work. According to what Joanne told me, Louie was supposed to feed the colts, and make sure they were halter broken and semi-civilized. Louie fed, and that was it. Nellie worked off the ranch as many ranch people, maybe even most of them, have to do. She caught up with her ranch work in her off hours.
Eventually, when Joanne decided to work with Legend a little bit, she found a filly untouched by human hands. She couldn't lead the foal, couldn't even get near her. She brought in a trainer who halter broke the filly in one hour. It was an intense hour, but the deed was done.
It became apparent that Louie wasn’t doing his job. There’s nothing a person who’s not doing their job hates more than having people know about it. So Louie decided that he would prove that this filly, Legend, had been ruined by the trainer who had spent an hour halter breaking her. Louie didn’t feed her. He threw things at her. He saw to it that Legend developed a genuinely bad attitude.
When Joanne picked her up to take her home she was stunted and had a pot belly. And she was very antisocial. She tried to bite and kick people and sometimes succeeded. She motivated Joanne’s brother, Fritz, to abandon the corral by leaping over the top rail. He later always claimed that the principal thing he admired about the French was that they ate horses.
Come to think of it, Joanne’s sister Audrey almost suffered a similar fate. Neither of them would willingly go out and try to do something with Legend. Even Joanne felt the force of her hooves and it became apparent that this girl who had never trained a horse was not going to succeed with this horse who had never been trained.
Another trainer “green broke” the filly so that she could at least begin her Horse 101 lessons. It fell to Joanne and Sheba to educate Legend further.
Sheba was outright mean to Legend and put up with no crap whatever. The filly learned her lessons or paid with her hide. But when turned into pasture, Sheba put Legend into an open corral. Then, while she slept, Sheba stood guard at the front gate, her front legs astraddle the sleeping filly, and protected the filly from other horses with hoof and tooth. Sheba could brutalize Legend, but nobody else better try.
When I first started hanging out with Joanne, she considered it her duty to teach me to ride. But I also heard all these stories about Legend, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to even be in the same county with her. Not to worry, said she. She would ride Legend, and I would get to ride Sheba. It would be like riding a lawn chair.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Sheba, the Horse with a History
Sheba, the Horse With a History
©Ken Harris, 2009
Growing a mane and tail were beyond me, so I set about learning to ride. Sheba taught me, so it is fitting that I start my tale with her. Without Sheba there would have been no Ken and Legend. Well, yes there would have been individually, but not together as the eminently defeatable team we became.
Sheba, a small, refined Arab mare, was a horse with a history. Unfortunately, nobody knew what that history was. We never found out.
Joanne claims she was born to ride horses. She and her older sister, Audrey, spent their summers on the family mining claim on Paiute Mountain in California’s southern Sierra Nevadas. Whenever the two girls found a horse minding its own business in a nearby meadow, they would attempt to catch and ride him. They always let him go. It wasn’t really horse stealing. It was more of a catch-and-release program.
During the winter months the family lived in East Los Angeles and Joanne rented horses from nearby stables with her babysitting money and she worked one summer at a camp as a counselor. She got to ride there.
But it was not quite the same thing as owning her own horse. It wasn’t even close. And so, one day in 1951 when Joanne was 17, her parents moved from East Los Angeles to El Monte, to a nice house on a large lot with a repairable barn and room for a corral for a horse. And Sheba came into her life. Drumroll here.
A friend of a friend of Joanne’s sister, Audrey, had a horse. She (call her Jane Doe) and her husband (but of course, John) were separating, and the horse had to go. Joanne’s mother, Esther, contacted John who told her, “It’s this way. We’re splitting the sheets and the horse has to go. If you will give her a good home, she’s yours.” He would probably have said the same thing about Jane. He might not have even insisted on a good home for her.
John and Jane delivered the horse and Joanne was ecstatic, as only a first-time horse owner can be. Sheba was a small, refined flea-bitten grey mare, 14 hands high, barely enough to qualify as a horse.
A little explanation here. A hand equals four inches. A horse’s height is measured from the ground to the top of his shoulder blades, his withers. If a horse is exactly five feet from ground to wither top, that converts to exactly 60 inches. Sixty divided by four equals 15. Ergo, the horse is said to be 15 hands high. See how simple that is?
Sheba barely qualified for horsehood. She was just 14.2, that is, fourteen hands two inches high. Any equine below that height is a pony. It’s official. It’s a recognized by all the major horse and pony associations.
When I said she was a flea-bitten grey I did not mean she had flea blight. She was a light grey horse with darker flecks of grey. If the darker grey flecks had been larger and less defined, she would have been dappled instead of flea-bitten.
Sheba had one other identifying mark, a scar on her left flank and some muscle missing under it. Something majorly bad had happened to her, but no one ever found out what it was. She had healed and was sound of wind and limb.
Sheba fit into the Heyser family very well. Horses actually like being with kids, if the kids show any competence at all. Kids go interesting places and do interesting things. Adults ride in circles or walk on trails. Sometimes they enter horse show classes and walk, trot, canter and back up. Ooh, and this is exciting, be still my beating heart, sometimes adults go out and stand around in the middle of a show ring attached to their horses with lead lines and nice halters while someone called “the judge” walks around them and makes cryptic comments to someone called “the secretary” who notes them down on her clipboard. Then a few people get ribbons and everyone goes home. No, on the whole, horses would rather be with kids than adults.
Joanne and Sheba used to gymkhana a lot. Gymkhana is a competition for young people involving pole bending (they don’t actually bend the poles, they weave in and out like a slalom), barrel racing (again, they don’t race the barrels, they run around them in tight Celtic knots) and other surprise events.
One such surprise event involved the kids and their horses starting on a line, racing to the other end of the ring, dismounting, lifting up a barrel, trying to grab whatever they found there, get back on their horse again, and ride back to the finish line. Under each barrel was a live chicken. Assuming the kid could grab her chicken, there was not one hope in Hell of ever catching her horse again. As for mounting with a squawking chicken in her hand, forget it! Most of the horses were hysterical but Sheba thought it was a wonderful game called “chicken stomp.” While the other horses were trying to flee, she was trying to nail the birds with her hooves. She couldn’t do it because the chickens were fast and there were just too many of them. But she tried. And she had a wonderful time. Everybody else was frustrated, but Sheba had a wonderful time.
About a year had passed and Joanne and Sheba had formed a firm friendship and effective partnership on the trail. It was at this point that Jane Doe phoned to say that she wanted her horse back. Her new boyfriend was a jockey and he thought they could get $400 for the horse at auction. Joanne was in hysterics, but her mother, Esther, was made of sterner stuff. She said, “John gave us that horse. The understanding was that if you wanted her back, you could have her. But you are not going to sell her at auction!” Jane never called again.
Sheba was an extremely intelligent horse, not always a good thing. When Joanne’s family constructed the corral they prefabbed the uprights by joining two 2x6s with spacers in between them. In that way, other 2x6 rails could be slid into place and wouldn’t have to be nailed there. This ingenious arrangement made it possible to slide the railings out of the way and drive a pickup into the corral area. The whole thing was made more secure by running an electrically charged hot wire inside the top rail.
But not only was the structure a corral, it was also an intelligence test, one that Sheba easily passed. First, she learned to test the wire with one whisker. If there was no tingle showing electricity, she could then tear the wire down at her leisure. Once that had been accomplished, she then demonstrated that if humans could slide rails into place, then she could unslide them.
Later she learned to associate the “ka-chonk ka-chonk” of the fence charger with electricity in the wire. No sound in the barn, no fury in the wire. Sheba no longer had to employ the whisker test. Extreme intelligence in your horse is a mixed blessing.
To offset her intelligence, Sheba was a very kind animal. She and Joanne learned to play together well, especially the “mechanical horse” routine. There was a large peach tree in the Heyser back yard and Sheba was very fond of peaches. Joanne could lead her to the tree, give her one peach, and then ride her around the back yard without saddle or bridle. After one turn around the yard, she would fetch up at the tree for another peach. Watching Sheba eat peaches was worth the price of admission. She would bit in to her peach, get this insane smile and slobber would pour out of her mouth by the bucket. After a minute, she would spit the pit back out, dry as an archaeologist’s bone.
It’s a good thing for me that Sheba was kind, because I learned to ride on her. Poor Sheba. She certainly put up with a lot from me.
©Ken Harris, 2009
Growing a mane and tail were beyond me, so I set about learning to ride. Sheba taught me, so it is fitting that I start my tale with her. Without Sheba there would have been no Ken and Legend. Well, yes there would have been individually, but not together as the eminently defeatable team we became.
Sheba, a small, refined Arab mare, was a horse with a history. Unfortunately, nobody knew what that history was. We never found out.
Joanne claims she was born to ride horses. She and her older sister, Audrey, spent their summers on the family mining claim on Paiute Mountain in California’s southern Sierra Nevadas. Whenever the two girls found a horse minding its own business in a nearby meadow, they would attempt to catch and ride him. They always let him go. It wasn’t really horse stealing. It was more of a catch-and-release program.
During the winter months the family lived in East Los Angeles and Joanne rented horses from nearby stables with her babysitting money and she worked one summer at a camp as a counselor. She got to ride there.
But it was not quite the same thing as owning her own horse. It wasn’t even close. And so, one day in 1951 when Joanne was 17, her parents moved from East Los Angeles to El Monte, to a nice house on a large lot with a repairable barn and room for a corral for a horse. And Sheba came into her life. Drumroll here.
A friend of a friend of Joanne’s sister, Audrey, had a horse. She (call her Jane Doe) and her husband (but of course, John) were separating, and the horse had to go. Joanne’s mother, Esther, contacted John who told her, “It’s this way. We’re splitting the sheets and the horse has to go. If you will give her a good home, she’s yours.” He would probably have said the same thing about Jane. He might not have even insisted on a good home for her.
John and Jane delivered the horse and Joanne was ecstatic, as only a first-time horse owner can be. Sheba was a small, refined flea-bitten grey mare, 14 hands high, barely enough to qualify as a horse.
A little explanation here. A hand equals four inches. A horse’s height is measured from the ground to the top of his shoulder blades, his withers. If a horse is exactly five feet from ground to wither top, that converts to exactly 60 inches. Sixty divided by four equals 15. Ergo, the horse is said to be 15 hands high. See how simple that is?
Sheba barely qualified for horsehood. She was just 14.2, that is, fourteen hands two inches high. Any equine below that height is a pony. It’s official. It’s a recognized by all the major horse and pony associations.
When I said she was a flea-bitten grey I did not mean she had flea blight. She was a light grey horse with darker flecks of grey. If the darker grey flecks had been larger and less defined, she would have been dappled instead of flea-bitten.
Sheba had one other identifying mark, a scar on her left flank and some muscle missing under it. Something majorly bad had happened to her, but no one ever found out what it was. She had healed and was sound of wind and limb.
Sheba fit into the Heyser family very well. Horses actually like being with kids, if the kids show any competence at all. Kids go interesting places and do interesting things. Adults ride in circles or walk on trails. Sometimes they enter horse show classes and walk, trot, canter and back up. Ooh, and this is exciting, be still my beating heart, sometimes adults go out and stand around in the middle of a show ring attached to their horses with lead lines and nice halters while someone called “the judge” walks around them and makes cryptic comments to someone called “the secretary” who notes them down on her clipboard. Then a few people get ribbons and everyone goes home. No, on the whole, horses would rather be with kids than adults.
Joanne and Sheba used to gymkhana a lot. Gymkhana is a competition for young people involving pole bending (they don’t actually bend the poles, they weave in and out like a slalom), barrel racing (again, they don’t race the barrels, they run around them in tight Celtic knots) and other surprise events.
One such surprise event involved the kids and their horses starting on a line, racing to the other end of the ring, dismounting, lifting up a barrel, trying to grab whatever they found there, get back on their horse again, and ride back to the finish line. Under each barrel was a live chicken. Assuming the kid could grab her chicken, there was not one hope in Hell of ever catching her horse again. As for mounting with a squawking chicken in her hand, forget it! Most of the horses were hysterical but Sheba thought it was a wonderful game called “chicken stomp.” While the other horses were trying to flee, she was trying to nail the birds with her hooves. She couldn’t do it because the chickens were fast and there were just too many of them. But she tried. And she had a wonderful time. Everybody else was frustrated, but Sheba had a wonderful time.
About a year had passed and Joanne and Sheba had formed a firm friendship and effective partnership on the trail. It was at this point that Jane Doe phoned to say that she wanted her horse back. Her new boyfriend was a jockey and he thought they could get $400 for the horse at auction. Joanne was in hysterics, but her mother, Esther, was made of sterner stuff. She said, “John gave us that horse. The understanding was that if you wanted her back, you could have her. But you are not going to sell her at auction!” Jane never called again.
Sheba was an extremely intelligent horse, not always a good thing. When Joanne’s family constructed the corral they prefabbed the uprights by joining two 2x6s with spacers in between them. In that way, other 2x6 rails could be slid into place and wouldn’t have to be nailed there. This ingenious arrangement made it possible to slide the railings out of the way and drive a pickup into the corral area. The whole thing was made more secure by running an electrically charged hot wire inside the top rail.
But not only was the structure a corral, it was also an intelligence test, one that Sheba easily passed. First, she learned to test the wire with one whisker. If there was no tingle showing electricity, she could then tear the wire down at her leisure. Once that had been accomplished, she then demonstrated that if humans could slide rails into place, then she could unslide them.
Later she learned to associate the “ka-chonk ka-chonk” of the fence charger with electricity in the wire. No sound in the barn, no fury in the wire. Sheba no longer had to employ the whisker test. Extreme intelligence in your horse is a mixed blessing.
To offset her intelligence, Sheba was a very kind animal. She and Joanne learned to play together well, especially the “mechanical horse” routine. There was a large peach tree in the Heyser back yard and Sheba was very fond of peaches. Joanne could lead her to the tree, give her one peach, and then ride her around the back yard without saddle or bridle. After one turn around the yard, she would fetch up at the tree for another peach. Watching Sheba eat peaches was worth the price of admission. She would bit in to her peach, get this insane smile and slobber would pour out of her mouth by the bucket. After a minute, she would spit the pit back out, dry as an archaeologist’s bone.
It’s a good thing for me that Sheba was kind, because I learned to ride on her. Poor Sheba. She certainly put up with a lot from me.
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