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.
Friday, February 20, 2009
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.
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