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.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
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
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