Thunder and Lightning
“If you can ride a mountain bike, you can ride a horse,” the nice man with a stomped-on cowboy hat and limp said, suggesting that I should go for a trail ride to add to my adventures. That sounded good to me, even though I usually fall off my mountain bike once or twice per outing.
Back in my younger days, I had ridden a horse or two and seem to remember I was quite the skilled horseman. At least, that’s what the girl leading my pony around the ring had said. After mentioning my prowess to the cowboy, he smiled and said I could ride the horse named Lightning. He would ride the horse named Thunder.
I soon came to the conclusion that loud gastrointestinal disturbances accounted for Thunder’s name. I was about to ask the origin of Lightning’s name when the wrangler asked for his money up front, “in case something happens along the way,” whatever that meant.
Once we had climbed aboard our trusty steeds, I shouted “Giddy up” as I had seen in the movies, then dug my heels into the horse’s flanks. The response was immediate and exhilarating. The horse took off at full speed. Before my hat hit the ground, I was half a kilometre down the trail. It now occurred to me why this horse was called Lightning.
My horse’s gait closely resembled that of a moving jackhammer, but without the smooth motion. My glasses flew off. My dentures clattered like castanets as we galloped down the trail. My vertebrae sounded like the drum solo from that great sixties song, “Wipe-out”
With the instincts of a natural horseman, I gripped the saddle horn with both hands, mostly because I was astraddle that part of the saddle at the time and it was causing some discomfort.
After a few more minutes, I opened my eyes and drank in the view of what lay ahead. My steed and I were heading down a trail that appeared to go over a near-vertical cliff. Hmmmm … this gives new meaning to the term “over the hill” I thought as we started our descent.
As the trail became steeper I was sure I’d slide out of the saddle, down the horse’s neck and over his head. Fortunately, I slid forward only to the saddle horn, which nestled itself in my nether region.
Just as we reached the bottom of the hill, a spruce grouse burst up from beside the trail, wings whirring. After a few entertaining minutes of bucking and farting and jumping about things settled down. My horse seemed calmer as well.
I was savouring the view from the saddle when another grouse whirred past. This event seemed to signal our return to the stable. My horse did a quick u-turn, and began to gallop towards home, resuming his jackhammer gait as we raced all the way back.
My dismount from the horse was facilitated by a low-hanging crossbar of the gate into the corral. Fortunately for me, I came to rest in a large, cushioning pile of horse dung. As a final gesture of friendship, my trusty steed stepped over and bit me. You probably don’t want to know where.
I think I’ll stick to mountain biking. The ride might be as wild, but to my knowledge, bikes don’t bite. Then again, I might go horseback riding another day … just for the sheer fun of it.
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