In the Beginning....There Was a Horse. (Chapter 1)

I'm changing the name of my blog. I was trying to come up with a name that would incorporate all of my favorite things, but "Smiling Yoga Cowgirl I Love Food And Martinis So MUCH Why Can't I Lose Weight?!" Doesn't have the right ring to it. It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. I also decided to change the focus from weight loss/fitness (ha ha ha to that anyway!) and food (I will probably still talk about food, I can't help it!) to my horsemanship journey.

What is my horsemanship journey? Well, to be quite specific: The Making of A Californio Vaquero Style Bridle Horse.

What's that, you ask?

Here is a fairly succinct, easy to read article on the origins of the California Vaquero Bridle Horse. Keep in mind that today's competitive "reined cow horse" has little in common with the historic Vaquero trained bridle horse from a time long forgotten by many but the most passionate of cowboy historians.

A horse trained in the Vaquero tradition of old probably wouldn't stand a chance competing against today's reined cow horse in the modern show pen. But that isn't the point of it anyway. (see the HISTORY section in the link below)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reined_cow_horse

Now why would someone like me - a middle aged, suburban Volvo driving wife and mom, with no horse training experience other than banging around on my old horse as a kid, end up choosing this particular and decidedly "old-timey" path? Especially with a horse like mine, who is clearly not a ranch-type horse. She's a great trail horse, don't get me wrong. But she's the wrong horse for the job, as they say. Well, that is a story for another day, but I'll just leave you with this for now: I didn't choose this path, and I certainly didn't choose the horse who is walking it with me. They both chose me. More on that in a future chapter!

Honestly, I don't really know how far we'll get, or if we're any good at any of it at all! There have been many days I've almost given up. I have seen the futility in it, the insanity of it. We have so many obstacles. So. Many. Obstacles. But as many on this journey well know - it quickly morphs from a flirtatious little curiosity to a GRAND PASSION bordering on obsession. And we all know that the very best journeys are the ones we stumble upon accidentally. And after taking a few tentative steps we decide, against our own better judgement and the advice of the wise, to lose ourselves on the path. We know instinctively that we will find our way, eventually. And if we are lost...what a grand world to lose oneself in!

Besides, it's not really so much about where we end up, but what we are experiencing along the way. And if the last year is any indication....we're in for a long, fun, exhilarating, crazy, frustrating, tears on my pillow one night, heart bubbling with joy the next day, kind of ride!

And so - Away we go!

First, we should probably start in the beginning with a little of my own horse history:

When I was 6, my family was in Half Moon Bay one sunny fall day and I begged and begged to go on a pony ride. My thumb got caught up against the saddle horn with the rein and I screamed until the poor pony attendant could untangle me and help me off. It was horrible. Terrifying and embarrassing. But for whatever reason - that horrific ride set the wheels in motion and I just knew that I. Must. Have. A. Pony. And so the begging, wheedling and whining commenced.

Fast forward a couple years. My friend Linda and I went to grade school together and there was a pasture with two horses behind the schoolyard. We were probably 8 years old. When we weren't galloping around the playground pretending we were wild horses, we were stealing apples from the auditorium garbage cans after lunch and feeding them to the horses.


One day after school, we brought a few boxes of sugar cubes back to the pasture and started feeding them to the horses....the entire box! One for each horse. Smart, right?

We must have been eating them too because we got hopped up enough to think it was a good idea to dare each other to climb the fence and hop on. We had both read The Black Stallion series, and probably ever other horse book we could find, so we knew exactly what we were doing and how it was going to go, of course.

One horse took off at a gallop and the other one followed. They ran across the field, down a hill, jumped across a creek, then into the woods, zig zagging all over the place (and going under every low branch they could find!).  We hung on for dear life, sometimes with our arms flung around their necks, pressing ourselves as flat to their body as we could to avoid the lowest branches, hootin' and hollerin', terrified and thrilled at the same time! I remember feeling like I was one with this powerful, graceful (and very large) animal. There was nothing else like it, I was sure.

They finally galloped out of the woods and into a clearing, then hung a sharp right into the barn. We slid off their backs, shaking and laughing like crazy, and realized we were trapped in the barn because the house was right across the driveway and we didn't want to get caught! We weren't sure, but thought maybe you could get shot for riding someone's horse without permission.

Eventually we managed to sneak out of the barn and ran back down through the woods - VERY impressed with our horseback riding skills.

Of course we were hooked after that and spent many afternoons testing our bareback, bridle-less riding skills on two great beasts who looked for all kinds of ways to get us off their backs without actually harming us. That was how we learned to ride. We were very lucky to have survived it, yes we know.

We both got our first ponies within a year or two of that first wild ride.