Horses and Bicycles

In continuing a series on “Everything I needed to Know I Learned on the Farm” I realize that many of these may have no “spiritual” value to speak of but if they make you laugh or bring back a memory of your past the time spent in writing them will have been well spent.

We lived for a while in a tiny house out on Country Club Road. I remember it as being a Cinder Block house with two bedrooms. As most of the farm/ranch homes there was a barn near the house that let out into a small pasture. We had an old mare that had been given to us to play on. She had been a great roping horse in her prime but a leg injury had relegated her future to becoming a “kid” horse. Her name was Blue; we called her “ol’ Blue”.

There was a boy about our age that lived across the road around a quarter of a mile away. Allen, myself and David (my younger brother) learned a lot about life together in that year or so we lived in that house. I used to put the hack-a-more on ol’ Blue and ride over to Allen’s house to play “cowboys and Indians” or “cops and robbers” or to have world saving battles with our G.I. Joes.

I remember one time while we were going down the road, me on ol’ Blue and Allen on a bicycle, we decided to race. Normally you would not think a boy on a bicycle would have much chance against a former champion roping horse in a short distance but this was going down one of the few hills in that country.

We took off like a flash. Because I was “bare-back” I had a tight hold of the reigns but and even tighter hand full of mane. I got the jump and was out ahead but evidently ol’ Blue was showing her age because soon I noticed that Allen had pulled up beside us. For just a moment I took my attention off ol’ Blue and started worrying about Allen. Evidently it surprised ol’ Blue also because she remembered well how to stop and when she sat down I had nothing but a handful of hair to keep me on her back and that was not enough.

Grabbing for more mane I went over her head and landed flat on my back in front of her with the hacks reigns still in hand. I was dazed and she was puzzled standing there looking at me. Allen got stopped and came back to see if I was OK but was laughing so hard that it only added to my embarrassment.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. Horses can not only start out faster than a boy on a bicycle they can also stop much quicker and that when you are in a race you need to focus on your job and not those around you so much.

I miss ol’ Blue. She taught me several things about life.