7 things

Tagged! By No Hoof No Horse blog....(lopin on4). I am to share 7 things about myself that are currently not known to my blog-readers, and then tag 15 fellow bloggers.

Well, I'm not one to follow rules much, so I'll tell it like a story.

1.When I was a kid, there was an old cowboy by the name of Herb Harrop who had a herd of horses that kids could ride for a dollar a day. Me being horse crazy, I'd pester mom until she gave me a dollar just to shut me up, and off I'd go on a Saturday to go riding. In the summer, I'd go as many times as I could.

2. There was a little blaze faced bay mare that I rode; none of the other kids liked her because she wasn't very tall, she always had a foal at her side, and she wasn't a fancy color. (But I loved her red bay color!) She had a fancy name though; Lady Gaye.

3. Sometimes in late summer, when the foals were about 4 months old, they would stay in the pasture with a few old baby-sitter mares, and those of us who rode the dams would go on the rides without them. At the end of the day, we'd ride the mares back to be with their babies, and old Herb would come pick us up in his old Pontiac station wagon.

4. Sometimes I'd be the only one riding back to the foal pasture, so I'd let Lady Gaye run as fast as she wanted to get back to her foal. (Her milk bag must have been full, cause she'd run pretty hard!)

5. After doing this a few times, I knew just how fast that little mare was. Now, I didn't mention it , but I rode bareback in those days. Herb didn't have enough saddles to go around, and there were a group of girls who were, shall we say, the big shots,who always got their pick of the horses and the saddles. One of them rode a horse called Cowboy, a rangy red roan that looked like Go Man Go, and ran like him too. They would all match race each other, and Cowboy was nearly always the champ.

6. So one day, the girl wanted someone to race against, and everyone said no; they'd all been beat enough times already. So I piped up and says, "I'll race you!" They all looked at me, scornfully, on my little 14/2 hand mare, bareback, then over a Cowboy in his glorious 16 hand splendor, with his rider in a saddle. Mostly, they laughed.

7. They weren't laughing at the end of the race. My little mare took off like a bolt of lightning; Cowboy kept stride with her for about 40 yards, then he was eating her dust! I think we won the race by a couple of lengths, going away. For days after that, everyone wanted to ride my mare, but I wouldn't let them. Nobody wanted to race us, either.

I wish I still had the fearlessness of youth- and the balance- that it takes to ride bareback on a horse going flat out down a country road. I think in my mind's eye, I was Alec riding the Black.

I won't tag anyone, because I think we have all been tagged already, but if anyone has a story of their fearless youth to share, do a post on it!