All kidding aside, horses are awesome. They’re 7/8 of the way to unicorn, and make you taller and thus the most dominant human in the area (provided you are on the tallest horse which I frequently was; which is awesome because I’m practically a hobbit on my own two feet). Couple that with being instrumental in human progress and you get a big pile of stupendous.
My first pony was not mine, she was a school horse in Camp Lejune NC. Its name was Snowflake and she was a huge bitch. She was every girl’s dream pony. Snowflake was white and had dark eyes that at first promised love but were actually chips of obsidian Satan mined himself and placed in the eyes of this hell-spawn of a pony. Snowflake had perfected the art of chasing her riders when they were walking her around and cornering them in a stall until their mothers came to the rescue. She was not very nice at all.
I’m shocked I liked horseback riding after Snowflake. But she made me taller than my twin and younger sibling, both of whom had a good foot on me until I turned 18 and grew 2 inches my first year of college. I was high and mighty on my white pony. Especially next to my two siblings on docile Shetland ponies that were friendly, and hilarious to hang out with, and filled with love and glitter. But none of that mattered because on foot I was an awkward clumsy seven year old who read too much. On Snowflake I was a fucking Valkyrie riding down the northern wind to do battle with my enchanted rainbow battle axe.
This lead to me eventually obtaining a horse that was actually mine. She was dark brown and lived at my friend's house and we would ride in tiny circles while my mom coached us so that we could win a blue ribbon in 4-H. Now let me dispel any rumors right now, everyone in 4-H gets a blue ribbon. You may place 8th out of 8, but you get a blue ribbon, damn it. My preferred place was 5th out of 11 in the quarter horse division ages 15-18.
My horse’s name was Trouble. She was very nice and not much trouble at all since she was 20 years old. We had grand adventures together, mostly because the entire time we were riding in horse shows together I had a terrible sinus infection. Trouble was the first horse I ever fell off of, and I fell with a vengeance. I made up for spending my whole youth not falling off horses during the time we were together. Now don’t get me wrong, it was never any awesome falling (like I would do on my next horse) it was always ridiculous and embarrassing falling.
Since I had recently been told I was too low in the equestrian team hierarchy to be in competitions that required a saddle (i was a freshman), I was spending all of my time riding bareback. What made this awesome was that I could go at a gallop and not fall off, but god help me if we were standing still. The world would tilt and off I would go, landing in a comical puff of dust. I am completely convinced everyone at the fair ground thought I was as special as a 3 dollar bill and twice as ridiculous.
After Trouble there was Herman. Herman was large and Herman was angry. I judged him to be some weird mix of German and Native American, since he was an appaloosa but his name was clearly Germanic. This resulted in an awesome blend of fighting Native American spirit and vicious Germanic Viking heritage coupled with a rough childhood. He was a fucking savage that hid his heart of gold from the rest of the world better than Mad Max the Road Warrior.
Herman and I spent our first six months together fighting like Rome and Carthage. I think my parents were convinced I was going to die. Well my mom was, we tried to hide this fact from my dad, who thinks to this day that horses are synonyms for painful death.
Things came to a head when Herman, knowing that I was helpless against the forces of gravity, decided to rear in the air. Now, when horses do this they look wild and free and majestic and glorious. They are like a sunset over an explosion. That fucking awesome. When they do it with a moderately coordinated 16 year old on them, they look retarded because the 16 year old makes them fall over backwards on accident.
Here was my train of thought as we tumbled over together into a mess of human and horse parts that was not a centaur, but just a pile of things that will end badly:
“Suck it asshole, you’re falling! Shit, I’m falling. He is definitely on my leg. Oh god he’s getting back up-and-im-gonna-get-dragged-over-the-ground-and-SHATTER-MY-SPINE.” What continues to amaze me is that time slowed down to a crawl. I remember it like a stop motion film- click, move an inch, click, move another inch.
None of that last part of that thought happened. Through some miracle I managed to have a horse stand up over me and run away at warp speed, and not step on me. So I ran him down and rode him for 5 more minutes because I was consumed by a ravening fury that, had I been in battle, would have allowed me to kill hordes of Persians like I was all 300 Spartans at once. I say five minutes because it was that long before I remembered a 1600 lb animal had crushed my left leg and it hurt worse than being caught on fire. Then we went to the hospital and I got to use crutches for the first time in my life.
After this incident, Herman and I were best friends. Which was odd, but rewarding.
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