Ride a horse? Are you serious?
By JAN GLIDEWELL
Published July 2, 2007
"Want a ride?"
It was an innocent enough question that I was being asked by the nice woman in the truck sitting next to the porch of my rented cabin in the San Luis Valley in Colorado.
I was puzzled for a second, looking up from my book and wondering why she was offering me a ride when I wasn't going anywhere and my van was sitting there in plain view.
Then it dawned on me. She is a horse trainer who is working with horses owned by my landlord and pastured near the cabin.
Me. On a horse. Hmmm.
She has obviously overheard me telling the landlord, when he asked if they were making too much noise, that my father had been a horse trainer and I was enjoying the show.
A little context here.
I am writing this in a trading post/general store/restaurant with good breakfast burritos, a gourmet coffee stand and (it is also the New West) wi-fi.
But don't let that fool you. Real cowboys come in here, wearing chaps. And not because they are kinky, but because they ride horses through brush that will shred a pair of jeans in nothing flat. It is not unusual to see them toting real guns, although 9mm semi-automatics in Velcro-closure nylon holsters have replaced six-shooters in most instances.
And, in this environment, I have been asked to get on a horse (and a relatively untrained one at that) in front of witnesses.
So I sit here at the Villa Grove Trade, sipping a latte and watching the band set up, and wondering if this is yet one more ridiculous demand I want to make on my aging frame.
What I didn't mention was that my late father, who trained English and hunt seat and harness horses, considered me an embarrassment in the horse ring. We got along all right. But because of an incident in 1965 when I stopped to visit him en route to Vietnam, got on a horse and was promptly thrown off, we reached an agreement.
He promised to never write any newspaper columns, and I promised never again to get on a horse in front of any of his students or owners.
I kept that promise, and haven't been on a horse in 42 years.
But he is gone now, and these folks never heard of him. They break and train horses to work with cattle, and for my landlord, a hunting guide, to take hunting parties back into the surrounding mountain ranges.
So I am out of excuses. Western rig trainers and riders aren't as concerned about where your pinkies, knees and toes go, and they are kind enough to provide you with a saddle horn to hang onto for dear life when all else fails.
My manhood isn't exactly at question here, but it wouldn't hurt if it became generally known in these parts that the long-haired old guy with all of the hippy-dippy bumper stickers plastered on the back of his van could also ride a horse.
On the other hand, I have learned in the past few years that falling or being thrown to the ground is different proposition than it used to be, and that sawdust in the ring looks a lot harder than it used to.
One of the nice things about folks out here is that they don't rush you into making decisions, so I remain on the porch, watch the sun set over the San Juan Mountains and decide how much I want to ride a horse.
I have to go for now though. It's jazz and gourmet food night at the Trades (I told you it was the New West) and I want to get a good seat.