Here's the thing about horses: They're alive.
Don't get me wrong, I had a great time, but it was so very unnerving. Maybe I'm too used to bicycles... I just don't want control being out of my control. My steering inputs should be crisply and promptly executed, not taken into consideration for further review. When I need to stop, it shouldn't be treated as a suggestion.
It was like riding at Cross Nats last year. Except, I could feel my fingers and toes. And I didn't get pulled out.
The following photo is the perfect snapshot of the experience. At a glance, you can tell that I'm moving fast, or at least fast enough that my horse Truck is kicking up sand and its mane is whipped by the wind.
I name almost all my bikes after animals. How fitting that my animal was named for a machine.
Anyway, if you look at the full-size picture (i.e., click on it), and if you look at my expression, it's all written there... I'm trying very very hard not to panic. Man was not meant to travel at such breakneck speeds! Abject terror, induced by trotting. The illusion of velocity.
There were two impressive stories that day, and my heroic struggle not to openly weep wasn't one of them.
First was Kurt. No sooner had he mounted his horse, Zapatos, than it began to buck. Like a bronco, in a rodeo. In just more than the blink of an eye, but slightly less than two shakes of a lamb's tail, Kurt had been bucked right off that horse, and he'd landed on asphalt.
He could've walked away right then, and nobody would've thought any less of him. Shit, even I almost dismounted when I heard that thud! Instead, Kurt, all of 15 years old, got right back on the horse, lending rare reality to on an oft-abused metaphor. Although, to be honest, he did get back on a different horse.
What then became of Zapatos, the bucking bastard? (and had he thrown my Aunt rather than her son, would he have been a mother-bucker?) My brother rode him. Ben's is the second impressive story of that day.
While my cousins and I went through the five stages of grief -
- Denial, as in "The horse will eventually realize that I'm trying to steer him left and will go left"
- Anger, as in "Goddammit, horse, you will go left or so help me I'll..."
- Bargaining, as in "If you go left, I won't kick you in the ribs for a while"
- Depression, as in "This is it, I'm going to be killed by a docile herbivore"
- Acceptance, as in "Screw it, the horse knows what to do, might as well enjoy the ride"
When the rest of us couldn't convince our horses to trot, Ben would dart ahead, then rein back and wait for us. When Truck turned sideways and held up the pack as he munched on weeds, Ben was able to turn Zapatos completely around, saunter back to us, and mock me thoroughly before I could convince my Truck to continue. When we were commanding our horses to trot in every language possible (I went through everything from "hup hup hup" to "allez allez allez" to "venga venga venga" - okay, that's about all I came up with), he and Zapatos were frolicking way up the beach.
Ben really showed some innate talent. But, since I am his big brother, and so it says to do this in the manual, I should point out that it was probably beginner's luck, and had Ben known that he was on the horse that had thrown Kurt, things might have progressed differently. Also he (Ben, but also Zapatos) smelled like horses.
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2 comments:
I totally get part about needing to feel in control as things careen OUT of control. Right up until the moment you crash on a bike or skis, you can fool yourself into thinking that you can do something about it. On a horse, there's this gut-wrenching realization that your ride’s going to be just fine -- it's about to end badly, there’s nothing you can do about it, and only you will be harmed.
It may be my lack of experience and/or tendency to anthropomorphize almost any inanimate object, because I feel as though riding my bicycle still requires some persuasion. I can only hope that Pyxis does me no harm.
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