When I was ten years old, my father was relocated to Omaha, Nebraska.  I protested strongly, but finally I was convinced to go.  It would be two years at Offutt AFB in the city of Bellevue.  Many things happened and my life was changed in SO many ways by our time in the mid-west, but here is my 'equstrian story' of our trip;

Chapter one.

Take the In & Out, then Roll back to the Green and White Oxer

 

The above subtitle is an accurate description of the next chapter of my life.  Horse enthusiast might understand the correlation.  The In & Out describes my stint in the Mid west.  I jump in took a few steps and jumped back out again.  The Roll back is representative of the giant U-Turn that we made at the end of our stay in Omaha and headed back east.  The Oxer would be the great spread of life that still lay out before me.

 

My Daddy had promised me two things when I agreed to move out west (like I really had a choice).  The first; that it would not be a day over two years and the other; was that when we came home, he would buy me a pony!  That turned out to be the biggest understatement of his life.  In the fall of our first year there, they saw an ad for horse back riding lessons and thought that if I was to have a pony, the safe and responsible thing to do would be to teach me to ride and care for one.  My mother thought when she signed me up that it would be a few lessons in a Western saddle and they would teach me about their care as well.  When we arrived they put me in an English saddle and the entire lesson was on riding and nothing too much on the laboring horse care that goes hand in hand with the sport.

 

It turned out that laceName>FarmsteadlaceName> laceName>RidinglaceName> laceType>AcademylaceType> was a Hunter/Jumper stable and that’s the only discipline they practiced there.  My first lesson was on a blanketed chestnut Appaloosa named Mr. Goodbar.  He was very cool.  I learned how to post the tort and steer, all the basic first lesson garbage.  My trainer’s name was Ned and apparently he and the bottle were good friends.  I never saw much of Ned after that first meeting.  Most of the time from that point on he would have his daughter and other teenage students teach our lessons. 

 

My next lesson I was given a choice of the mount I wanted to ride.  I chose Princess.  That was my daddy’s nickname for me, so it seemed perfectly fitting.  Princess was also a blanketed Appaloosa, but palomino in color.  She turned out to be my very favorite horse.  She was so sweet and easy to ride.  I learned how to jump fences on her.  I fell off 5 times in a row in that first jumping lesson, but she stopped each time with me dangling from the front of her neck. 

 

At some point during my opening weeks of lessons I was paired up with a nice little girl named Barbie.  Barbie Rudolph.  Our parents got to talking and it turned out that her dad was an Army guy and they lived right through my back yard!  I couldn’t believe that we had never met before.  Barbie had long brown hair parted in the middle and pushed behind her ears.  She always wore a red Baseball hat that read I‘d Rather Be Riding.  Her family was originally from Texas, so she had the greatest semi-accent and the best language for certain things.  She is the one that taught me how to crack my knuckles.  Barbie always rode the cutest little Pinto Pony named Mac, who was 32 years old.  His show name was Jumping Jack Flash....and he was awesome. 

  

Barbie and I miraculously survived our training with these young women.  They were a lot of fun, but oh the danger and lack of safety involved.  They would have us put our feet in between our stirrup leathers to ride.  Or even worse, they would have us cross our stirrups over the front of the saddle and then put our feet into them to ride like Jockeys with our knees in our faces.  One time they even took our girths off of our saddles and had us work on balance.  I think we were supposed to only be walking or maybe sitting to the trot, but I decided to canter too. 

TUNE IN NEXT TIME for - Our First Horse Show