A DREAM COME TRUE

When I was a young girl, I galloped everywhere hitting my thigh to go faster on my imaginary horse. I galloped through fields and woods leaping logs, across the road to my cousin's house, or to my grandparents' farm and sometimes further down the road to another cousin's house. I rode Wildfire mostly, but sometimes it was Thunderhead, Flicka or another horse in my stable of horses. I dreamed of someday having a ranch in the west with hundreds of horses.

I think my love of horses came from the story my dad told of a pony he rode one summer in the mining town in Pennsylvania where he grew up. My grandfather was foreman of the mining stable. The mine superintendent bought a beautiful black pony for his son, and it was kept in the mining stable. The pony tossed the boy the first time he tried to ride it so the superintendent asked my father, about the same age as his son, to ride and gentle it. All summer my father rode that pony, but the superintendent's son never got over his fear of it, so the pony was eventually sold.

During my galloping period, I read every horse book in my small rural school library numerous times, and at Christmas I usually got at least one horse book, too. I dreamed of horses and drew pictures of horses, but I was thirty-eight years old before I finally got my first horse. My husband heard of one for sale and took me to see it. Of course, I fell in love with that strawberry roan paint. I thought he was beautiful. A few days later he was delivered. We had no barn, no saddle or bridle or even a lead rope. We did have hay, grain and a water bucket, though.

We put him in a shed and a few days later my husband and young teenage sons started building a barn - a large barn with five stalls. A week after my horse arrived, I had a saddle and bridle. I was ready for my first ride on my very own horse. Now, mind you, my riding had been very limited over the years. Mostly it occurred while we were on vacation and found a riding stable where you paid for an hour's ride with a group on trails following a guide. Seldom did we move out of a walk, but maybe we'd trot a little and once in a while gallop for a few minutes. Neither my husband nor I had ever saddled a horse, but we'd watched while those trail horses were saddled so we knew how to do it. Or so we thought.

As soon as my horse was saddled, I mounted and headed down a trail into the woods beside our home. He was a high stepper and both of us were eager to be out and on the trail. I was euphoric. His ears were perked forward interested and curious as we went along. And then I turned him around to head back. Maybe I should have thought twice about buying a horse named Rebel because as soon as we were heading back, he took the bit in his mouth, and I couldn't slow him down. He was heading home, and just where that home was in his mind, I didn't know. Then I felt the saddle slip. I learned from that experience, you always tighten the girth, wait a bit for the horse to relax and then tighten it more. Anyway the saddle slipped and ended up under Rebel. Fortunately, I was able to kick my feet free from the stirrups and landed on the ground still holding onto his reins so he didn't end up in some other county. He jumped about trying to get rid of that thing, but somehow I was able to unbuckle the saddle and not get kicked or stepped on.

So at the end of my first ride on my very own horse, I walked home with a saddle on my back now leading a docile horse. It wasn't exactly the way I had envisioned that first ride. Eventually, we sold Rebel because he was a rebel, but over the years there were other horses and ponies. Once we had five at one time, including one we boarded for a friend. My kids joined 4H, and I became proficient at saddling and caring for horses. I learned to pull a horse trailer to take them to shows and for riding lessons, and I even took riding lessons.

                    
Eventually when I moved, I had to sell my last two horses because I didn't have the money to put new fencing around the pasture of the small farm I'd bought. The house needed too many repairs and the barn needed a new roof. But my love of horses hasn't gone away. However, I've down sized the dream. Now I have two totally useless small ponies - sisters Puffy and Phoebe - that I rationalize keeping as being compost makers for my gardens.

What dream did you have when you were young?  Did it ever come true?