I wrote this a few years back early in my horse riding days...
I happened to have the "Horse Whisperer" on in the background this morning while fiddling around with this blog. The backdrop is Montana - possibly some of the most majestic countryside on the planet. Robert Redford, rugged and weather beaten, (to be fair RR seems constantly rugged and weather beaten) is an expert horse-rider with an ability to tap into horses' physches with long intent stares. Of couse there is a love interest - Kristin Scott Thomas - who RR also taps into with long intent stares...but I digress...
It reminded me of my one-and-only interaction with horses back in South Africa when I took my girlfriend back for a holiday. She loves horses and of course when she saw horse-riding advertised in the winelands, her eyes lit up and she begged and cajoled me to take her. She is in sales and it took her best pitch to get me to come with her. I am not sure what it is, but I don't "get" horses - the thought of riding bare-back across white sands shirt open to the navel has never appealed to me...
Anywho, we track down a horse tour operator and head down to the stables. My girlfriend is giddy with excitement; I am a little nervous preferring instead to be sitting poolside in the sun with an ice cold Windhoek in hand....
Another rugged and weather beaten individual then starts allocating horses to the party based on riding experience. My girlfriend is paired up with this stallion, muscled, snorting and raring to take to the hills. The guide looks at me and I mumble "first time". He cocks his head towards his colleague who leads out from the deepest darkest depths of this stable, a "horse" that looks like it was here at about the time the French hugenots settled in Franschoek. It gives me a long suffering look (Novice!) which I return with interest (Nag!). Its going to be a long afternoon...
I struggle into the saddle - now I am 6ft 3, and this donkey (sorry horse) is only about 5ft high, so my feet are almost meeting below its belly which completely defeats the purpose of stirrups, but hey ho. Swallowing what's left of my manliness, I follow the rest of the horses out into the winelands...
Now its about 1000 degrees centigrade, the sun is blasting down from the heavens, and I feel like this horse is about to expire - galloping is not an option (I wouldn't know how to anyway) and every step taken feels like it could be its last...
Finally after a long and tortuous afternoon (for both nag and rider), we reach the last farm. The horses are tied up and we all go up to the estate for a wine-tasting. Watered and refreshed, we head back down to the horses for the final ride home. All of a sudden I hear a rotor wash and a helicopter appears over the horizon. Suddenly our guide shouts "mount up! mount up!". He motions towards the helicopter. And then it dawns on me that he wants us all to push on past a field where the helicopter is about to land. The horses are skittish, tails flicking, nostrils flaring.
I do as he instructs. I have resorted to horse whispering tactics of my own - a sharp kick of my heel to a bony rib and my Nag is off! Its not what I expect and I find myself bobbing up-and-down on the saddle. If you can imagine a basketball player bouncing a basketball - well I'm that basketball. Its a sight to behold; this lanky, sweaty, sunburnt man astride a horse that should have been retired in the fifties, hurtling across a road in the wake of this giant helicopter. What rounded it off was the tour bus filled with tourists watching this spectacle; as I "rode" past I heard the guffaws of laughter coming from within.
Back at the stables I was glad to see the back of that horse; as it was me. Has my attitude towards horse-riding changed at all - not really. Watching RR galloping through the fields of Montana is good enough for me!
