Get a Horse!

Do you remember a song called "Love and Marriage?" It claimed that "they go together like a horse and carriage".

You know, there's a downside to the horse and carriage. I don't date back quite that far, but I did once "enjoy" a ride in a pony carriage, on a farm owned by a cousin of my mother's, down near Picton, Ontario. That was about all I could handle.

My first and only recollection of riding a horse was that pony. I guess I might have been about nine or ten, and, as my dad so eloquently put it, "scared shitless".

When you climb aboard one of those animals, you become conscious quite quickly that you are astride some independent-minded horsepower. That, and the smell. Thank goodness old Henry Ford didn't find it necessary to capture the essence of horse in the horseless carriages he produced. Note, by contrast, that contemporary horseless carriage manufacturers (or horseless carriage dealers) use synthetic "new car" sprays to bring the olfactories in line with the old factories.

This pony was docile enough until it started to move, but even though it was being led around by the cousin using a short lead and tight control, I was more or less paralyzed by the feeling of straddling a rocking bench with ears that constantly turned toward me, daring me to issue any commands that it might challenge.

I did not stay long aboard. "Get me offa this thing!". Amidst the spectatorial merriment, my carriageless horse came to a gentle stop, and I slid down some way or other, smelling of horseflesh and humiliation.

No, it is not a tale of someone who, first time aboard, was thrown, as my dad so eloquently put it, "ass over teakettle" by an ill-tempered bronco. It was more like the gentle repudiation by a knowledgeable animal who totally understood that some are made to ride and most are not. I recall a sound of equine snickering, which, in later recollection morphed into a whinny, only because my pride prevented a more accurate depiction.

Yes, I did go for a ride in the pony-sized carriage, but cannot claim to have enjoyed it. The driver seemed to want to urge her steed to higher rates of speed than I felt were safe. Neither she nor her pony appeared to think that the speed of a normal walk would be worth the effort of harnessing.

My cousin later appears in one of our home movies, riding the pony bareback, chasing the family dog in ever-tightening circles around the expanse of the front yard, and loving every second of it. It is a tribute to her patience and sense of humor that she was willing to lead her fear-soaked cousin around on his gentle, thirty-foot trip aboard such a free-spirited mount.