Day 2
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I made a crack about how that would be the horse I ended up with. My horse trainer, Niki, always warns me not to tell these stables that I can ride; she is convinced that I will be given the horse spinning on its lead rope like a June bug on a string. (Tina, my other trainer, just waits for me to meet disaster, after which she says, “So, did you learn your lesson?”) I could not really hide the fact that I ride, with everyone saying, “Oh, you ride all the time, Gayle, you’re probably good at this. Can you give me any pointers?” Yes, sit down in your saddle.
Lynn, our Trail Leader, began the task of getting everyone on a horse. First, she gathered us together and gave basic instructions about riding. Mounting one of the horses, she showed everyone how to hold the reins, how to make the horse go and how to make the horse stop. This information stayed in the children’s brains just long enough to be of no use whatsoever. Lynn put the kids on their horses first, then the adults. She had two darling young stable guys to help, but there were 17 horses, so it was hard to keep track of everyone. Soon there were a lot of non-riders mounted on horses milling about in the parking lot. Some of the horses, knowing what to do next, began to try to drift off to the trail. These, of course, were the horses with the children on them… the children who had forgotten how to stop their horses.
Marcus had been given a Mustang named Wildfire. Nothing inspires confidence in a mom more than knowing her only child is riding a Mustang named Wildfire. While we were waiting, Thor’s horse decided to invade Wildfire’s personal space. There was some squealing and ear pinning, with poor Thor looking very unhappy until I told Marcus to steer Wildfire over toward me. Jeannie said something in an alarming way about her son’s horse starting a fight. Lynn yelled tersely that these horses all know each other and nobody would ever fight with anybody. While I didn’t want to argue with Lynn (who could probably drop-kick me a good five yards), I’ve seen plenty of perfectly friendly horses have a spat over personal space, but I kept quiet.
As for me, I was given a huge black gelding named Lee. He was well over 16 hands and as wide as a house. For the record, I am five-foot-almost-two and have short little legs, so this was like straddling an SUV for the two hours I was in the saddle. But Lee was a pleasant horse and seemed to have some memory of training. As we stood in the parking lot, from my incredible view, I watched Lynn’s horse wander off with five-year old Claire’s horse tied to his saddle horn. Linda, on her own horse, pointed out to Lynn that the horses were kidnapping her daughter. Lynn (still terse, but not yelling) pointed out to Linda that her horse would never wander off and she was just being paranoid. Again, I didn’t argue. Finally, everyone was on a mount and all 20 of us meandered into the Great Outdoors.
The ride was okay. I expected to see wildlife, since Dale and I usually see deer when we go on trail rides in the Pebble Beach area. With 20 horses and people tromping through the rocks, I guess there aren’t a lot of animals that would stand around to watch the parade. All we saw was a brief glimpse of something red and weasel-like dashing across a log. The trail was very rocky and dry, evidence of the serious drought conditions, but the terrain was still striking. Large sand-colored boulders streaked with dark veins were interspersed among the pine trees and brown grasses. I imagined that if you were up here riding alone and stopped on the trail quietly, you probably could see lots of little critters running up the rocks, flying through the branches and crawling along the rotted logs.
Eventually, we pulled back into the parking lot and began getting everyone dismounted, which was just as chaotic as getting everyone mounted. About half of our party was off of their horses when one of the non-mounted horses got loose. Horses that are not loose get very excited when they see one who is. This horse pulled himself away from a metal fence. It surprised him so much that he began to spook at his lead rope, which hung from his halter in a tangled coil. He spun around backwards several times in a circle until he fell over on his side. This made all of the other horses snap to attention, as they were wondering whether he was being attacked and if they should run for it. Calmly, Lynn walked over to Mr. Sit ‘n Spin, grabbed his lead rope, yelled at the stable hand for tying the horse to the wrong pole, and took the horse up to a more secure place to tie him. Order restored, we all got off of our high horses and went back to the lodge.
