Well, almost

I've been lucky since Brian and I entered into the world of horse ownership. I have yet to take a spill. In my younger riding years, this was pretty much a daily occurrence - something I expected to happen more than not. That was partially due to the fact that I thought it would be fun to try:
1) Seeing if my horse would clear a 3 foot jump - riding without a saddle.

2) Seeing if my or my friends horse was faster as we raced across the field, with only halters and lead ropes, and once again, no saddle.

3) Wondering if I could stand on her back and ride at the same time

Well, you get the point. I don't do these things anymore, in fact, I prefer just kinda taking it easy. A "missionary position" take to horseback riding, if you will.

Today I was bored so I thought I'd break that pattern. I was looking for something different - something "riske". So I had a brilliant idea to try to hit a polo ball (read: tennis ball) with the mallet that I haven't swung (on a horse) since college. Needless to say, I was riding our most polo-unworthy of the two horses - Sam. Actually, that isn't totally true, as he'd probably make a pretty good polo horse athletically. It's just the part that he's terrified of things swinging around his head that would (did) cause a problem.

I knew I was up for a challenge, which is probably the only reason I didn't actually fall off. After I had my share of freaking the horse right out (it really wasn't that bad), and having swung the mallet a few times on the right side, I decided to say enough is enough and give up. So I transfered the mallet to my left hand to deposit it over the fence. BIG MISTAKE. Not remembering that horses are very one sided animals, meaning they don't understand that the rock, traffic cone, wheelbarrow, whatever they saw when they were going clockwise is the same rock, traffic cone, wheelbarrow that they are seeing going counterclockwise. Seconds before I was officially done with polo for the day, Sam decided to flip out.

That's a little harsh. Actually he skidded sideways, which freaked him out more, and it was all down hill from there. I managed to ditch the mallet (aka: horse eating tiger) and calm him down WITHOUT FALLING OFF. Ha. Anyway, I thought I'd report my momentary lapse of reason. All this idle time I haven't been using to blog is making me get crazy ideas...