Chapter 11

Chapter 11
The next day, I was determined that Winnie and I were going for a ride. This time, I was going to win. She wasn’t going to get away with her tantrums, any more.



Getting to know Winnie was a love-hate situation. I couldn’t help admiring her spirit. This was a horse that lived to run. Without running, life had no meaning for her and yet there was no proper place to let her take her head and run to her hearts content. She was untrained and unruly.



At the age of 4, she needed special attention but who would ever take on the job. Her owners didn’t seem to care. There was no real purpose in training her, as she would never be raced. It was a sad situation and I had no control, what so ever.



I was barely more than a child, had no money of my own and nobody to side with me. The only thing I had was love for this dear horse.



We rode north, up the highway, about 5 miles from the house. So far, so good. As I was turning her around, ready to come back, a truck driver speeding down the highway spotted me and blew his air horn.



Winnie bolted into a dead run, so fast that I lost my grip on the reigns. With reigns flying, I held on to the saddle horn for dear life, while I reached out trying to grasp the reigns as they flew by.
It’s hard to explain, exactly what that felt like. Her back was the longest I had ever personally witnessed. Each stride brought a hard jolt throughout my body.



With the proper saddle and setup, the rider is standing in the stirrups, with his weight shifted up to the horse’s shoulders. This was no racing saddle. It was a western saddle and the stirrups adjusted to give the rider about a 2-inch gap, to the seat. Those 2 inches was not enough protection from what this horse could do to me. There was no possible way to shift away from the hard slap to the spine.



Reaching forward, trying to get hold of the reigns, while all this was going on, was an impossible nightmare and this horse was running away. As far as I could determine, she was panicked.
I had personally witnessed this horse clocked at over 38 miles per hour and she was working harder now, than ever before. This was a dangerous combination. I was afraid for Winnie, as much as for myself. There was no slowing her down. She wasn’t tiring.



About a mile down the road, there was a crossing neighborhood street, a bridge and stop sign. Just as we neared that crossing road, a man driving a yellow Volkswagen, drove up and stopped at the sign. He looked to his right, checking traffic, but just as he turned his head to look off to the left, his eyes bugged out at the sight of horse and rider, no more than 30 feet away and headed straight for him, at a dead run.



I saw my life flash before my eyes, because I had never seen Winnie jump. I just knew she was going to pull her little trick of dashing off to one side, leaving me to fly forward over that Volkswagen. I started screaming, “Winnie, stop! Stop it! You’re going to kill us! Stop! You can’t jump! No! No!” to no avail because, at that moment I was just along for the ride.



I never felt her feet leave the ground. Everything happened so fast. My mind couldn’t keep up with what was happening. I looked down, just in time to see wide-open, unbelieving eyes and a gaping mouth, as we flew over the top of that little car.



Now I was in an even bigger panic, not knowing if she could land safely. Every quarter second, I envisioned myself lying out on the ground, mangled. Who knew what condition Winnie would be in. My heart raced, knowing that still….the reigns were a threat as they flew along in the wind. What will happen if she somehow stepped on the reigns as she landed? What if, her legs are not strong enough? What if……



I wish I could describe what the landing felt like. I don’t know. I never felt an impact. All I knew was that I looked down, saw this black face turn white, I saw the yellow top of the Volkswagen, I braced for a fall but it didn’t happen. Before I could record that sight in my mind, we were another half mile down the road and still at a dead run.



Now we were headed toward a busy intersection, with a traffic light. I had to get her under control. I finally grabbed hold of the left reign and started pulling down hard on her head. With her head pulled down to her chest, she kept running. I was beginning to panic. I had to get her to stop. Somehow, someway, she had to be stopped.



In desperation, and knowing I was liable kill myself, I lifted my right leg, as though to dismount. That did the trick. I finally learned what it took to stop Winnie. I dismounted in mid stride. I learned to hang on for dear life, while raising my leg and then bringing it back down toward the ground, as though to dismount. That, for some odd reason, caused Winnie to come to a sudden stop.



I climbed down and walked around to look Winnie in the eye. Her heart was pounding, she was lathered up and her eyes still held panic. It wasn’t a dirty trick, after all. She had truly spooked and jolted. I certainly learned to hate those truck drivers and their loud horns. “Oh, my poor Winnie.”





I talked to her in a soothing voice and rubbed her nose until she calmed down enough to move on. I didn’t climb back into the saddle. Winnie needed a friend not a rider. We walked together while I talked calmly to her, all the way home.



We were almost home when it suddenly hit me, what she had done. I turned around, looked her straight on, and said, “Winnie! You jumped!” Oh, man, had she jumped.