Cowboys and Indians

One summer day, my step-dad and I headed out for a ride, just the two of us. We knew that there was at least one paid ride out on the trail, possibly two; one from each of the nearby liveries, so we initially stuck to some of the less-ridden trails. We kept our eyes on the other trails, wanting to stay out of the other rides’ way, but shortly that got boring. Instead we began stalking one of the other rides, just to see how close we could get without them noticing. Like I said, we’d gotten bored with trying to stay out of their way.


For twenty minutes or so, we took parallel trails and cut back and forth between trails, keeping one particular ride in sight. The wrangler leading out the ride was the owner of one of the liveries and a good guy with a sense of humor. Bill got the bright idea to play “Cowboys and Indians” with the ride and once we figured out which way they were going, we circled around to head them off.

The plan was to burst out of the tree cover in front of the ride and circle around them, whooping and hollering. We got into place and waited for them to arrive for our “ambush”. The wrangler played right into our hands; as they arrived at the spot we had chosen, he stopped the ride to point something out.

Bill looked at me and nodded, so following the plan, I put my heels to Estes and burst from cover doing my best war whoop. The wrangler was startled and jumped, but then as soon as he figured out who I was, just stared incredulously. I’m sure he was seriously wondering if he’d made a mistake by hiring me as a part-time wrangler. The looks on the guests’ faces were priceless; they and their horses stood stock still. The only thing moving on their horses were their ears as they followed Estes’ progress around. I played up the role, and could fully imagine myself with a flowing headdress and bow circling the “Cowboys”. Except about halfway through my first lap around the ride I realized I was alone. Bill, my co-conspirator and lame-ass Indian, came calmly riding into the clearing laughing his butt off.

I finished my loop, my war whoop winding down, face burning momentarily in embarrassment before I started laughing, too. Bill was laughing too hard to explain to the wrangler that they’d been drawn into our game of Cowboys and Indians, so I had to. Luckily, the wrangler got a good laugh at it and told us that it would have been better if we’d had bows and suction cup arrows. The running joke that summer became the Cowboys and Indians; from that point on, we were on the lookout for more Indians with every ride we took out.

Sand Beach Lake

One of my favorite all-time rides was to Sand Beach Lake. I’ve only been there once; I had the good fortune to take a young couple up there one July. It’s a difficult ride, not one for beginners, so I was lucky that this couple was fairly fearless.


As rides go, it’s not a particularly beautiful ride. There are components of the ride that are breath-taking, but it’s the end result that makes it worth it.

The ride begins by climbing up out of the Wild Basin area on a set of stairs not necessarily made for horses, so it’s a jarring beginning to a long ride, which is approximately nine miles round trip. Immediately after cresting the stairs, the trail begins to follow a ridge overlooking the most amazing network of beaver ponds. Some of the other rides in the Wild Basin area skirt the beaver ponds, but it’s impossible to grasp the sheer magnitude of the beavers’ network until you’re above them, looking out over the valley. It’s a good thing that the view is so captivating, because it lets you forget that you’re riding on a very narrow trail along a ridge that is very, very high and it would be a very, very long, painful fall should your horse take a misstep. After riding along the ridge for a good way, the trial turns back on itself and begins to move deeper into the mountain, off the ridge and away from the view. Once the trail turns away from the ridge, it’s a fairly boring ride, visually and technically, that’s easily forgettable, for a mile or so.

Though the overall elevation gained is just over two thousand feet, which comes at the beginning and end of the ride, so the middle mile is fairly flat, giving the horses time to rest and go easy for a bit. About two and a half miles in, the trail begins a steep ascent into the forest again, leveling off briefly, just enough for the horses to catch their breath. Being my first, and only, ride in to Sand Beach, I heaved a sigh of relief when we leveled off, not realizing that the ascent we’d just completed was just the beginning. We crossed over Hunter’s Creek and started the scramble up the trail.

My Barn Boss had assured me that the ride “wasn’t that bad” and that there were “stairs” at the end of the trail leading into Sand Beach. The look on the Barn Boss’ son’s face should have been warning enough, but I thought I’d misinterpreted his look. Nope. I was right on the money in my interpretation of the look: relief. I thought, wrongly it turned out, that he was relieved that he wasn’t going to be sent out on an eight-hour ride. Nope, he was relieved that he didn’t have to do this rock scramble. As a general rule, I don’t mind going up. Up’s not bad. But like the Law of Physics states: what goes up must come down. The whole way up the scramble, all I could think about was that we’d have to come back down and, frankly, the thought scared me to death. Four hundred forty three feet straight up what appeared to be a rockslide, and if there were stairs, I never saw them. In fact, I began to doubt that we were still even on the trail until we came across some hikers coming down the trail. We hesitated long enough to ask them how much farther we had to go and we were assured that we were more than halfway up the last leg of the trail. My riders and I took deep breaths and bore on, determined to make it to the top and be done with it.

There were audible sighs of relief when we crested the trail and it leveled off. The trees to our left blocked the view of the lake and the sign to the hitch rail pointed us to the right. I swore that if we’d just made that ride for a crappy, half-dried up pond of water, I’d freakin’ lose it. I helped my guests off of their horses and pointed them in the direction of the trail. We’d made better time than I had anticipated and we had almost an hour and a half for lunch before we had to head back. I stripped the saddles off the horses to give them a break, made sure they were tied securely and went to take a look-see at the lake.

I started down the trail toward the lake and pulled up short when the trees opened up and I got my first look at the lake. I’m pretty sure my heart stopped and I forgot to breathe.

The trees opened up and the world’s most perfect beach lay in front of me, leading to the bluest lake I’ve ever seen. I actually reached down to touch the sand to see if it was really as soft as it looked. It was. There were some small rocks mixed in with the sand where I was standing, but closer to the lake, it was pure, perfect sand. I moved forward reverently, afraid to disturb the perfection of the scene. All of the internal cussing that had been going on during the scramble up to the lake seemed to melt away and every step up the cursed trail was suddenly worth it.

I looked around and saw my guests had their lunches spread out on boulder on the east side of the lake, so I headed back to the horses to grab my lunch and my camera, so I could explore the area. Knowing that I was going to break one of the cardinal rules of being a wrangler – never, ever leave your horses unattended - I double checked their ties to make sure they were secure and went back to the lake. There are two reasons for never leaving horses unattended: first, people always want to touch the horses and if there’s no one around, they run the risk of being kicked or bitten; and second, horse thieving still occurs, believe it or not.

The impact of the view was no less the second time the lake came into view. I sat down with my lunch at the base of a tree and just drank in the view, wondering when the cabana boys were going to show up and offer me a frozen drink with an umbrella in it.

That beautiful blue water just called to me and I was itching to ditch my boots and wade in. The siren song was strong enough that I approached the water, boots still on, to see how cold it was. It was in the low eighties that day and I had hoped that the water would be warm enough for a quick toe-dip. I reached down and touched the water. Immediately, my fingers froze and I couldn’t get my hand out of the water fast enough. I’m not talking, it’s-hot-out-and-the-swimming-pool-feels-cold cold, I mean, crap-I-forgot-that-this-is-glacier-melt cold, thirty-four-degrees-Fahrenheit cold. I chose – wisely, I like to believe – to keep my boots on and stay out of the water.

Far too soon, it was time to re-saddle the horses and head back. The ride down the scramble was every bit as bad as I had imagined. Being in the lead, I was aware of every single rock that the horses behind me displaced and prayed that their horses could keep their feet. I encouraged my guests to lean back, hold on to the back of the saddle with their free hands, and let the horses pick their way down. It seemed like hours later that we reached the bottom of the scramble, though it was only twenty minutes or so.

The rest of the ride back was completely boring and uneventful, even the scary ridge ride overlooking the beaver ponds was fairly ho-hum. It’s amazing how quickly perspective can change.

River

That same Arizona festival weekend, I got my first opportunity to ride an OTTB (off the track Thoroughbred). River was a tall, black, gorgeous gelding, who was only about five years old. He was much better mannered than I had anticipated, because my very limited exposure to race horses had left me with the impression that they had no ground manners and could only go fast and turn left. The Barn Boss had picked him up at an auction after he’d been retired from racing. Apparently, River wasn’t the fastest horse on the track and, therefore, not worth much. Being young and already broke was a plus, because that meant that the Barn Boss would get several years’ worth of work out of him.

At that stage of my riding career, I was still into tall horses; I hadn’t been exposed to small, agile cattle ponies yet, so of course, when given my choice of wrangler horses, I chose River. He reminded me of my favorite wrangler horse back home, RC, who was also a tall black gelding. River and I got along fabulously during the first day of the festival and he did everything I asked of him. He was easy going and calm, even when I asked him to drag an eighty pound bale from one point to the next. He just let me hook up to the bale, take a dally around the horn and dragged that bale like he’d been doing it all his life. To this day, I can’t remember why we had to move the bale, but we did and he pulled it like a champ.

Even throughout the chaos with the trailer getting shot at he was easy going, so it was a cinch that I’d choose him for day two of the festival. Once we were set up, again working out of the stock trailer, I mounted up on River, who had to be close to seventeen hands – he was honestly one of the tallest horses I’ve ever ridden – and backed him away from the trailer. About three steps back, I laid the reins across his neck to turn him left, fully expecting him to pivot on his hindquarters like every other trail horse I’d ever ridden. He knew what I wanted and attempted to comply, but had no idea how to do it. His whole life had been forward driven; shifting his weight to his rear end to free up his front end was a concept he’d never even heard of. He tried, though.  His weight shifted left, his right leg crossed over his left, which stayed planted where it was, and we began our slow topple to the ground.

I’ve been bucked off of horses; I’ve fallen off of horses. Heck, I’ve even been on a horse that has fallen down, but I’ve never been on a horse that just…tipped over and didn’t try to save itself. It was like riding a slowly falling giant. I had time to kick my feet out of the stirrups and wait as he fell. Once he tipped over far enough for my foot to touch the ground, I just…stepped off and that was it. He lay on his side for a minute, like, “what just happened?” before struggling back up to standing.

Turns out, River had horrible arthritis in his left shoulder, so when I asked him to pivot to the left, his shoulder just couldn’t do it and locked into place, which is why he didn’t scramble to regain his balance. The poor sweetheart couldn’t do it. Had his weight shifted to his rear, it might have been a different story, but since his weight was still forward, his front legs basically had the movement of dried cement.  I damn nearly cried, but he picked himself back up and was ready to go. I felt guilty riding him the rest of the day, even though he didn’t seem to be in pain and was more than willing to do everything I asked without hesitation. Probably, his arthritis wouldn’t have flared up if I hadn’t used him to drag the bale the night before, but who would have thought that such a young horse would have such bad arthritis?

Thirty-eight

One Fall I was asked by a former Barn Boss to go down to Arizona to help him out during a Thanksgiving weekend festival. One of the other wranglers I’d worked with in the past, JB, was already working for the Barn Boss at his new ranch, but he needed an extra hand in order to maintain his regular ride schedule and manage the festival. Not being one to miss out on the opportunity to ride in a warm climate, I loaded up the kids and we headed south to Arizona for the weekend.


Since the festival was not at the ranch, we had to work out of a horse trailer. Nothing in my training had prepared me for setting up shop from a stock trailer, but we wranglers are nothing if not flexible. JB and I ran what was essentially a glorified pony ride, only we were using horses and our loop was a one-mile block, not a small round pen. Not exactly what I’d envisioned when I said I’d work the festival, but it was a good excuse to go to Arizona and ride in the good weather.

At the end of the festival, we loaded up our horses into the stock trailer, piled ourselves into the truck and started out for the ride back to the ranch. No sooner had we turned onto the ranch road when we felt a ruckus in the trailer. Normal movement is one thing, but this felt like a horse had lost its balance and fallen, which can become lethal, as they were all tied. If a horse had fallen, it could have been hanging from its halter and lead rope, under the feet of the other horses. The ruckus continued as we pulled to a stop and leapt out of the truck. Standing on the wheel wells, we counted heads, and all were still tied and accounted for. There weren’t any horses down and we couldn’t immediately figure out what had caused the commotion, but the horses had quit banging around and were standing nicely once again.

With shrugs all around and a string of curse words out of the Barn Boss’ mouth, we piled back into the truck and resumed our trip to the ranch without incident. At the ranch, JB happened to glance at the trailer’s side window as we were walking to the back to unload, “Sonovabitch, looket that!” He was pointing at a small hole in the window that we hadn’t noticed when we stopped the first time. “Boss, don’t that look like a bullet hole?”

Sure enough, it did look like a bullet hole and being out in the Arizona desert, it wasn’t entirely out of the question that the trailer had been shot accidentally, or, I suppose, even on purpose. A bullet through the window would also have explained the ruckus the horses put up. We went over the trailer, inch by inch, looking for another hole, an exit hole, but there was nothing. Which meant that a bullet, if that’s what caused the hole, went into the trailer, but didn’t leave the trailer.

It was with some trepidation that we unloaded and inspected the horses. The horses at the back of the trailer were unscathed and a little surprised at the thorough inspection they got before we turned them out. One horse, however, who was tied opposite the shot-out window stepped out of the trailer with blood running down his leg.

Hot damn! One of the horses had been hit by a ricochet. We looked at the leg more closely and saw that the bullet hadn’t actually entered the leg, but had carved a nice furrow in it as it skipped by. It was a lucky break for the horse, who had already lived through a previous gun encounter in his old life. The horse’s name was Thirty-eight. As the story goes, his old owner had tried to shoot off of him and missed, instead hitting the horse in the head with a .38 caliber round, which could still be felt under his skin. The horse lived and was eventually sold at auction.

What were the odds that the only horse, in a stock trailer full of horses, hit by the bullet’s ricochet was the only horse that had a previous gun encounter? Crazy, isn’t it?

Roman

Roman was a tall red horse, 16 hands if he was an inch, not a discernable ounce of draft in him, with a big Roman nose, hence the name. I had the chance to work with Roman for two seasons running, though at two different liveries. The first season Roman was around, I had my own wrangler horse, Meeker, that I was leading rides from, so one of the other wranglers snagged Roman as his lead horse.


Now this kid was a ranch kid, but not much of a horseman, though he liked to tout himself as such. He and Roman had some amazing go-rounds, which Roman most always won. The poor kid spent a lot of time sailing through the air and landing hard on the ground. Guess it’s a good thing that he was only in his early twenties. On occasion, a different wrangler would take Roman out without any problems. He’d be a perfect gentleman. Twice that season, I lead out on Roman for one reason or another and didn’t have any problems with him. He was sweet and even-tempered, though you’d never know it from the stories.

My problem with Roman wasn’t so much a problem as a preference. I loved, loved, riding tall horses. Must be because I’m so short, so I always chose the tallest horse in the herd to lead from. I loved them. Until I met Miss Estes and realized that, really, a lot comes in a small package. Miss Meeker, Estes’ daughter, wasn’t so tall either, but they were both agile. They could spin on a dime and leave you floating in the air like the coyote in the cartoons. They were quick. If you weren’t with them when they took off, you’d again be floating in the air like the coyote. After a couple of seasons of riding small horses, I’d kind of forgotten what lugs big horses could be. Roman reminded me of that rather quickly. He really was a big lug.

The last time I rode Roman that first season, he colicked on me when we got back from the ride. Lord knows he must have been in pain during the ride, but never showed any indication. It wasn’t until we got back into the yard and I went to dismount that he indicated something was wrong. He and I spent a lot of time walking around that day, waiting for the vet to arrive, and hoping for the best. Unfortunately, the reality is that when livery horses colic, they usually don’t make it. Liveries lose a fair amount of horses to colic and I was afraid for Roman. The vet came, did his thing, and Roman pulled through, for which I was very thankful. He was a good horse with a big heart.

The next season, at a different livery, I again got to work with Roman, as his wrangler had requested him when he switched liveries. Roman threw his notorious fits with his wrangler and the kid again spent a lot of time sailing through the air and landing hard on the ground. By the end of the first month, no one else would go near Roman and shortly thereafter the wrangler was dismissed. Now, the livery had a problem. We had a horse with a monumental temper, who we couldn’t put dudes on, and who the other wranglers were afraid to ride. In a livery string, every horse has to earn his/her way. Since I’d ridden Roman successfully – twice – the year before, the Barn Boss must have figured that qualified me for riding him again.

It took me all of about thirty seconds to realize what Roman’s problem was. Being an auction horse, we didn’t know too much about him, so we didn’t know about his training at all. The buyers just assumed that because he was sold as a western horse that he knew all about neck reining. The buyers were wrong. So was the kid. It was painfully obvious to me, once I mounted up, that poor Roman had no idea whatsoever what was being asked of him with the reins. I switched to direct reining and got an immediate response. I hadn’t noticed it the season before because it was late in the season when I rode him and by then he’d learned the trails the hard way, with the kid on his back and spurs in his sides. Well, hell, no wonder he’d developed such a temper. His wrangler was speaking to him in a foreign language and then punishing him with the sharp, jabby things in his sides when he didn’t understand.

The problem showed itself at a new livery, with new trails, that Roman didn’t know. The trails at the second livery weren’t the nice one-way-out-one-way-back trails that the first livery had. These trails were tough, there were always choices to be made, and rarely was a trail ever ridden the same way twice. Poor Roman was lost, didn’t understand the language, and was damn sick of being stuck in the ribs with the spurs.

As soon as I realized what his issue was, I adjusted my riding. I turned back his training and took him back to where he should have been taught neck reining. In addition to giving him a direct rein signal, I laid the opposite rein across his neck. In the span of one one-hour ride, he’d gotten it – without a single temper tantrum. I think he was just so grateful that someone finally figured out that he didn’t speak the language that he tried extra hard that day. I took him out a few more times and found him to be absolutely unflappable. Nothing bothered that horse, and I mean nothing. Hikers, plastic bags, traffic. He turned out to be the most bomb-proof horse I’ve ever ridden. Within just a couple of weeks, I pronounced him dude-worthy, and my Barn Boss took my word for it. I secretly think that the Barn Boss was afraid to get up on him, having witnessed some of Roman’s more colossal blow ups.

Roman turned into the best, hardest working, biggest hearted horse in the string. He was strong, even tempered and sweet. We could put small children or oversized adults on him and he never blinked. We never saw another temper tantrum out of him. He quickly became the livery’s biggest asset; he gave and gave and gave.

Toward the end of the season, though, tragedy struck. Roman got kicked one night while out in the pen with the other horses and developed a bone abscess. We doctored and doctored him, but couldn’t get him well. We finally had to make the decision to put him down. It was absolutely heart-wrenching, as he’d become one of my favorites. I am thankful, that they took him down to the farm first, I don’t think I could have handled him being put down at the livery.

The Worst Ride Ever

Sometimes, the guests with the most horse experience turn out to be a wrangler’s worst nightmare. Perhaps the worst ride I’ve ever taken out consisted of just two fourteen year-old girls, best friends. One of the girls lived in Colorado and the other had moved away the year before and had just returned for vacation. The father of the Colorado girl thought it would be fun for the girls to go out on a four-hour ride, since Visiting Girl was a competitive hunter/jumper and they both loved horses.


The ride started out okay; there wasn’t a whole heap of whimpering from either girl as we ascended the steep switchback to reach the trail. Visiting Girl asked once or twice if we could trot. I told her that there just weren’t a lot of places in the mountains that are safe to trot, but that we might be able to once we reached the meadow. Colorado Girl and Visiting Girl were chatting, getting caught up on their lives since Visiting Girl had moved away the year before. Their mutual gossip kept them entertained for the first hour of the ride.

Going into the second hour, they were starting to wind down and Visiting Girl began to pay attention to her surroundings. She started asking questions about what would happen if she fell off and weren’t the horses scared being in the mountains? I assured her that the horses would take care of her and that, no, the horses weren’t scared being in the mountains.

At the end of hour two, going into hour three, we began to ascend the Olive Ridge route, which parallels some fairly steep drop-offs, but is a good, safe trail. I had taken literally hundreds of guests on that exact trail without a problem. In fact, the less horse experience my guests had, the more adventurous they seemed and the more they enjoyed the trail.

Colorado Girl was having a great time, enjoying the scenery and just being on top of a horse. Visiting Girl, however, the one with the most horse experience began to lose her mind. I don’t mean she was a little nervous, but that she went into a full-blown crying panic attack when she looked down off the side of the mountain. Now, the trail did run along the edge of a drop-off, but was nice and wide; there was no reason to worry that the horse would lose its footing and fall, but that’s exactly what Visiting Girl had envisioned.

There was no calming her down – she was absolutely, one hundred percent certain that her horse was going to fall off the side of the mountain and plunge her to her death.

As quickly as I could, I moved the ride off the trail and onto a nice, wide, graded fire access road, but there was still no calming her. Colorado Girl did her best, trying to talk Visiting Girl down, all to no avail. The return trip was spent assuring Visiting Girl that we were headed back to the livery and that there weren’t any places on the trail that she could fall off the mountain. We returned to the livery yard silent except for the sniffy, drippy tears of Visiting Girl and I swore I would never take out an arena rider again. Of course, I couldn’t get away with it, but that one ride distilled a deep distrust of “experienced” horse people who have never ridden outside an arena.

Traffic Stopper

Estes is a sweet little Morgan/Quarter Horse mare. She stands 14.2 hands tall, has a white crescent between two amazingly soft eyes. When brushed out, her black mane and tail have lots of volume (that’s the nice way of saying out-of-control fluffy). It’s very difficult to tell her from her daughter, Meeker, who has a white star and three socks, rather than Estes’ two. Estes isn’t very affectionate, in fact, she’s rather stand-offish until she decides she likes you, at which time she becomes a regular snuggle bug. Well, maybe that’s not accurate. If she likes you, she might give you the time of day and not turn her back to you when you approach.


Estes is also a handful under saddle. Being a Morgan, she’s very forward motion oriented. And she’s quick. Truth be told, I was terrified of her and didn’t want to ride her. Once I was forced to ride her I learned two things very quickly: first, master the running mount or she’ll leave you behind; second, stay out of her mouth! She does not respond to mouth pressure well at all, which is what got her original wrangler in trouble.

As Estes and I got to know each other, besides falling absolutely, completely, unconditionally in love with her, I learned that she LOVED to stop traffic. There’s not a car, truck, or motorcycle that failed to stop for Estes when we were assigned traffic duty.

It didn’t matter which livery we were working with, there was always at least one road that the dude string needed to cross and Estes thrived at stopping traffic. All I would have to do was point her at a car and she did an excellent puffer fish imitation. I could feel her grow from 14.2 hands to 14.2 feet. There was not a car that was going to get past her. We’d step out into traffic and face the on-coming car. If the car didn’t begin to slow down, we’d play chicken with it. I’d put a little heel to her and hold up my right hand in the universal “stop” gesture as we would bear down on the car.

Usually, by that time the driver would be slowing to a stop. If the driver wasn’t slowing down enough, I’d pull Estes to a stop and plant her right in the driver’s way. She had an attitude about her that just said, “Try it, Buster!” I found out later that she would pull back her lips and snarl at the car.

If, even after her snarling and planting herself in the middle of the road, she didn’t bring the car to a complete stop, I’d inch her forward a touch and give a little tug on the reins. She’d go into her half-rearing War Horse prance, letting the car know that she wouldn’t think twice about planting those cute little double-ought front hooves of hers right smack-dab in the middle of their hood.

Worked like a charm.