Remembering

Three girls riding in a row on Toro’s back. Falling like a giggling ribbon across his side. Hitting the ground with a bounce and climbing back on. I was ten. My cousins and our friends would ride our horses back and forth between our houses along the railroad tracks. Halfway between my house and my cousins’ house lived Dawn and Darlene Trokey. Robin lived next door to Dawn and Darlene.

Robin had a weedy barn sour sorrel mare. Darlene had Toro and Dawn had Go Eastern A Go Go. We called him GoGee. I can remember being at the Trokey’s house and being told that we could ride to my house on their horses if we put a saddle on GoGee. GoGee’s withers were two-feet higher than the tops of our heads. We watched as Dawn came at GoGee with a 16-inch western equitation saddle lifted over her head and then resting it on the barrel of the dappled grey gelding as he just stood there. Several times, she pushed the saddle up and it shoved the woven saddle blanket off his back. “We don’t need the blanket. Do we?”

Wow! It seems like forever since I have either jogged and trained a Standardbred or ridden a horse (the last one being a cheerful little Arab named Maverick)! The last time for both of these for me was when I lived on an incredibly beautiful farm in Indiana, just last September. I live in Illinois now, and am just now beginning to get out and meet people in the community. I know I am looking forward to rubbing elbows with some of my former groom friends at the Indiana State Fair and at Springfield this year. I haven't found any dressage stables near me in Hoopeston- although everyone lives in the country and many people have horses, it doesn't seem like a commercialized business around here.

There was a Bureau of Land Management wild horse auction in Albuquerque, N.M. in May 2006. I went to take some photos, and get a story on how good the wild horse adoption program was for local equestrian retailers. I didn't write the story, but I did get a horse.

I was at the auction all three days, snapping photographs and talking to some of the most interesting people. Everyone said they were looking to bring home a part of the American West.

I was asked several times if I was taking one of the kind-eyed creatures home. I said no. The horse people who taught me how to ride told me that the wild horses were sickly and crazy. I believed them.