Opinion. Horse Sense

Perhaps somewhere on your personal list of fun things to do is learning how to ride a horse, not just a beast of burden that shuttles locals and tourists alike along the roads most taken, but more like the kind you picture carrying a stereotypical Cossack of yesteryear. If this is the case, chances are you're a novelty seeker, always looking for something new to get hooked on. By the way Elvis Presley was like that, always looking for something new to "beat on", to use the king's way of putting it.

Then what are you waiting for? Finding a stable with a riding instructor is easy enough. If you really want to learn how to ride a horse, what's stopping you? Could it be that you're waiting for something to happen? Maybe you believe that once this thing happens, you'll then get around to taking horse riding lessons. Maybe this thing is your job. You could for example like your job, but hate that your employer does not provide you with housing allowance or medical insurance. But seriously, what would this then have to do with not taking riding lessons? Surely you're sensible enough to realize that if your boss were to give you housing allowance and medical insurance tomorrow, this wouldn't necessarily guarantee that you'd be taking your first riding lesson the day after tomorrow. Sitting around worrying about your job benefits is not time well spent to begin with, but you only delude yourself when you insist that you'll be riding as soon as this or that happens.

OK, enough motivational claptrap. Let's go ahead now and imagine that one of these days you will get in the saddle in spite of the countless things you're waiting for to happen. Let's imagine further that you're about to have your first horse riding lesson (not counting the one you might've had at summer camp, circa 1975).

Do you know what to expect at your first lesson? Chances are you'll be learning the fundamentals: how to get up on the horse, how to sit in the saddle, how to hold the reigns in your hands and keep your feet in the stirrups. Heck, you might even learn how to lean forward on the horse if it starts to relieve itself with you on its back.

Depending on your learning curve, add or subtract another elementary skill, such as steering, and your first lesson should be a fun filled hour or so with lots of new information to process. But don't worry at all about being overwhelmed. Just remind yourself that unlike horses you're a thinking animal, designed for things like learning how to ride other species and having fun in the process.

But whoa there, thinking animal. As part of your preparation, you should also be warned that many who have long put off riding horses for one lame reason or another probably do so out of a latent concern that the sport is cruel to horses. Since it would be a shame if you were to start questioning that maybe the horse is not happy with you on its back, potentially spoiling all the fun, take the following quiz and make the answers that follow part of your defense against any petty moral issues that might as a result creep into your head:

1) Would I like it if a horse were on my back?
Of course not. Horses weigh between 800 and 3,000 pounds. No rational human being wants a broken back.

2) Do I have a right to place my behind upon on a horse's back?
Yes, you do. Find one constitution written by a horse; find one law written by humans which denies a man the right to climb on a horse's back.

3) From the horse's point of view is there anything natural about my sitting on its back?
It does not matter. You are a human being who wants to have fun.

4) Do I have a right to kick a horse?
(See answer #2.) Yes, especially when you want the horse to go forward. Kick the horse and the horse goes forward; the horse goes forward and you have fun.
Do you feel better now, all ready to ride? If not, maybe some pop lyrics from the early 80's say it all.

*Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated."
*From Michael Jackson,
the self-proclaimed king of pop