Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

horsey

Following up on the last of my birthday plans, I went horseback riding with Rob (right, with horse Benny Fluff) in Rock Creek Park yesterday, where we signed up for a one-hour trail ride via the Rock Creek Horse Center.

None of the student riders had any kind of horse experience, or what little experience we had was from years ago. (I probably haven’t been on a horse since I went riding with my Grandma Ilse in Colorado when I was in eighth or ninth grade.) The center’s staff helped us onto our horses — one foot into the stirrup, grab the saddle, and swing the other leg over — and offered basic advice on how to “steer”: Pull the reins left to go left, right to go right and back to stop; give the horse a little kick with your legs to tell it to move forward.

As we waited for the others to get saddled up, my horse, TJ, got a bit fidgety, munching on nearby plants and pacing around while the other horses stood patiently in place. A few times he bent his head down so quickly to grab a mouthful of something that he nearly yanked the reins out of my hands, and I had to almost stand up in the saddle to reach down and pull his head back up. As he paced around in search of more munchies, TJ didn’t respond to my tentative attempts to pull back on the rein in the hopes he would stand still. A center staffer finally took him by the bridle and stood with us while we waited to get started.

After everyone got settled, the six of us — Rob, me, another couple and two guides — hit the trail.

It’s an interesting experience sitting atop a horse and accepting that, in so doing, you’re giving up a certain amount of control to something that can make its own decisions about what it will do and where it will go. On some of the steeper parts of the trail, I mostly gave up trying to “steer” TJ, realizing that, for the most part, he’s done this trail dozens or hundreds of times before and probably knows the best way to go to keep his footing. My confidence wavered a bit, though, when he took two steep inclines at a much faster pace and I had to pull the reins back to slow him down. He may have been good for a gallop, but I know I wasn’t yet.

I didn’t take any pictures, except for one at the very end, because I didn’t want to risk a) losing hold of the reins, b) startling my horse with the sound of the camera turning on, or c) getting yelled at by one of the guides.

Keeping steady and upright atop a horse requires different muscles than I usually use, and between the bouncing of the horse and the effort it took to keep my balance using just my legs, I was certain that my rear would be hurting me the next day. And while I’m a bit sore, it’s actually my back that hurts most of all from the surprisingly difficult work of sitting up straight.

It was fun, though, and I’d really like to do it again. I want to build up my confidence and comfort level with riding horses, so that one of these days I can go on an extended trail ride, maybe out in Shenandoah.