Every body’s got a tale to tell, and if you’ve been as enthusiastic about outdoor activities as I have, chances are you have some scars as reminders of your experiences. I noticed a scar of mine the other day, which made me start thinking about how I got that scar, which made me wonder just how many scars do I have that are horse-related? I have to say, almost all of my scars have a horse story behind them.
My worst scar happened when I was five, trying to rescue a horse in a trailer that had caught his halter on the middle dividing gate of the trailer and then pulled the gate shut and was struggling to free himself. I climbed up on the side of the trailer, hung on the gate release lever to open it, and reached my little arm in there to free the horse’s halter. The gate snapped shut on my arm, and had to have twenty stitches in it. You can read the whole story here.
When I was about seven, I was helping gather cattle out of a cornfield in the spring, ready to move them to pasture. I think I accidentally dropped one of my reins, because I remember I had to get off my horse, and I could not get back on. I was riding Kokomo that day, and he was kind of cagey about sidling away if you led him up next to something, to keep you from getting on. I was using the barbed wire fence to climb up on, and when he sidled away, I snagged my arm on one of the barbs. I don’t know what it is about barbed wire, but it seems to heal inside out and scar pretty badly.
I guess I didn’t learn my lesson too well with that first barbed wire scratch, because I got a worse one when I was about twelve, pulling the same stunt. I had ridden Peppy out bareback for just a joy ride, and gotten off to close a gate. When I climbed up on the fence to shimmy my way back onto his back, my tennis shoe slipped over the barbed wire strand, with my full weight on that leg, it slipped over a barb, cutting a deep four inch long slice under my knee. That one was ugly, and I remember leading Peppy home crying, and my little brother making fun of me. I’m still mad at him for that.
I have another scar on my eyebrow, and this is probably the most dangerous horse episode I’ve been in. I was a teenager, and summer was in full swing, and I was supposed to go out and check the windmills in the pastures our cattle were in. If a windmill quit and the cows had no water, they would die, so they had to be checked on a regular basis. I decided to ride a young mare I was training named Belle. It being summer and getting very warm, I chose to ride bareback and just make it a lighter and cooler ride for the horse. Belle was still pretty green, but she was happy to travel, and we were soon miles from home. We came up over a grassy sandhill at a smooth trot, and all of a sudden she spooked sideways like something had flown up from under her. I slid right off to the side, and as I fell, she kicked out at me, thinking I was the boogey man, I guess. Her hoof actually hit my glasses, knocking them into my face and cutting my eyebrow. She ran off with reins trailing as I searched for the glasses I was literally blind without.
By the time I found my glasses, my head had begun to throb and my eye was so swollen the glasses would hardly fit. Touching my face, I got blood on my hand, which scared me—I could only imagine how badly cut my forehead was! I walked after Belle, caught her with little trouble, and led her for a mile or so. Then I decided to get back on, and she carried me safely the rest of the way home. My ornery brother met me in the yard, with a grin on his face again. I didn’t have much patience with him this time, and barked at him to come take my horse as I needed to go find Mom to look at my face. When I saw it in the mirror, I was surprised to see it was only a small cut, right in the eyebrow, but it was opened up pretty well, so Mom insisted on taking me to the emergency room for stitches.
I fared much better than most of my siblings, for I never broke any bones. I remember my oldest sister broke her arm when she was eleven and just beginning to train her horse Apache. Then when she was a senior in high school, she came off a panicked mare midair and landed on both feet, breaking both ankles. One was completely shattered, required a pin to repair it, and it still bothers her sometimes. My brother Kevin was carrying what we called a staple bucket—a coffee can with a wire handle put in it used to hold staples and fence pliers to repair fences around the ranch—and he thought he could ride his horse Gunner while carrying the rattling bucket. Gunner had other ideas, and bucked him off and broke his arm. My youngest sister was riding her horse Frosty bareback, and they were going fast and turned on some hay or straw underfoot, and Frosty fell with her, breaking her arm. Dad forbid her to ride bareback for a couple of years. It’s a wonder he never banned us all from riding! There were seven of us kids, and we were always getting into scrapes with our horses.
It’s funny when you think back on all the things you’ve gotten away with. I never wore a helmet or anything on my head while riding. Nowadays, it’s considered child abuse to let your kid ride with no helmet—even kids on tricycles are wearing them! It’s a good idea though; I can testify to that. I’m very fortunate to never have had a horse injury that hurt me irreparably. Once in awhile I’ll sit down wrong, and bring back a memory otherwise completely forgotten: I trained a colt named Blue one summer, and we were all riding out to start a day of cattle work when he decided to buck. I landed on my tailbone. Dad sold Blue soon after that, but that tailbone and the memories that go with it are forever a part of me.
