The Wild Ride

"A man that don't love a horse, there is something the matter with him."

Will Rogers

When my Aunt Janice moved to Georgia for a few years, she had to leave her horses behind in Los Angeles. So, my mom and dad would go out to the stables where the horses were boarded to ride them now and then. They would ride the trails of Griffith Park, the largest park in Los Angeles.

One afternoon, my parents went to the stables, brushed and saddled the horses, and headed out. The trail went through a tunnel under the freeway and led into Griffith Park. Meandering along for several miles, they had a nice time riding. After a while, they decided it would be best to head back, as it was getting late in the afternoon and would take some time to return to the stables and put away the horses.

The ride back was uneventful until they came to the trail leading to the tunnel under the freeway. For some reason, my dad’s horse got spooked and took off at a gallop down the trail in the direction of a sharp turn before the tunnel. A galloping horse can’t make a sharp turn, and this horse was wild with fear and completely out of control.

To make matters a lot worse, as Dad pulled back hard on the reins to try to slow down the horse, the reins broke! So, there he was, on an out-of-control horse galloping toward a brick wall, with no way to stop. Now that’s trouble … unless you grew up spending time on your grandad’s farm, in the middle of Kansas, and knew a lot about horses and how to ride, and luckily, my dad had and did.

When he saw what was coming, Dad leaned way out over the neck of his horse and gently covered the horse’s eyes with his hands. And the horse stopped. When the horse could no longer see where he was going, he stopped. And do you know what? Some people will tell you that horses are dumb … but they’re not stupid.

-Hank

"The Wild Ride," from The Saturday Morning Post, at hankfrazee.com. Excerpted from Before We Say “Goodnight” by Hank Frazee.