Best of all the animals!
June 11th, 2006 at 16:08
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I’ve had the most unusual morning… I’ve had a lesson in horse riding. Above you can see a photo of me sitting on Patch.
I was a bit worried on the way there, as I was expecting the instructor to be really middle class. I was wearing my “Hated by the Daily Mail” t-shirt, and I’d bought my monocle with me. Thankfully, JD and Charlie persuaded me to leave the monocle in the car, and the horse woman (technical term) only seemed to glare at my t-shirt whilst she read the slogan.
It was slighly unsettling to have to fill in a form absolving responsibility for any injuries I might recieve- although it was more unsettling when I realised I might have to dress up like a ponce on a horse. In the end, I only had to wear the riding shoes and a hat… and thankfully it was more like a bicycle helmet than a aristocrat’s brimmed ponce hat.
As I climbed on to my horse (or “saddled up” as they say in films), I was lead to a sort of “yard” area- with a horse underneath me doing the leg work, obviously. I was having enough trouble staying afloat. I looked back to see JD and Charlie coping slightly better than I was… despite Charlie being sat on top of a horse that was at least two feet taller than Patch.
We each had a handler (horsemonkey?) to keep an eye on us, and instruct us on a one to one basis. What this essentially meant that the horse was on a rope (technical term) and made to walk in circles, with me nervously sitting on top. Clearly horseplay was going to be trickier than I thought.
I kept being asked if I had any questions- I didn’t really, as their teaching was quite accurate. However, in a bid to make it look like I was paying attention, I thought I’d better ask at least one or two questions. “How many gears does a horse have?” got a surprisingly thoughtful answer. Apparently the answer is “four” (walk, trot, canter, and gallop- I’ve been learning!). Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to ask how many horse-power a horse was (I think the answer is “one”). Or how to control the radio and air conditioning. I considered asking about how much memory a horse has, or how powerful its processor is, before realising that this would be stupid.
“That sideways walking they do during horse dancing during the olympics… what’s the deal?”, I asked in what was almost a question. Apparently it is an advanced maneuvour – probably the equivilent to a parallel park. It has a technical name that escapes me, although I was reminded that I’d have the opportunity to learn how to do it should I continue with lessons.
Not having any points of horse-reference, I found myself thinking of cars quite a bit- the horsemonkey looking after me told me in no uncertain terms that “it’s not a bike”, when I nearly made my horse do a wheely (and described it as such).
My horsemonkey’s instructions and encouragement were a bit odd. As she was in charge of both me and a horse, it got quite confusing at times who she was talking to. “C’mon, you can do it! Good lad!” she said a few times- I didn’t know whether she was talking to me, or the horse. It got worse when she posed a question, “are you okay?”… as that could be something you say to a horse to calm it down… although it turned out she was asking me.
The key focus of the lesson lesson was being able to practically stand up whilst on a horse (!). I didn’t realise I was quite advanced enough for tricks. It turns out that in order to “trot”, you need to be able to lift yourself up off of the saddle, whilst impossibly, also keeping your knees, feet and legs in the same position. And you needed to be able to move forwards without leaning forwards. It was difficult. Apparently you do this in time with the horse bouncing around a bit- when the scientist within me questioned whether it’s to be done in time with the horse, or inversely in time with the horse (so you cancel out the effects of the horse moving up and down) was met with blank looks.
As the lesson neared its end, I realised that the “jockey” (I was actually referred to as this) also needs to be fit… and not just the horse, as it was surprisingly tiring.
So to sum up, I refer you to a well known song (speakers on for the link):
I love horses? They’re not bad.
Best of all the animals? Perhaps.
They’re my friends? Patch was alright… although he had a tendancy to do that terrifying stamping his feet and expelling air through a closed mouth causing his mouth to wobble (you know what I mean).
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