My horse riding incident (An account) by Anthony Hedger

My horse riding incident (An account) by Anthony hedger

I hope you won’t take an offence to this short story but I had to write it. And it is only for a bit of fun.

When I was a hundred years younger than I am now I wanted to combine my love for animals and in this case, horse riding with my love for photography. Big mistake. Let me explain as best as I can.

Ok, I wanted to try horse riding once and got the chance when I went on a camping holiday with a couple of friends of mine on Exmore. The trouble I had was that I had never been on a horse before and I probably won’t go on one ever again. Well, it wasn’t exactly a horse I was given – it was more of a Pony (a very big one I hasten to add) and when I say big I mean as big as the Trojan horse of Troy and I needed a treble extension ladder to climb up onto its back.

My friends and I wanted to go onto the moor for a pony trek just on our own
and without the normal group of 6 or 10 riders. We chose our ponies for
ourselves to see if we could bond with them first and I was told to be careful as the one I had chosen was very fast. I didn’t think this would be a problem and I thought that I’d be the best on Exmore that day.

Fast they said, it would hardly walk let alone sprint or anything so I got off it and pushed, pulled and dragged it back to the stables. A tip here is never push a horse or pony you just end up losing your hand and arm up its backside. It must have looked like I was a pissed off dog owner with my badly behaved dog trying like mad to drag it back home because the dog / pony was sliding along on its arse.

Finally, a sweaty 2 hours later of pulling my pony in through the main gates of
the stables with a bald patch on his now red backside, and another half an hour to try to retrieve my wristwatch from its arse, I asked them to stop mucking around with me and to give me something special, something wicked, give me something fast, something I’ll never forget. Now don’t you guys forget here I have never ridden a pony / horse before or even been on the back of a lame dog wearing bifocal glasses and standing on a skateboard doing a tap dance and whistling ‘I’m a Yankee doodle dandy’ so keep that in mind before judging me.

They asked me if I have had much experience of riding before which I thought was rather strange as they never asked that question earlier when my watch was free from horse crap. Of course I had, I lied, so they gave me a huge beast which wasn’t remotely like a horse or a pony. It was more like a deformed creature from the depths of hell with two heads and eight legs. I thought it was a giant spider at first and I pulled out a newspaper to swat it. I am telling you now with my hand on my heart, (I do that for no reason other than to have a scratch) it was colossal and more of a cross between a fire breathing dragon and teenage ninja turtle than a pony, even its muscles had muscles on it. I don’t think they heard me gulp in my breath or again when they told me the pony’s cute name was Thunder Clap. Thunder Clap! I gave them my own thunder clap but I don’t think anyone heard me thank goodness and if they did I’d blame the bad smell on the beast.

Anyway, after an embarrassing moment trying to find a ladder tall enough for me to climb up onto Thunder Claps back which I couldn’t find anywhere even the local fire brigade ladder were still coming up short so they gave me a small trampet. Now for people like me who didn’t know what one was: I just thought they asked me to play a musical instrument to it and it may have sat down like a camel will then get on its back that way, but no, that was way too easy for good old Thunder Clap. No, the trampet in question was a small trampoline thingy about three feet in diameter. So there I was bouncing up and down several times trying to get my leg over the pony of the year to no avail. I even believe I’d seen this particular beast on the front of the Pirelli calendar as Miss January once.

I had this strange thought after my lungs had stopped bouncing out of my mouth that I may just walk back out to the bloody moor and take a few shots of my friends enjoying themselves on their horses / ponies until some bright spark of a stable hand named Godfree said he had an idea. Hmmm, I thought, I didn’t think I was going to like his idea and I say ‘his’ loosely as I wasn’t sure if he were a he or she. Anyway, Godfree got me to climb up into the loft space about fifteen feet up above the stables it was a sort of mezzanine floor where they stored the bails of straw for feed and bedding. I looked down somewhat hesitantly as fifteen feet is quite a height and the small trampet they wanted me to pounce upon looked like a tiny ant from up there and why they still wanted me to I don’t know as I could have just stepped on to Thunder Claps back from where I was. And at this height I needed a little oxygen as the air was quite thin and because of this my nose started bleeding. Well I found a canister of oxygen lying nearby. Now I say canister of oxygen, I wasn’t sure but my voice sounded rather strange when I said I was ready for it now. It came out as a squeaky bad impersonation of Joe Pasquale. And for our friends across the water (get a boat) he’s a comic. No not a comic like the Beano, Dandy or My Pretty Pony, (sore point that one) no a comic as in a comedian with a squeaky voice.

Well in for a penny in for a pound and what the hell does that mean? Who makes these stupid sayings up? Is there some secrete government office somewhere with a small balding man sitting at a desk making this crap up?
I can just see him now almost having an orgasm: “Oh, Oh, sir, sir I have one, In for a penny in for a pound and that’s my bonus sorted out for this week.”
Sorry, I digressed there a little.

So looking down from the loft with the pony looking back at me I jumped off and missed the trampet, Godfree in his wisdom had moved it at the last minute. It wasn’t too bad as pony crap will break your fall in circumstances like these and when the swelling in my ankles went down about ten days later and after six months of physiotherapy I was as ‘right as rain’ and there’s another stupid saying I bet that bloke in his office could afford a holiday on the extra money coming in that week.

Anyway after strapping my ankles up with straw and strips of an old horse blanket making me look like I’d shit myself as I couldn’t get my legs together and walking a walk that John Wayne would be proud of I was asked to try again. Well I looked at the faces looking back at me including Thunder Clap who seem to be feeling sorry for me by now, well that’s how the expression on his long face looked and I said, “Do I look that stupid to try that again?” To which they all replied together including Thunder Clap, “Hell yes.” So I gave it another go. I leapt off of that loft floor like the Six Million Dollar Man – no, not with his good looks and muscular body but just the way he always did things in slow motion. And as I jumped his slow motion music started playing from somewhere and after an hour I bounced right up on to Thunder Clap over large body squashing my nuts on the saddle.

Godfree asked if I was alright. Well my face could have given him a clue to the answer to that question, it was beetroot red, my ankles could have been broken for all I know and were strapped with the insides from the scarecrow Worzel Gummidge and my knackers were knackered and somewhat flattened and in a high pitch voice (again squeaky like Joe Pasquale once more) which could have smashed a beautiful cut glass crystal drinking vessel of wine I said: “I’m quite good considering, thanks for bloody asking now get out of the f*g way.” Or squeaks something like that.

So, after a bad start off I trotted the short distance from the stables back to the moor. I say I trotted but it was Thunder Clap in case you thought I was trotting along like a small child on one of those wooden horse thingies with wheels at the back of them. And I thought ok, this isn’t too bad, better than the last pony whose name escapes me but was probably something soft and gentle like Petal or Rose. There was a lot of noise going on around us and I thought the group had joined us but no, it was just the beast and me and all of its eights shoes on the tarmac of the road. But in spite of the noise and with me out of synch with the bouncing up and down, I felt like the lord of the manor high up on the back of this beast. In fact I was that high I had another nose bleed and needed more oxygen which a passerby just happened to have a spare bag of. I looked at him strangely; well I was covered in horse shit and blood in case you had forgotten and asked how can you have a bag of oxygen? He just said in an accent which I didn’t fully understand as I had dried shit and straw in each ear “oxygenisairinitosbreatheitmebird.” Which I broke down as something like: oxygen is air init so breathe it me bird. Hmmm, I thought, I have a right one here, bit like Van Goff really one ear, never mind. So, where was I? Oh yeah.

Now, I’ll tell you this for free so put your money away as soon as the first four of Thunder Clap’s hooves touched the grass of the more it took off like a bat from hell, a bullet from a smoking gun, an arrow from Robin Hood’s bow. (It was fast) It was like watching one of those cartoons where the person is on a horse gripping their arms and hands around the animal’s throat for dear life with legs flying behind in the wind and leaving a funny smell in the air. Yep that was me in all my glory and all dignity gone. But then, after going a distance of several miles over rough terrain much like the moon surface and with my two friends watching miles behind me through binoculars and with open mouths and the group party watching on in awe at the fantastic stunt rider giving it some speed and looking so good (me) Thunder Clap decided to just stop dead in its tracks and I went sailing over one of its large beast heads in slow motion. And again the music of the Six Million Dollar Man could be heard playing across the moor from an unseen orchestra.

As I somersaulted several times through the air I had a lot of time to think
and I started to wonder what we were going to eat for that night’s evening
meal, were we going to walk to the pub or in my case hobble and what was the weather forecast for the evening. I looked down, a little dizzy by now as you might imagine as ten somersaults were rather a lot to cope with and the pony looked up at me with big black eyes, all four of them. It had huge eye lashes which any woman would be proud to be wearing on a night out on the town and I am sure it winked at me one after the other like a Mexican wave at a football match. Then I heard it say or thought I heard it say I should add as I am not mad, in quite good English complete with a Somerset lilt: “10 points for effort young man,” and then it ran off to join the group who were now walking toward me with autograph books and pens in hand.

When my friends finally found me I was just a crumpled heap in a deep
crevasse in the ground. I was lucky I hadn’t hit any of the granite boulders
nearby or I wouldn’t be writing this true story to you now.

Oh, yeah, by the way, I never did get any photos on that holiday the camera had been eaten by good old Thunder Clap and I am sure it came out somewhere but I was past caring by then.

The End.

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anthony, exmoor, fun, funny, hedger, holiday, horse, incident, riding and tony