[Ag-eq] Some early equestrian recollections

[nfoster at extremezone.com]

Jewl:

I have the best mental pictures of Ginger pulling your Dad on his bike.  It must
have been quite a ride!

Nella
Quoting Jewel <jewelblanch at kinect.co.nz>:

> This is an excerpt from "My Life With Guide Dogs" the book that I wrote .
> The following took place in the late forties/early fifties.
>
>         Jewel
>
>
>
>
>      When I went home for Christmas Holidays there were always
> ponies and horses to ride.  My parents, as in the days after I lost
> my sight, put no obstacles in my way, and encouraged me to do
> whatever I wanted, so riding horses and ponies was one of my
> priorities.  It actually is a bit of a mystery why Mum owned
> ponies, as neither she or Dad were horse people.  Nothing would
> induce my father to get on a horse.  "Not enough handles" he
> maintained.  At the time, I was the only one in the family to show any
> interest in horses, and I was
> home for so little of the year.
> If there were no suitable horses on the
> property at the time of my holidays, Mum would borrow one.  One of
> these, was a lovely pony named Ginger who had been a pit pony in a
> mine on the west coast.  I used to ride around the property on my
> own, but Of course, when I went out on to the road, I had to be
> accompanied.  This task usually fell to my sister, Deslie, who
> would be on a bike.  I refused to go on a leading rein, so she
> would just keep level with me giving any instructions that were
> needed.  One day, I went out with Dad.  To save his legs, we ran a
> rope from the cantle of Ginger's saddle to the handlebars of Dad's
> bike.  Ginger must have thought that he was back in the mine
> pulling a coal truck.  I have never known a pony to be able to trot
> so fast while keeping it's legs going in the right order.  If
> trotters on the race track could do it as well, they would be world
> beaters.
>
>      One year, I had the use of a Thoroughbred.  He was being
> grazed at our place by the next door neighbour.  He had been a
> steeplechaser, and as he was very tall, I had to mount him at home
> from the top of an apple box.  Once I was up, I had to stay there,
> as I could not get my foot in the stirrup from ground level.  One
> day, Deslie and I were out, when Boss shied and he and I parted
> company.  We led him along to a gate that I could stand on but we
> could not get him close enough for me to leap across the
> intervening gap, and then along came a farmer who must have been
> used to throwing sacks of grain around.  He gave me a leg up with
> so much force that, in spite of Boss's 17 hands, , it was
> only my grip on the saddle that prevented me landing on the ground
> on the far side.
>
>      Another time out with Boss, he took off into a gallop.  Now!
> I had never ridden at a gallop before. I knew that if I could stay
> with him, he would run out of puff.  His owner had told me that as
> he had been a racehorse, tightening the reins would make him go
> faster.  As far as I was concerned, he was going quite fast enough: thank you
> very much!:
> so I just let him go.  It was on a shingle road, and Deslie, on her
> bike,  was left, gasping, far  in the rear.  I raced past a man, and when
> Deslie puffed up in a minute or so, he said in a quite matter of
> fact way "Oh, Jewel went by here a little while ago."  When Deslie
> arrived, she was breathless and suffering [not in silence]  from
> riding at such a breakneck pace over the rough surface.  Boss had
> blown himself out and I was still in the saddle, which in itself, was a minor
> miracle as I was
> laughing so hard!  with relief or female hysterics?  well take your pick!
>
>
>
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