Crazy Pinto Filly Wrecks, Part III - Chapter 2

Continuing, here in Chapter 2, my previous post, Crazy Pinto Filly Wrecks, Part III - Chapter 1.

It's amazing to me how fast we were going down that track. I can feel it all these years later, feel how I was falling with each stride, that my body could not keep up with her motion. From my standing position, I would fall toward the saddle again and again, little half-second drops during which my feet would loosen in the stirrups and I would dangle, midair, above the surging filly.

She ran full out with her head frozen against the sky, hiding somewhere within her body, out of her mind.

I can't recall how much distance remained between us and that sway- backed cable when I realized that the crazy pinto filly wouldn't see it. She was looking skyward, I was looking down the line. A still picture flashed in my mind as if from the future, the aftermath of what lay ahead. We would hit that wire, flip high, then scrape some number of feet into an oncoming car, if not land on top of one. A dead or dying horse, other innocent victims, broken limbs, me in terrible trouble with my parents, to be unforgiven forever by the trusting farm boy who owned the filly.

It's not quite fear that I felt in that moment, but more the rush of adrenaline that enables people to lift cars off of someone pinned underneath. It was like the accident had already happened and I was desperate to prevent further damage. The crazy pinto filly was not my partner, though, could not be. I had to figure it out by myself.

There's a strange roominess in seconds when you can't believe what's happening. In that space of shock I was casting about for ideas, but I wasn't a trained rider. Tools I might use today were unknown to me then. Out of that odd, panic calm, it came to me that I would have to bring the filly down, get her off her feet and down to the ground. I would have to throw me and take her with.

To the left of the track, I could see the back of the old roadhouse, with space behind for a few cars to park. At the edge of the parking lot stood a low cinderblock storage shed, closer to the tracks. To the right of the track was a deep shoulder that dropped off sharp into a thick woods. I knew we couldn't make that drop-off and land intact. I looked back to the left.

This is true: I think there was a second I thought to cry or scream out for help (to nothing, no one), but the sight of a car passing around the curve and away set me straight. I had to figure it out by myself.

I could say we were 50 yards away, or 50 feet away, but I can't see it like that. All I know is that suddenly the moment opened. Standing in the stirrups, I took up more rein. My hands were right there at the bit, and I had to bend my torso to avoid the filly's head. I bent to the left, I yanked the left rein to the side, and then I threw my weight to the left, heavy, heavy, into the left stirrup. Under me, I felt the filly lose her balance. It seemed like she was going down, but somehow she launched into a high, awkward jump, her half-falling momentum carrying us off the track and into space. We crashed into the back of that storage shed, or I did after she lurched, fighting to regain her feet, and swerved off the right edge of the shed. I, hanging to the left, met the cinderblock wall head on.  ...remember landing on my back and watching her left hind hoof roll off my reinless right hand.

The filly wound up standing near the back of the tavern, under a sagging porch overhang, wild-eyed and blowing, but standing. I want to say her bridle was gone, but it couldn't have been. 

Ego. I remember hearing the sound of voices. They might have been coming from inside the bar or around the front. The thought of certain embarrassment compelled me to my feet. I was unsteady in getting to the filly, but I tried to hurry.

I don't think about how we got home, but obviously we did. I'm sure I didn't get on her, though. The barn was just across the woods, up the street from that bar, so I must have led her back.

This wreck changed things for me and the crazy pinto filly. It's really dumb to say this, but that's when I think I first knew she was unhappy. Not to have said it in words like that back then, but also trying not to say it with words that come out of all I've learned about horses since then. I had a sense of the filly after this wreck that showed me, finally, that she was not something that existed just for me.

Crazy Pinto Filly Wrecks, Part I

I wrote here, last October, about an utterly mental pinto filly who was instrumental in saving my sanity when I was a child, and I've been thinking about her ever since. She was the horse of my fearlessness, the horse I rode in that bliss of ignorance that I mention in my header. Because she's lost to childhood memories and treasure boxes long since discarded, I have no pictures. This one will have to do. Never mind the lack of reins. They rarely helped.

I cannot believe I don't remember her name. That's part of the reason I've been thinking about her, hoping that reliving some of our rides will help me recover her name from the depths. The other part of thinking about her is recalling the wrecks we survived, the amazing, helmetless, catastrophic, terrifying, scream-worthy, funny wrecks. And when I say funny, I'm thinking of the gargling-with-shaved-glass kind of funny.

One of the more spectacular wrecks happened in front of my mother. She had readily offloaded 13-year-old me to the filly with few questions other than whether I had permission to ride her. A part-time basement dog groomer, my mother  offered me a rare moment of warmth the day she buzzed the pinto filly's whiskers away with an old set of Oster clippers. I clung to hopes of us bonding through the filly.

Until one high-summer afternoon. That hot, dry Saturday, I walked a mile to the farm where the crazy pinto filly lived, bridled her and clambered aboard her jigging back. There was an abandoned quarry on the other side of a woods nearby where I sometimes took her swimming. I'd ride her right into the water. Often I had no choice because she'd be bolting. This day, I thought I'd stop by our house on the way to the quarry. I was proud of myself when I was riding the filly and wanted my mother to be proud of me too.

The filly jigged alongside the country road. I remember the cicadas sawing through the dusty silence. I'd have to cross the blacktop to enter our driveway, just coming visible over a rise in the road. I heard a car approaching, but it meant nothing to me. This was in the 70s, a mythic time when drivers slowed to a crawl or even stopped to let riders pass.

I was crossing to the house, in front of a patiently waiting station wagon, when the crazy pinto filly lost her senses. That swimming horse spotted a puddle in the middle of the road, some oil or antifreeze glinting in a divot. She reared high. I slipped forward onto her neck, glued lizard-like in place, aware of the occupants of the station wagon watching rapt as the filly came back down to earth. I urged her forward, and up she went again. At the periphery of my vision, a heavy shadow lumbered toward us. The crazy pinto filly stretched high toward the sun, too high, like that moment at the top of the swing when the chains go loose. I felt air between me and her, but I stuck there. We teetered in the vertical and then, in an instant, fell backwards.

I remember the long arc down and I remember my mother heaving across the lawn, tailed by several yapping Cocker Spaniels. I remember the chrome bumper of the station wagon as I fell past it to the blacktop. I came to rest there in the road pinched under the withers of the crazy pinto filly. She balanced unevenly atop my sternum for a second or two, long enough for my mother to bellow, "You get out from under that horse right now!"

Like it was a choice I made. The thing is, that was hysterically funny to me, but I couldn't actually laugh while pinned under an 800-pound horse. I discovered that your head kind of explodes when you have to eat a deep laugh. It wasn't until the crazy pinto filly had scrambled to her feet that I was able to let it out, pulling myself up alongside her in the summer heat; then laugh, I did, standing in the shadow of my mother who had decided just then that horses and me were all wrong together.

Those poor people in the station wagon. And then we went swimming, the crazy pinto filly and me. 

This really happened, so I don't have to imagine it, but even so, I can't imagine that I was once that unafraid.

Denali

Like others in the horse blogging world, I've been thinking of Denali and her people. There are things in their story to think about: love and commitment, love and struggle, love and letting go. There are things we'd want to say if only there really were words to end the pain. Words like that don't exist; we can only express our understanding and care, hoping it resonates enough to bring a little comfort.

Dear Denali ~

Standing frightened and confused at that auction yard, you were still a spitfire. We don't know why you ended up in that place, you who were bred to be a racehorse. But you were smart enough to cast your eye about, hoping someone would notice you and get you the hell out of there. Who knows how long you looked. Then you spotted someone who didn't even have a bidder's number. You made eye contact with her and flashed the little spark of your spirit not masked by the drugs you'd been given. Good job. You got her!

Little did she know, huh? But you did. You never won a race, but you won the lottery that day. You loaded like an angel and unloaded like the devil - there was a lot of stress to blow off. It was a risk; she could have turned that trailer right around. Somehow, you knew she wouldn't.

Little did you know, though, that your mom would start writing about you. You were that big, that beautiful, that impossible. You were that important.

One by one, people began to follow the story of you and your mom. Some could relate when she wrote about your craziness, others to reading about your spookiness. Some were inspired by your rides, others by your mom's bravery as she struggled to overcome her nerves. You were big, of course, and a hot-headed Thoroughbred mare bred for one thing and given little education for anything else. She had to take you back to the beginning. It was a journey to follow, and we did.

Some of us winced in recognition when you injured yourself or ran through walls or kicked inept would-be professionals. Always we kept our fingers crossed, because your mom had fallen so deeply in love with you. You knew that. You had long ago charmed her less-horsey husband just to seal the deal.

Many of us smiled at your slavish love of your red treat ball, your possessive nickering and your hammy temper tantrums when your mom didn't come straight to you at the barn. The bond between the two of you only deepened with time. Most of us recognized the power of that and how it helped both of you. It helped some of us, too.

But, Denali, when you reinjured yourself and the horse doctor gave your mom the news about what was really going on, we all understood. And we do. We horse lovers understand what your mom and dad are going through. We understand how they've fought for you, and we understand how they have listened to you. We understand how they care. From our distances, we do too. How could we not?

Only you know what race lies before you now, whether you'll run side by side with your great forebears, Secretariat and Seattle Slew, or you'll happily chase that red treat ball forever. What we know, though, Denali, is what you gave your mom. You gave her strength. You gave her humor. You gave her a community. We hope that one day the memory of you will give her peace.

Seeing It Through Other Eyes

Someone I love, a really good friend who also rides, says to me from time to time, "If only I could see what you see in me, understand how you see it." If only she could.

I think my friend was taught to apologize for herself at what must have been an early age. Some life lessons -- mostly the bad ones -- when learned during childhood and youth prove almost impossible to shake off and discard. My friend's self-esteem withdrew to a safe distance, hidden behind the need to silence her own voice because someone, sometime, either didn't want to hear it or didn't care when it spoke. The particulars of that don't matter. Any time life asks us to erase a part of our identity, we are forced upstream against our nature and left to sort out the side effects even as we discover them. That's harder when you're young.

In spite of that, kicking around in my friend was a vital being hungry for expression and release. Some people would dial the volume down on that hunger, or console it with substitutes. Others might ascend to the shallowest level of themselves, choosing to live there in a deceptive kind of peace.

Passion is a force strong enough to pull us free if we are lucky enough to find it and brave enough to accept its calling. My friend found the voice of her passion in horses, and she had the drive to listen, the heart to listen to what that voice compelled.

I don't know all the facts, like how many years she rode before getting her first horse, how many horses she had before finding the treasure she's owned for more than a decade. But I know that all along the path, she battled against that deep-seated need to diminish herself by negotiating for her right to have horses in her life. In the end, she could only give herself what she needed. 

Recently, I have watched my friend discover her identity as a rider. The toughness with which she protected and nurtured her love of horses and riding is the same toughness that has brought her finally to the verge of self-acceptance. There, her skills will shine even brighter than they already do. 

It takes guts to have what you want when life has put you down. It takes wisdom to recognize that the very thing you want is also the one thing that can help you get it. It takes simple love to not see the one corrupted by the other. All this I see in my friend and in the horses who accept her voice as a trusted guide. How can I not stand in awe of her?