Arab y

Arab y

All my life, as far back as I can recall, I have had a love for horses. Even now, if there are horses anywhere, I have a great urge to stop whatever it is I am doing, and just watch. If I am doodling I invariably draw horse heads on the paper. My grandkids like for me to draw animals; dogs cats, pigs, whatever, but always it’s a horse that thrills them the most. Perhaps, because I draw them the most life-like.

In Paraguay, the thing I loved to do the most was ride horses. At least once a week we rode horses. We did not ride as a means of transportation, as when we traveled to other settlements. For those times, we hitched a horse to a wagon, and went to our destination. A horse and wagon was our “station wagon”. Our horse-back riding was always for recreation. During those times of pleasure, any horse was adequate. However, there was one horse, more than any other, that I wanted to ride! That horse was Arab y. I thought that he was a magnificent horse. However, everyone thought that Arab y was a little unpredictable, Consequently, I had quite some difficulty getting anyone to allow me to ride him.

A few months ago, my granddaughter gave me a movie entitled “Second Hand Lions”. In that movie there was a scene where the hero was riding a beautiful white stallion, not unlike Arab y. Also like Arab y, the horse in the movie was an Arabian horse. The hero was riding on a beach when another rider on an equally magnificent, though black, horse came riding along side. The race was on! That scene of the two beautiful horses racing side by side brought to my recollection the time that I, also, was in a race while riding Arab y.

After being turned down countless times, no matter how often I asked or cajoled, I was not able to persuade the powers that be, to allow me to ride Arab y. But I guess my persistence finally paid off, because I was able to get permission to ride my favorite horse. At the time, there was a cowboy with me, to make sure I would be safe. We started out calmly enough, with Arab y leading the way, but soon the pace escalated. The cowboy had gotten his horse to go a little faster and he soon overtook us and took the lead. Big mistake! I guess Arab y did not like following, because he kicked it into high gear and took off. Very quickly, Arab y passed the other horse, and the race was on . The cowboy tried, but was not able to catch up to us and the distance between the two horses grew farther and farther apart. We were traveling on a dirt road at speeds I had never ridden before! I was holding on for dear life! The cowboy tried to keep up, but Arab y was just too fast. The faster he ran, the harder I held on. I had no idea where Arab y was taking me, but I knew that there was no way that I was going to get him to change his mind. Before long, the saddle that was under me began to slide. I lost my stirrups! Then my shoes flew off! At the same time the saddle slid around to Arab y’s side! When I looked up to where we were headed, I saw that we were on a collision course with a gate! Just when I thought that we were going to crash into the gate, Arab y decided to stop. Four halting jumps and just inches before the fence, it all ended. Arab y came to a stand-still. In spite of myself, I had been able to hold on. The cowboy finally caught up and seeing that everything was safe, took control of Arab y. Man, that had to be the best race that I have ever had!!