Riding for dummies

A guy I was dating once observed that I have more of an eye for horses than for men, and he's not entirely wrong. I am and always have been the kind of person who will jerk upright and look around fast if someone says, "Oh, horses!" (although fortunately my sister never really took advantage of that when we were on long family drives as kids, and thanks for that). My main goal in visiting Argentina was to get out on horseback for long hours, and in that I was amply indulged.

The thing is, though, that riding can hurt. Despite never having had a serious riding accident (thank God, knock wood, and long may it remain so), I've had tweaky knees, twisted ankles, agonizingly stiffness through my back and abs, and after one memorable hour-long lesson, literal saddle sores. That's in addition to dealing with the climate ills that any outdoor sport exposes you to, up to and including the joy of getting soaked by sleet. Riders, like other athletes, will cheerfully retail their injuries to one another and anyone who asks, leading more than one person to ask why the hell we even bother. Possibly this was also a way to ask us to shut up, already, if we're unable to keep ourselves from getting all banged up.

The bottom line, for me, is that riding a good horse is like dancing with a good partner: If you're in synch with the horse, your movements are coordinated in a way that makes you feel larger than yourself and much more powerful. You and your partner are constantly telling one another what you're thinking and how you want to deal with whatever's going on around you. Sometimes, especially in classes, it's work, and you're just doing the same steps over and over to work out how to make a transition more smoothly or why you're not getting the message across clearly, and sometimes, as with any exercise, it isn't what anyone would call fun. But there are moments when you feel a perfect communication, and the only word for that feeling is joy.

Not every horse can do that for every person. At Huechahue, I would say that two or three of the six horses I rode got close, and only one of them made me consider grand theft caballo. The first horse I rode was a bit slow; clearly, he was one of the quieter horses a sensible manager keeps on hand for assessing the new guests' skills. The second had a lot more spark, so much so that a full day of convincing him that he would not, in fact, be allowed prove to everyone that he could beat all the other horses in a race ("Don't let him go," cautioned Jane mildly, "For you'll never get him back") was exhausting. The third horse seemed like a good compromise between those two, but he came up sore after a few hours and was put on rest. And then, oh, and then, I was paired with a tiny criollo mare, and I think I left a tiny piece of my heart with her. She's the first horse I've ever galloped who didn't make me worry about a runaway; she loved to go, don't get me wrong, but she was always willing to listen--provided that nobody got too far ahead of her. A girl has her pride, after all. I absolutely adored her, and the long canters and gallops we did remain some of my favorite memories of the trip. On the trek into the mountains, I rode a sensible gentleman of a gelding who got me up and down some terrifying hills with a minimum of fuss, and a slightly less gelded gelding ("Le cortaron, pero le cortaron mal," was our guide's slightly confusing explanation) who was equally footsure but a bit of a jerk toward the other geldings.

None of the lessons in the ring will equal the happiness that I got from stretching out on the paths in Patagonia, but I'm happy to be back with my usual training partner. I like to think that he enjoys our work, when he gets a break from patiently carrying small children and can show off his cantering and flying lead changes, snorting as he goes, but what I know for sure is that I'm happy to be on his back in the rain, the cold, and even DC's infamously muggy summer heat. It's probably a rider thing. I hope you understand.