J-Life 2009 Highlights: Part 7

Horse Training

One of the benefits of living on a farm is getting to spend a lot of time with animals. Now Driefontein Farm is a cattle farm, which doesn't excite me too much. However, the owner of the farm, Mr. A, is also a horse lover--he has about a dozen horses on the farm. A couple months ago, on our day off, Mr. A asked a group of us if we wanted to take the horses out for a ride. Even though I don't have much horse-riding experience, I enjoy riding so I gladly accepted.

When we got ready to ride, Mr. A asked me if I would be willing to try riding one of his horses that wasn't broken in yet. I explained to him that I didn't have much experience but that I was willing to try anything. He then asked if I would try to ride the horse bareback. Like I fool, I again replied that I was up for anything. Thus, my relationship with Rusty, the most stubborn horse on the planet, was born.

After a frustrating first experience with Rusty, Mr. A asked me if I would be willing to train Rusty every day. I again explained to Mr. A that I didn't know what the heck I was doing, but he offered to teach me. And, thus, my horse training career began.

So I've been riding Rusty as much as possible since that day. He's still a pain in the you-know-what, and he's bucked me off him twice, but he's definitely making some progress. I can now get him to walk, stop, trot, and canter. The other day Mr. A told me that in order to be considered an official horse rider I had to be thrown off at least eight times...something to look forward to, I guess!

MaxAC whippin' Rusty into shape!