Or, "How I Started to Love Big, Angry Bay Thoroughbred Geldings."

When I was nine, my parents, my brother and I were driving in our minivan on a road not too far from our house.  I'm not sure where we were going or why we decided on this road, as this area wasn't very commercialized at this point.  And we passed one of those lit-up marquee arrow signs, advertising riding lessons down a scary dirt road.

I begged.  I pleaded.  My mom relented and offered to call to get information.  I still remember: $20 for a two-hour lesson.  In today's standards (or the standard of trainer that I would use today), that is absurdly cheap.  Even then, back in 1992-1993, it was still pretty cheap.

For my first lesson and for the first several months, my instructor was Bev.  Something was always a bit off about Bev, but I didn't know better.  (This "off" has nothing to do with the fact that she was the first lesbian I ever met.  Or, at least, that's how I remember her.)  I remember that Bev always rode during our lessons and, sometimes, things progressed too quickly.  For example:

• When teaching the canter (though we didn't know what diagonals or leads were), she slapped helmets on our heads, gum in our mouths, and put us on the lunge line with one of the regular lesson horses in a halter.  Maybe the lunge line is an okay way to teach the canter, when you're ready to learn.  None of us were.
• After learning to canter on the lunge line, it came time to canter in our lessons.  One girl (who I later competed against in IHSA and whooped) (I was always jealous because her family has money.) wasn't able to get Duffer, the old, bucking quarterhorse, to pick it up.  Bev came cantering behind her with a crop and smacked the tar out of Duffer, who proceeded to gallop and buck off.  This girl ended up under Duffer's neck, holding on for dear life.
• Bev sent a large group of us out on a trail ride, with no consideration for the skill set of that group.  A trot out of the woods (led by moi) resulted in one girl's horse (Duffer, I think), bucking and cantering off.  She fell.  Her foot stuck.  She was dragged.  This was a shining moment for me, one I remember distinctly twenty years later: dismounting, going to her, screaming for one of the better riders to gallop to the barn to have Bev call 911.  Holding her hand until the ambulance came.  That was the first time I met E, as she was untacking the horse I always rode: Teddy Bear.

Foxhunt on Duffer.

Realized years later that I'd jumped the oxer backwards. Already eliminated because he refused the first fence.

This is my favorite of us.