Equestrian Holiday Horseback Adventures by Susan Friedland
As the days turn shorter, the temperatures crisper, and the calendar nears December, I think about equestrian holiday adventures from days of yore. If you’re like me, as a kid, perhaps every Christmas you begged for a horse. I hoped Santa would tether a bay Arabian stallion to the front porch of the cozy yellow ranch house of my childhood. My parents, two sisters and I lived about an hour from Chicago, and our neighborhood wasn’t zoned for horses, but a girl can dream.
Spoiler Alert: Santa did not deliver on my annual request for a horse. However, from about third grade until high school, I saved my Christmas and birthday money for a horse. When I was fifteen, I bought a green Quarter Horse gelding with my hard earned cash. His name was Daytona, and he introduced me to the ups and downs of loving and owning a horse (more on those cringey green rider + green horse stories in my memoir “Horses Adored and Men Endured”).
Before Daytona entered my life, I was able to adventure on other people’s horses.
When Gail, my best friend in elementary school, moved about 25 miles away to the country, little did I know her departure would pave the way for horse adventures. Her dad bought an apple farm, and the neighbors up the street had a palomino Quarter Horse named Penny. The sweet mare possessed a long, flaxen mane and tail that shimmered against her honey-toned coat. She could have been Mr. Ed’s sister.
Gail and I used to ride Penny bareback and double, ambling through the clover between the rows of Jonathan and Golden Delicious trees. During fall, when the apples were ready, we could even steer Penny right up under a branch and pluck the apples, eat them, and throw the cores over our shoulders to the ground in a trail behind us. The sweet crispness of those orchard apples were unparalleled by any supermarket’s produce section. Walnut Hill Orchard was as close to Eden as I’ll ever get.
Fun fact: In second grade Gail and I weighed the same, or at least that’s what it said on our report cards—62 pounds. I’m still unclear as to why schools needed to report on a child’s weight, and I dreaded the annual trip to the nurse’s office to get weighed and measured. How embarrassing. What a way to set girls up for body image issues!
Unbeknownst to me, our body weight did not keep pace with each other as Gail and I grew over the next few years. This weight discrepancy led to a particularly painful situation one winter. Picture a bleak white landscape on a country road with two girls wearing bulky winter snowsuits. We resembled a fusion of sumo wrestlers and the Michelin Man.
Gail and I had the brilliant idea of taking each other sledding on the flat street—Penny, our pal, would provide the locomotion. We had a bridle, a clothesline and a sled. No sleigh. No saddle. No harness. Gail hopped on Penny and tied the rope around her waist. I tied the other end of the rope to the front of the sled. Gail kicked Penny and voila! I was sledding. Gail’s house and the naked walnut trees lining her street blurred past as Penny walked on the side of the deserted road. It was almost as good as being in an actual horse-drawn sleigh—like ones you see on Christmas cards.
We switched roles: Gail dismounted and I got up from the sled. I tied the rope around the waist of my snowsuit and Gail gave me a leg up onto Penny’s wide back. I picked up the reins and Gail organized herself onto the sled.
“You ready?” I asked. She nodded. I gave the horse a slight nudge with the heel of my winter boot. Penny willingly moved forward; the sled stubbornly refused. It was partially stuck in the ditch on the side of the road. Like a cartoon, the horse stepped out from under me. My legs stayed in the shape of an inverted V, and then Shloop! Splat! I slammed onto the icy ground hard—flat on my back and bottom.
I lay on the ground trying to breathe.
Gail came to my rescue, which might have been the driving force that launched her nursing career when she was all grown up. I was bruised but not broken. There would be no more horse sledding. Bareback riding in the snow, yes. Horse sledding, no.
A more recent equestrian holiday adventure occurred on Thanksgiving Day five years ago when I rode to hounds as a guest with the Mill Creek Hunt in Illinois. It was in the mid 30s and I wore thermal base layers under my formal riding attire and ear muffs that attached to my riding helmet. I slipped hand warmers inside my riding gloves.
I rented a hireling, the Master of Foxhound’s, polo pony. She was small and zippy and a total blast. For nearly three hours, we navigated cornfields and wooded trails. As we followed the undulation of the land, an occasional muddy spot showed up. The hooves of the horses ahead spritzed us with mud.
About halfway through the chase, we trotted along a vast pasture where a small herd of smoke gray horses cantered up to the fence line. About seven of the youngsters posed with their heads and necks adorably over the top board—it would have made for a cute calendar photo.
A rider next to me shared that the horses were part of the Tempel Lipizzan herd. I had my cell phone on me that day, but didn’t pull it out to take a snap. As a guest of this hunt, I wasn’t sure their ideas on cell phone etiquette while riding. I should have taken the picture, as the Lipizzan farm is no more—the herd has been dispersed.
At the end of that equestrian holiday foxhunt, the saddle, the girth and the bay mare’s face were freckled with mud, and I was no longer cold. As I drove to my sister’s house where we were gathering for turkey and pumpkin pie, I replayed the braying foxhounds chorus, the huntsman’s horn’s staccato notes and the conversations I had in the field during our checks. The ride had been exhilarating, and I vowed it to myself to do it again.
By Susan Friedland, author of “Marguerite, Misty and Me: a Horse Lover’s Hunt for the Hidden History of Marguerite Henry and Her Chincoteague Pony”
Discover more of Susan’s equestrian stories, including her horse books at saddleseekshorse.shop. Follow Susan’s horse adventures with Tiz a Knight, her darling OTTB, on Facebook and Instagram @saddleseekshorse.
