To Ride a Black Horse

He watched me from the corner of his eye as he grazed nearby. He had a weakness for apples and one sat on the ground beside me beckoning as I feigned reading my book. He edged closer still grazing, the sound of his grinding teeth now quite audible. I sat motionless as he approached. In the stall he'd only tried to bite and kick me. Out here in the paddock he seemed more at ease. Good strategy.

I could see his breath in the chilly morning air, his huge black head inching toward the apple near my foot, noisily clipping grass around it. He extended his long upper lip to it and rolled the fruit toward his feet and gobbled it up. He smelled the other in my pocket and inched closer, his velvet nose now touching my leg then to the lump in my pocket.

I extended my hand slowly like the hand of a clock He smelled it, ignored it and pursued the apple. I placed my hand on his forehead. Good. I mockingly pushed him. He persisted. He hadn't eaten in several days.

I slowly picked up the rope and halter and placed the knotted end of the rope over his massive neck. Good. He smelled the halter, snorted and continued his quest for the apple. I took it out and lured his muzzle through the loops of leather, carefully securing the buckle above his ears as he crunched into the apple. I had him.

He didn't run but continued to sniff my clothing, undoubtedly for more apples. I now held the rope secured to his halter and continued to touch his head, his ears and his neck. If he bolted I at least had a rope to catch and hold him, a violent scenario I had no wish to relive. It was only days before I'd seen him lash out with teeth and hooves at the handlers who tried to load him into the horse trailer in Canada. His halter was broken in the struggle and they had to literally hog-tie and blindfold him, finally using a power winch to drag his huge squeeling black mass up the ramp and into the trailer. He screamed and struggled for the several hundred mile return trip. He was cut in several places and I was anxious to get some kind of antiseptic on the angry looking wounds.

I stood up as he lowered his head to sniff my book. Remarkable is the power of the biblical apple and an idealistic fourteen year old boy.

I moved toward the barn with the rope in hand and he followed, ears forward, though skittishly dancing around the book in his path. At the barn we stopped and I tethered him to a post and found the antibiotic ointement. He allowed me to tend the wounds though he frequently flinched. I tried to remain in his peripheral vision and he seemed content with it.

I decided to press my luck and pulled an eastern riding saddle from the wall. I layed it on the ground in front of him and he inspected it with a series of snorts and wickers. I picked it up and carefully placed it on his broad back being careful to loop the stirrups and girth together as not to tap his bruised sides. This was satisfactory though we both felt another apple was in order. Fortunately I kept a washtub filled from a nearby orchard.

I carefully lowered the stirrups and adjusted the girth strap loosely around his middle and began to walk him around the paddock. So far, so good. We stopped again for the bridle, the acid test. Again, the lure of the apple won out as I easily slipped the bit into his mouth with the fruit and fastened the throat and ear straps as he munched away. For good measure I placed a heavy burlap bag of oats on the saddle. No problem. We circled the paddock again.

In the spirit of anticlimax, he allowed me to mount him without so much as a snort. I jumped down, tightened the girth and remounted. Splendid. Despite my youth I'd ridden many horses at this boarding stable, but this monstrous black horse was different. It was to sit astride steel. Every muscle was defined as if designed by daVinci. He was a mountain of a horse. In fact his registered name was to be Mount Forest.

We circled the paddock at a walk avoiding the jumps but allowing him to sniff and inspect them. He suddenly lurched sidewise like a cat, nearly throwing me. Scotty, the alcoholic owner of the stable had approached the fence from the house and in his enthusiasm had thrown his arms over the top rail of the paddock fence to congratulate. The horse's skittishness escaped me and my youthfulness. I only considered him spirited. It was clear to everyone that the horse and I were mutually smitten with each other.

Scotty's speech was slurred as he chided,
"Looks like that horse is yours, Lefty. Sure wish you could afford him. Maybe you can make an Olympic champ out of that crazy son-of-a-bitch. Can he jump?"

"I dunno. Haven't tried him.", I said.

I steered him toward a deadfall tree trunk on the practice course. He stepped over it easily. I took him to the low stone fence at a walk and stopped at least six feet way, then tapped his sides. In a heartbeat I was on the other side. It was a standing leap of over 20 feet. Scotty's eyes were like dinner plates and seemed suddenly sober.

"Try 'im on the five foot, Lefty."

This time we cantered. His ears were forward and he seemed to gather speed against my tight rein. I wanted him to have time to measure but he was in the charge of a warrior. Again we left the ground well before the jump, this time an explosion of muscle and speed. My head was a good twenty feet in the air. The swift momentum landed us as softly as Pegasus on the other side. Indeed, he seemed to fly.

It was almost the last time I saw Scotty drunk. We worked from the time I walked in from school until darkness. We built higher jumps, wider jumps, water jumps, stone jumps, log jumps, brush jumps and board jumps. Scotty watched as the Black Horse followed me from task to task in the enlosed compound, knocking over my nail bucket with his curious muzzle, sampling tools, munching the green underbrush I dragged into place, as well as splashing precious water from the water hazard.

Our workouts were now in dead earnest. Scotty entered us in our first local hunter competition in which we cruised easily. The word was out now. There was a huge black wonderhorse who easily cleared six foot jumps by a foot

The only incident was one which should have flagged the future. Scotty had unwisely tied the horse to the unattached horse trailer between events. While feeding, the animal tugged at the thick rope and the trailer rolled backwards toward him and the tongue fell noisily from its support. The horse leaped away and of course the trailer followed at close range. The terrified animal bolted dragging the huge several ton trailer at full gallop thru the show grounds and parking lot, damaging several luxury cars, finally wedging against a tree breaking the horse's halter and freeing him. He stood quietly nearby as I breathlessly retrieved him while Scotty took insurance claims. It was a miracle no one was killed or injured, including Mount Forest himself.

The Ohio show was an unofficial Olympic trial. The finest horses in the midwest were there. I took special care in braiding his tail and mane, oiling his hooves to a shine. Mounty and I swept the first round easily to the murmurs of the crowd enamored by his performance and raw intimidating style.

It was the late afternoon round as I led him toward the ring as someone's noisy little terrier had gotten loose and ran nearby causing Mounty to bolt and rear. He seemed edgier as we entered the ring and began the course. He was flawless to the delight of the crowd, but I felt his muscles bunch well before the jumps, sometimes dog-tracking, skittering slightly sidewise to the blind jumps.

It was a high log jump next to the spectator fence. Easy. But as we left the ground a woman leaned over the fence with a flash camera, I could hear the click and saw the burst of light. It was too late. The horse tried to leap sidewise, twisting, but hooves had already left the ground in the high arc of his leap. Instead, a grotesque contortion, front legs smashing against the top logs with a dead thud, his huge head thrown over the top with me close to his neck, already unseated, driving toward the ground, the horse's rear hooves kicking frantically, head first, poised above me, falling, crushing...


We impacted together as his huge body rolled over me, his chin planted beside me in the dirt, his trailing mass a pile-driver, vertically crushing most of the bones in his neck. The body toppled across me, the pommel of the saddle crushing my arm with a grinding snap. I remember lights, red lights, voices, sirens, shouts, the sickening sight of his quivering hooves near my face as he gurgled for air. It haunts me still.

I walked out of the emergency room carrying the sling and heavy cast, my scratched face punctuated by two black eyes. I didn't remember being hit in the face. Scotty was waiting for me at the entrance. Seeing him, I began to cry harder for I knew that Mounty was likely destroyed in the ring and taken away. Sadly, I saw that Scotty was drunk again. Very drunk. I'd be driving the empty horse trailer home despite the broken arm.

He looked at me with swollen bloodshot eyes as I continued to cry and put an arm around my shoulder, his beer soaked breath in my face. His words still ring in my ears 40 years later,

"Nothin's fer sure, Lefty. Nothin's fer sure...."