HORSE SENSE AND LEARNING TO RIDE LIKE A HUNGARIAN

Horse sense is common sense. Says as much right off in the dictionary.

What it doesn’t say is what people learn riding a horse. To me that’s a better definition of horse sense.

Instead of some blow-hard mansplaining how something simple is done in a most condescending tone, the horse teaches by example.

That’s me with my teacher in the top pic. Her name was Fancy. She had a friend named Roxy.

My Army pal and I rode them the whole time we were in medic school, which luckily enough was located on the Fort Sam Houston Army base in San Antonio, Texas.

Let the lessons begin.

I showed up on base after a good run through basic training at Fort Ord, CA.

While I was there I taught my platoon how to arm wrestle. I never lost because I’d only go from a certain place.

It’s not like they were all weaklings, but I had an edge: I’d only lock up from a standing position where I could pull their arm with 100% power from the start.

For Advanced Individual Training, or AIT as it was called, I planned on doing the same thing in my new posting. I’d worked through most of the guys who wanted to take a shot in the first week.

Then Gedi joined in. He’d been watching me work the room; I’d been watching him.

He wasn’t very out-going at first for some reason. It could have been that he was a refugee from Hungary who escaped the Iron Curtain, that his father was Chief Justice before the communist takeover, or that he was a 4th dan judo blackbelt.

I learned all that later.

If I had had any horse sense I would have avoided arm wrestling him.

From The Start

To be honest, the arm wrestling wasn’t very competitive, which is probably normal for people training to be army medics. For me, it was a stop on the way to an Army wrestling team tryout.

I figured this new guy would be a soft Euro trying to fit in. He wasn’t.

Things were different from the moment we locked hands. I’ve never felt a hand like that before or since. His hand had muscles developed from judo. The base of his thumb had a huge muscle that grew from years of grabbing judo robes.

Judogi (柔道着 or 柔道衣) is the formal Japanese name for the traditional uniform used for Judo practice and competition.

His big arm had the sort of muscle that tensed up, then popped up a tennis ball sized flex on top like a body builder.

The guy pulled my arm like a nickel slot machine. After a few rounds of solid defeat, I challenged his left arm. Same results.

And we became friends. He told me his daring story. I told him about growing up in North Bend.

Same thing?

Instead of spending all of my spare time in the Post Exchange drinking beer with the guys, Gedi said, “Since we’re in Texas, let’s do something to remember it by. What is Texas famous for?”

I said Texas Rangers riding out to get the bad guys.

The base had stables where retired military could keep their horses. We went there for horses and found an owner who said we could ride his two, Fancy and Roxy, for two dollars an hour if we let him show us how he wanted them handled.

I learned horse sense horse care from grooming, to saddling, to cleaning hooves, to brushing down and returning them to their stalls. I was a cowboy, dammit, a cowboy in a Southern Oregon College letterman jacket.

Fancy liked my coat.

Horse Sense Takes The Lead

My army buddy was an alpha male if there ever was one. He insisted on taking the lead on our rides.

What he didn’t know as an alpha male was that his horse wasn’t alpha.

Mine was, and with Roxy in the lead, my horse Fancy nipped its’ flanks whenever it had a chance, which made Roxy jump.

It was funnier than I showed, watching a six foot three, two hundred and twenty pound man of pride and dignity get worked by his horse.

I took the lead once and Gedi galloped to the front, but not before Roxy veered off and gave him a branch whipping while trying to rub him off on a tree.

We rode down a dry river bank out on the range. Going up the other side, Fancy veered off toward a big low hanging branch. Gedi leaned to avoid it just as Roxy bucked a little and smashed his neck on the branch.

When I rode up I found him dazed in the saddle, still leaning over, with a trickle of blood running down the back of his neck. Score for the horse.

Horse Sense Lessons From Texas

The bigger, prettier, horse is not always the right horse. My girl Fancy was shorter and thicker, had a smoother gait instead of the halting jerks and jolts of Roxy. When we ran together, Fancy was the faster one.

A horse will chase a rabbit.

Part of the wide open spaces at Fort Sam were set aside acreage for future golf course development. Also a good place to let the horses run.

It was all good until Fancy saw a rabbit and took off with her head straight out. She was unresponsive, going full out, and heading for a two lane road with no traffic.

And I was along for the ride.

Earlier I’d discovered how to ride a horse down a steep bank. Fancy sat back on her haunches, slid down, then leaped straight out at the bottom. The first time felt like whip lash.

I planned on the same reasponse on the road. At the last moment, the fastest rabbit I’ve ever seen took a sharp turn before the road. Fancy went straight ahead, locked up and slid across there asphalt, and leaped forward once she cleared.

I was ready for it and stayed in the saddle. A runaway horse is a scary thing to see, scarier when you’re along for the ride.

Since then I’ve been more cautious

A new horse, new to you, isn’t the same as the last one. They all have their own idiosyncratic tics. Just like the riders.

Horses like routine, which was why the owner trained new riders on his horses. Otherwise, he said, they’d turn into mush-mouthed stable horses who wouldn’t respond to commands, and would only run when they thought they were headed back to the barn.

After two months I graduated medic school with a minor in horsemanship. One of them furthered my education more than the other.

Good horse sense says treat living creatures the same way you’d like to be treated. As an Army medic, my path was laid by Professor Fancy.

Leave a comment if you’ve had a memorable educational moments.