Horse Story # 1

My friend and classmate, Debby, lived just down the road from me. She was an only child and she pretty much got what she wanted- including a beautiful Arabian horse named Indy. Believe me when I say, my horses were nags in comparison to this one beautiful animal. During the summer we rode somewhere every single day. There were long cool walks along a creek. Into town. to the quarry. And oh, could she run! Like the wind. We used to race. Down the road, across the pastures, through the woods. Occasionally we did barrel racing. She loved to beat me. And she did. Every single time. Imagine that. I really didn't mind. I just loved the joy of riding full out with the wind in my hair. Once, on a long ride she raced a car down the gravel road. Her horse got up to 40 mph. Wow! Being together, enjoying the horses and the ride was everything.

One rainy summer afternoon we decided on a new 'game' that she invented. (she led. I followed, which as you'll see later got me into tons of trouble) It was called Pony express. The object was to race our horses from one end of her pasture to the other as fast as possible, making sharp turns at the ends. I'm really not sure why this was a pony express ride ,other than the fact that we were doing this as fast as possible. It didn't take long for disaster. The grass was wet and her horse lost her footing and slipped falling directly on the rider. Hard. When I got back to where she was laying all she could think about was her horse. Was she ok, was she up? She staggered up and back to the house where we decided not to tell anyone about this "accident". It usually led to a worried parent forbiding us to do one thing or another. So I went home. Later that night her parents called with the news that she was in the hospital. It seems she had had to have her spleen removed! Could I give my side of the story? This tale ends with her unable to ride for the rest of the summer and with the two of us lounging around finding other mischief to make. (and we did, too unfortunately) We did have sense enough not to try that game again.