Here's the prompt for today's writing class: What was your favorite thing to do when you were 12? Here's mine.
Her name was Reagan and she was a horse. She used to be my sister Sharon's horse, but then Sharon went away to school and she became mine, if I wanted her. She was a Quarterhorse with a red-brown coat and a white blaze running down her long nose. She had a clear eye and an occasionally obstreperous temperament. And she loved to run.
When I was twelve years old, my favorite thing to do was to take Reagan out into the fields behind the farm where my parents paid to board her, along with my sister Donna's horse, Dee. On the ride out, Reagan's metal-shod hooves beat a quick tattoo on the packed earth and she tosses her head, filling her huge fluted nostrils with fresh air and birdsong.
We take the field to the right, careful to stay on the path. Gophers burrow here, making the fields treacherous to horses. At speed, a slip into a gopher hold could snap a horse's leg clean through.
Reagan always knows what was coming. First a leisurely trot on a long rein. Then the turn, paralleling the route home, and she picks up speed. Reagan pulls right, eager to break free. I hold her to the trail, looking for holes. Then, a few strides from the corner, I loosen the reins.
She cuts the corner, bending her body toward the route home. She gathers her haunches under her in two quick steps, then launches forward, reaching her forelegs out in front of her like a praying mantis. She takes off. After a few steps, up a short rise, her body levels off. She is flying.
When a horse goes into a full gallop, only one foot touches the ground at a time. You can see it in slow-motion video of racehorses. They lose agility, flying over the ground with just the dig of hooves propelling them forward. Reagan's body rises up, her hoofbeats coming slower, her muscles rippling powerfully with each giant stride.
In these adrenaline-filled moments, time stops. The grass and trees pass in a blur. I crouch forward, hands tangled in reins and mane. Holding on to both is a good idea, and sometimes it's the only thing that keeps me on.
Reagan bucks. In the glory of an all-out run, she lets loose. Usually, you can feel the buck in the bunching of the muscles behind your leg. She holds back, doing a chicken hop before launching herself up in the air. If you let her get her head down, she'll get you off for sure.
Instead I pull her head up with a steady pressure, pulling at the soft skin that lines her mouth behind her molars. It's a soft bit, a broken snaffle, that I use, so the pressure doesn't hurt her or push on her tongue. It forces her head and neck back up, and gets the weight off her front legs so she can't kick up in the back, or plow the ground, stiff-legged. She manages a small kick, still, but settles back down. She could plunge and twist, but she doesn't really want to get me off, not today.
We reach the top of a gentle hill and relaxes, taking long strides with her head raised. If I turned around, I'm sure I'd see her tail streaming out behind us like a banner. She's feeling good.
At the corner she tries to sneak out, dropping her right side to try to veer off, trying to take off again. If she had her way, she'd go back to the barn at full tilt, screeching to a stop only at the last minute, her rear legs angled deeply into the mud at the pasture fence. I bring her down, first to a canter, then a trot. At the end of the field we walk, back down the road. Her footsteps are still rapid and she's bobbing her head. Her nostrils are wide and wet and she starts to blow. As her breathing slows she snorts, an abrupt, thrumming sound like she's clearing her nose, or exasperated.
I reach down and pat her neck. She pulls at the reins and I loosen them. She takes the slack and looks around. Then she sniffs, and sneaks a bite of grass.
