It was a Quiet Sunday Morning

It was a Quiet Sunday Morning

One Sunday last month, Ellen and I went on a ride up to the public show ring. We don’t ride in the ring—just all about the trails up there. The horses love the ride, since we used to board them close by, and their enthusiasm is overwhelming. We like it, too, and try to go there once a week.

It was a totally successful and enjoyable ride. We were on our way home, when I heard Ellen say, “Uh oh.” This is never a good thing to hear on a ride. We happened to be on the Lagoon trail. It is right out in the open and just a few feet from the street. On the opposite side of the trail is a rock wall with the river below.

As I glanced behind me, I saw a couple police cars with their lights flashing. My first fear was that they would turn on their sirens. We turned the horses around to face the cars. Horses are less likely to bolt if they are facing the monster. That is when we saw the motorcycles coming around the corner, and remembered there was a motorcycle rally that was going through the park that day. We were at the absolutely worst place we could be.

Ranger and Mingo’s heads were up, and they were very tense. The motorcycles were coming down the street, and there was no end in sight. Ellen started walking Ranger towards them, and we followed. This seemed to help. Just when things seemed like they couldn’t get worse, one the bikers got the idea in his head to honk and wave to us. Then they all started honking and waving!

We stopped the horses right before the trail goes into the trees. Since the trail still follows the road, the trees would have obscured the bikes, but wouldn’t have taken us away from them. We thought that would be worse. As the motorcycles passed us, two by two, we just sat there on our horses, half heartedly waving back with fake smiles pasted on our faces.

Before we even saw the motorcycles, we had seen a friend of ours, Dave, down the trail coming towards us. He was soon by our side. He said that his horse, Montana, was doing fine until they started honking. That is when Montana decided to spin around. Dave knew if he caught up with us, Montana would be fine. He was right. So now, all three of us were standing there, waving as the motorcycles went by, honking at us.

It was easily a full five minutes until they all passed us. At the end of the caravan, there were more police cars with flashing lights and then a huge utility truck! The horses still just stood and stared. Finally it was over and time to go home.

I was grateful that I wasn’t riding Cruiser. Mingo handles motorcycles much better than Cruiser. This may have been a little too much for his Arab nature. As it turned out, Mingo and Ranger behaved in a perfect manner, and we were so pleased with them. We were also glad that we were there to help Dave through it.

The moral of the story? Next time we hear there is going to be a motorcycle rally, we will still ride, but we will ride on a trail that isn’t so close to the street!