Pony ride

Ponies!
Originally uploaded by The Gulde Family.

I remember riding in the molded plastic seat attached to the back of my dad’s ten-speed when I was a toddler. Those are some of my earliest memories. One might expect those memories to include feeling the wind in my hair – especially in a time before widespread helmet use for children. Maybe you’d expect me to recall the warmth of a quick backwards glance from my dad, or the exhilaration of leaning into a turn with him – two riders working as one aerodynamic force. I don’t remember any of that. The only thing I remember is fear. Blinding, heart-racing, white-knuckled fear.

That was on my mind when I set Francis atop a pony for her first horse ride. Once she discerned my intention, she fought it. She clung to my neck and kicked her legs as I set her on the saddle. “No daddy! I don’t want it!”

I wonder if I resisted the bike seat like this.

I might have let her get off the horse if not for the following: immediately (two seconds, maximum) after I set her in the saddle, she said, through her tears, “I like him,” patting the horse’s mane. So we didn’t abort our horse-mission. She and I circled the parking lot arm-in-arm with a brown pony. She even held the saddle horn with one hand.