I catch my breath as I settle in the saddle. Sunny, the horse I’ve been given to ride at Horseplay Niagara, shifts under my weight and my heart jumps into my mouth. At the moment she seems bigger than a dinosaur.
“Don’t pull the reins until I tell you, OK?” Karen, a guide in chaps and a long leather coat is giving me instructions, but what she’s telling me isn’t quite computing. I’m too terrified. A variety of scenarios that involve falling off and being stomped on by heavy hooves rush through my mind.
“Pull the reins, yes…” I mumble incoherently.
“No, I said don’t pull the reins yet,” the guide corrects firmly.
I had a bad horse experience when I was just eight-years-old. While vacationing in a village in Portugal, some kids thought it would be fun to put my sister and I on a horse and then see if they could get it to kick us off.
While we were on, someone began swatting the horse’s hindquarters with a stick, causing it to buck. Everyone was laughing, even my sister thought it was fun, but I was terrified and began to cry. Finally taken off the horse, I swore never to get on another one again.
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