Lisa: who can ride a horse? Me!

I was great on horseback in the old days. Show me a horse and I was on it’s back. As I live in Iceland it were mostly the iclandic horses as here there is no other breed. But I tried the big ones too, abroad. Some very little informed people call the icelandic horse a pony and think of it as a plaything for children. No, it is by nature a wild and strong animal and I have seen unsuspecting “big” horse riders dissappear at the horizon in a cloud of dust. Ok. I was, as I said, a big rider. I started when I was 10, hanging with feet clung to the sides and fists in the mane and got so far that I used no saddle and could jump onto the back of every neat horse standing beside it, from every side you whish. We had a great lot of great horses running around, at that time my father sold icelandic horses to whatever country in europe and even the US and on the backyard there were at least a hundred pieces at any given time. Horseriding was work, in a way, keeping the right ones together, driving back others who had jumped a fence. Yes, it was a big time for little girls. A nice play we childen did was to throw each other off the horse in full speed. Get a leg and pull or push.
And then I got older, married and got pregnant, again and again and again…. Somehow the horseriding slipped into the background and my children played the plays I used to play (now the grandchildren have started). So, last year my little daughter was nagging and nigging that I should come riding out with her. It was a terrible experience. Not that I could not sit a horse. No, much worse. I didn’t get onto it. Oh, I was so ashamed and sick with laughter. There was no way my fat old ass could make the way from the ground to the horseback without help. But I will not give up. Next summer I will try again and have a little step ready. Just for the fun of it.