I'm sure other little girls played and still play "horses". I really hope they haven't all gotten too worldly wise. First you have to describe yourself. "I'm a bay (we were very proud of the fact that we knew what a bay was) with a white blaze (not a snip or a star.... a blaze) and four white stockings (no, not socks. you know what stockings are, they go further up the leg). We studied these things and knew our stuff even at 5 or 6. Sometimes we were very exotic. "I'm from Pluto and I'm purple with a silver mane and tail, and, er, I can fly".
We were usually the horses and had pretend riders and grooms who would tack us up and ride us over a cross country course of sticks between lawn chairs and sideways trash cans. If you were playing horse and rider, you would tie a rope around the horse's waist and canter around the yard always being careful to be on the correct lead and to make sure the rope cleared the "jumps". I always preferred being the horse.
When I was 9, she 8, we would ride our bikes across town (you could do things like that back then) and sit for hours observing horses. I can now say over 50 years later that I did learn a lot about the way horses communicate. I saw how horses would mutually groom each other. Science has recently discovered a spot near the withers that activates the amygdala part of the brain. This is the where memory and emotions are controlled. Horses, it seems, have the largest of all domesticated animals. We horse people always knew they were special and even as a kid I realized that the horses seemed to like to scratch and nuzzle each other there.
When you have the horse gene you have no choice as to whether you will ride or not. You are obsessed. Everyone tells you that you will outgrow it. You don't.
Me in front. Debbie behind. 1963
I hope to share some things I've learned and a few laughs. Thanks for looking.
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