Riding Fury

When I was a kid I used to love the show Fury (or at least I think that's what it was called). It was about a beautiful horse named...wait for it...........FURY. I remember sidestepping my way down our long hallway clopping my feet together so I'd sound like a galloping horse.

My family lived on a farm from the time I was 8 until I was about 13. When the Fury show was on, I really wanted a horse of my own. It didn't matter that I didn't know how to ride and didn't know anything about horses other than they were big and beautiful. My ever loving parents finally gave in and got me a succession of horses.

One of them was black like Fury. My Mom had to ride him and tire him out before I could get on him since I didn't know what I was doing. I think it was that horse (named Fury of course) who knew I didn't know what I was doing so he would walk into our pond and basically float me off.

Pretty smart horse. His going into the water got me off of his back every time. I'm not sure how long I had Fury before my parents figured out that he was too big for me and that I didn't know how to drive a horse.

Some time later my parents rescued/adopted a Shetland pony for me. There was one small problem though. The poor little guy had been put up in an area that was muddy and his hooves had grown way beyond the length they should be. It looked like he had water skis on his hooves and I think it was somewhat painful for him to walk.

That didn't really matter because I didn't know how to ride anyway. And he knew it, too. Later on in life I learned that Shetland ponies are MEAN! They will pick on anyone who messes with them. They're the bad asses of the horse world. Maybe they have a Napoleon complex since they're smaller than all of the other horses, so they make up for it by being giant assholes.
All I can remember is that he was there for a while and one day he was gone. I don't want to think about what might have happened to him.

The next horse was a retired race horse. There was no way in double hockey sticks I'd be able to ride that one! All it knew how to do was run. Fast! Even though my Mom knew how to stay on a horse, I think that one was a challenge for her.

By the time the race horse came and went I had pretty much decided that mechanical horses were going to be my forte. They didn't bite or buck or take me into a lake. I was the master of my own destiny. I started out on a mini bike and over the years progressed up to a real bike that looked demure, but was a screamer. On occasion I still tumbled to the ground but I had caused it. Not some crazed, wily horse. These days, I don't even ride the motorcycle any more. I'm afraid that if I were to crash, all people would find would be a pile of metal joints and a puddle of blood.

I still say that at least motorcycles don't have teeth. Just sayin'.