I was 32 years old. It was in October 2000, after years of not being on a horse, I decided to take lessons. My friend Janie competes in Team penning. Team penning is a sport, which you have two partners. One goes inside a heard of numbered cattle and the other two stay on the side. The one that goes in tries to get 3 cattle that have a number that was called out, out of the crowd, the other two keep the other cows from coming through. Then you try and get the three cows with the correct number into a pen in the fastest time. Janie had agreed to give me lessons. I would fit them around my work schedule.
I would meet up with Janie at the Barn were I would be introduced to Poco, a chest nut gelding that stands 15 hands high. His main was long and shiny, and a tail that almost touched the ground.
Much of my first lesson would be on grooming a horse, how to get started putting all the tack on him.
It is time, time to go into the round pen. We would walk out to the round pen. Janie would show me tricks on how to adjust the stirrups, and taught me how to hold the reins, she would explain to me how to position my legs , how lightly or how hard to squeeze to have him do what I wanted. Poco was trained to work off of leg pressure so you did not use the reins for much. We walked around the round pen just to get a good feel of the horse and to check my seat.
When this lesson was over with she taught me how to clean the horse up and clean the...