View From the Cheap Seats
Growing Up, All I Had Was a Pony by Sarah Vas
I
was one of those fortunate kids covered in horse hair and hay bits from day one. By the age of three, I regularly defied my parents and snuck off to the barn on my own power. I was fearless and tenacious around horses for as long as I can remember. I honestly can’t recall the first time I rode a horse. I’m not referring to that time your mom sat you delicately on her shaggy tired pensioner before you could hold up your own head. My riding competency was instinctual, already established in the hazy darkness lying beyond even the earliest childhood memories. My equestrian memoir begins with “fidget impatiently for a grown up to saddle your steed, mount correctly from the left side, gather your own reins” riding. I possessed “know how to walk, trot, and canter before kindergarten” riding. I lived a “mount from the top fence rail, ride bareback with nothing but a halter and baling twine reins” enchanting childhood. I wore out the “give your mom big doe eyes, insist that No, you were not riding the pony even as you stand there totally unaware of the telltale half-moon of chestnut pony hair covering your backside” perjury. Yeah, I was 6 before I understood that self-incriminating evidence. My parents moved a year ago. Throughout the monumental clearing out of their 2700 square foot sprawling ranch home and Dad’s pole barn full of man stuff, I meticulously gathered every random shred of family history unearthed and trucked it all to my house for safe keeping. My dining room has become Command Central for a huge organizational task. The plan is to consolidate the volume but then compliment the keepers with proper documentation. It’s going to take a while because I’m sorting boxes and boxes of faded prints, curled newspaper clippings, old Kodak slides, even some 8 mm film. Then
Somewhere in the frozen lands of Tibet...
Only the luckiest kids grow up on ponies. Winfield Farm & Forge, Ltd. Exploring the Arabian/Welsh Sport Pony Cross for Carriage & Dressage Kevin & Sarah Vas / Owners, Breeders, Artisans Grafton, Ohio / 330-242-3440 38
there’s the task of wading through all the recent years’ digital pics. I think it’s important to routinely flip through the old photo albums gathering dust on the bookshelves. Thumbing through the loose stacks inside shoe boxes or flipping those sticky photo album pages is good for the soul. Couldn’t everybody conjure up crystal-clear memories with just a glance at a single snap shot from the past? This visual narration of Life honors those events that molded you into the person you are today. I get the whole “Don’t Look Back! That’s Not Where You’re Going!” meaning but frequent jogs down memory lane can have positive consequences. It’s humbling, emotional, and allows one to form healthy perspectives of one’s long journey. It also allows for some belly laughs over collective fashion choices and hideous hair decisions, am I right? Want to see some humiliating evidence of my childhood dorkiness? I’m only sharing it because my childhood pony is in the pictures too. These three photos speak volumes about me and it would take far more than my monthly allotted 1000 words to share it all. These are just a couple of my favorite highlights. As you can see, Tiger was a tonka truck of a fat pony with a neck barely longer than his head. That perfectly round physique certainly aided in honing my superb balance in the stirrups from day one. I don’t know what the heck I’m doing with my left arm and good heavens, what’s wrong with my posture but I am rocking that Dorothy Hamill haircut! Seriously, though. Am I holding in a doo doo?
Ah yes, Tiger indulging my daydreams of Arabian halter trainer fame and fortune with nary a grown up in sight. That lone apple tree in the background? Dad would tie him out on a lunge line around the trunk so Tiger could graze where the mower couldn’t reach. My brother and I would torment him by climbing on double. He would get revenge by repeatedly scraping us off under the lowest branches. Good Times. I was wicked with a set of 10 blades! This was just one of the many activities I stubbornly imitated behind the backs of any adults. I grew up around the Arabian show ring back in the 70s and 80s when bridle paths were obnoxiously long. It did nothing to improve upon Tiger’s obnoxious locks or create illusions of a snaky neck and clean throatlatch. Gawd, my rear end…I was smart to come out feet S
HORSEMEN’S CORRAL
April 2022
