Rearing: A Saga

An excerpt from “Many Runaway Horses”

Written by Alex Tyson | sunriseequineservices@gmail.com

Rearing: the act of a horse putting all of their weight on the hind legs, while hoisting their front legs, both off the ground and into the air, assuming a more human like, vertical body stance.

This is the stuff of movies and TV glory: Roy Rogers and Trigger The Black Stallion... Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron. Every little girl who loves horses has been bombarded with images of majestic, rearing horses.

My new horse Pepper was blessed by her old owner Corie with this end-all, be-all of trick training She could, amazingly, rear on command! How awesome was that?! Not only were all of my horse dreams coming true, but I had at my disposal the thing of dreams: the rear!

Corie had mentioned that Pepper reared on command when we bought her, but taught me how to do it two months later. “To rear,” she instructed, “you act like you are going to back up, pull back with the reins and squeeze with both legs...” Her voice trailed off as she picked her eyes up to look at me in the saddle on Pepper to make sure I was paying attention. I was. My eyes were fixed on hers and I nodded in agreement. She continued, “But you need to raise your hands higher up to the sky in a slightly jerky motion. You can repeat it if she doesn’t do it. Once she rears just lean forward in a two-point like a jump, grab some mane, and hang on till she comes down.”

I nodded and she motioned for me to try I sat back, pulled slightly on the reins but was careful to elevate their position to a more vertical, upward pull and squeezed with my legs. To my surprise...it worked! Pepper’s weight shifted backward and I felt her front legs reach toward the clouds. I leaned forward to stay in good balance with her, if I didn’t, I would have fallen backwards over her hindquarters. We hung in the air for a few moments, my lips pressed against her coarse mane, and I thanked the Lord above for all the magic in the world such as this. It was over almost as quickly as it began, and we descended, literally, back down to earth.

“Good job!” Corie praised, “Just like that! You have it!” I had it. “Now,” Corie warned, her voice dropping down a bit, a serious tone breaking the magical spell, “You have to be careful not to do this too much. For one, she could lose the cue, or on the opposite end, since it is so close to backing up, she might rear when you don’t want her to. So only every once in a while.” She looked at me with a look that said: now I know you are not going to listen but I have to say it anyway, because I am the adult. “I understand.” But what is ‘every once in a while?’ Once a week? Once a month? Few times a year? Who knows? I just knew it couldn’t be every day. Fair enough, magic can’t happen every day, then maybe it wouldn’t be magic.

Our magic did find itself quite useful when on a road ride, my new friends Liz, April and I came across a rogue band of boys our age. Boys of eleven or so can be the cruelest creatures, testing boundaries and strength on unsuspecting victims. Worse if they are in a group. Doubly worse if they are on bikes. And on bikes these terrorists were, as they sped around the corner, looking for trouble. They came flying directly at us, peddling hard at full speed, leaning down into their bikes to keep their momentum, locking eyes on us girls with an evil glint in their eyes. We were in a terrifying game of chicken, only we wouldn’t be able to move our horses fast enough, and it didn’t look like they were slowing down. Almost instinctively, Liz and April moved their horses closer to Pepper and I, sandwiching me in between them, but in doing so creating a wall of horse flesh that the boys were bound to hit. Not anticipating this, the boys slammed on their brakes and jerked their handlebars hard to the right, sending a spray of gravel and dirt into the horses. Our steeds didn’t like this very much and jerked their heads up and shied away from the rocks to the left. We were spooked too, we didn’t know what the boys would do, or how our horses would react. The ringleader boy seemed to sense that his actions had caused some fear on our part and then began to change course and circle the bikes around us, getting awfully close to our horses’ hind legs in the process.

Don’t they know they could get kicked doing this? I should warn them...on second thought, maybe I shouldn’t and one good kick will solve this problem. “STOP!” I yelled as the leader boy crossed in front of me. Surprisingly, he did stop, turning his bike away from his tight horse circle and looping back around to face us. He had this amused look on his face that I spoke up. How dare I defy him?

“Aww...you don’t like us being here?” he taunted. “Obviously, not” April snapped back. “Well, you see, I do like being here. I hate these stupid horses, and you stupid girls that ride them!” “Hey!” Liz squeaked out, she didn’t know what to say or do really, but she was certainly offended.

The leader looked us up and down, he had a nasty smug grin and a mop of black hair that almost covered his eyes. I didn’t really pay attention to the other boys because they just mimicked what the leader did. They were harmless sheep, unless their wolf called them to battle.

“You know since you don’t like it so much, I think I will just throw some rocks at these stupid horses!” He spat at us, and started looking to the side of the road for a suitable weapon.

THAT WAS IT. I had enough of this bully and his antics, and I was going to put a stop to it. “Oh, yeah?” I asked him, “Well watch out, then!” Not the best comeback, but I was enraged. I stepped

Rearing: A Saga (continued)

Pepper out of our horse shield toward the leader, and marched Pepper right next to his bike. He wasn’t anticipating this and recoiled a little bit at my forwardness. I did the only logical thing that an eleven-year-old girl with a trick trained horse could do in this situation. I asked her to rear. Right in his face.

Pepper, glorious Pepper, came through for me and reared as high as she ever had, towering over that bratty boy and put the fear he gave us, right back into him. “Ahhh!” He screamed, not knowing what was happening, but clearly seeing that my horse was a lot bigger than him at the moment. He scrambled to get his bike out from under Pepper and her hooves, which were easily over his dirty, moppy little head. I couldn’t really see his face, but I like to think regret washed over it as he realized what he had done. A novel concept, actions and consequences. He had poked the bear Or in this case, the girl.

Pepper landed from her rear a little sooner than I wanted her to, we needed to be a force to be reckoned with. I asked her to go up again, and she did. Pepper was not normally this compliant but I think she enjoyed the revenge.

This really threw off the leader, who at this point now abdicated his position as king of the road and turned his bike around, screamed and told the others, “She is crazy! Let’s get out of here!” They all turned and followed, peddling as fast as they could, looking over their shoulders as they did to make sure I didn’t follow

“AND DON’T EVER COME BACK!” I yelled after them, with a huge grin on my face. When I turned back towards our group their mouths were hung open in disbelief. Did I really do that? “Well, I don’t think they will be back” Liz said, breaking the stunned silence. “That was awesome!” April said with a smile. I did something right in the eyes of my new horse friends! For once in my life, I got to be the hero! “Let’s go just in case they change their minds and come back for more” I said, still a little worried about them, and my rage starting to wane.

We told every single soul that we could what happened, and how Pepper saved the day by rearing The adults around us were impressed but a little worried. At least we weren’t victims, and maybe those boys would straighten out a little by meeting a 1,000-pound animal up close and very personal.

Adult Reflections – No regrets on this one.

I gained a real sense of agency from taking charge in a difficult situation. I wasn’t just going to take the threatened assault against me, I was going to fight back. I’ve been thankful ever since, that this ordeal showed me my strength. Sadly, I never got a picture of Pepper and I rearing. This was also a rare moment of unity with Pepper As our adventures continued, she didn’t rear when I needed her to, and did when I didn’t. This will just be one glorious moment when my rage and Pepper’s snarky nature came together at the right time, and sent me high, high into the stuff of magic.

Alex Tyson is a C.H.A certified riding instructor in Southeast Michigan. Alex has had a very multifaceted background, having experience in hunter-jumper, barrel racing, competitive trail, breaking wild mustangs, and working equitation. She is a top 3 finisher at the 2021 Thoroughbred Makeover in competitive trail, won the Intermediate A division at the only international working equitation event in the U.S., the Cross Nations Cup, in 2022 and is the 2022 USAWE (USA Working Equitation) Eastern Zones Reserve Champion at Intermediate A.

If you would like to order Alex’s book, Many Runaway Horses, it is available for purchase on Amazon.com, or you can contact Alex directly at: sunriseequineservices@gmail.com

1)

2) LIST your