Horses = Ow

For our 1 year anniversary, M set up horseback riding classes at Kensington Stables in Prospect Park, Brooklyn (http://www.kensingtonstables.com/). What blew my mind was that my friends lived down the street from the stables! They could do this every day if they wanted to. Note, there are 2 8th St and Caton. "I'm at 8th St and Caton, where are you?" "I'M at 8th St and Caton!"

The horseback riding was my request. M thinks I like to push her boundaries. For one thing, it is an outside activity. This means daylight, heat, insects, physical movement, but also, fresh air and doing something fun together.

Secondly, see unhappy face in first picture. This has to do with public helmet. I did see folks wearing helmets in the photos on the website and I did know that people wore helmets but I didn't really prepare us for it. We should've brought bandannas to wear under the helmets. The spongy part was right against our sweaty foreheads so that meant it was against another person's sweaty forehead and even I got skeeved out. She was thinking lice. I was thinking about this guy that started business school with a rash on his forehead from not washing his baseball cap. We Purelled our foreheads the second those helmets came off.
Thirdly, the horses. M has never been near a real horse, let alone get on top of one. Our instructor was this tiny feisty Asian woman - Cantonese, actually (J would appreciate this). She brings out this huge horse for M and gets M on it. The horse is a 30 year old Brandenberger named Margaret. Then the instructor leaves M on the horse in the middle of the street to go get my horse. M and this lady sitting in the shade look awfully nervous. We have not received any instruction on controlling this animal and Margaret decides she wants to wander a bit. I try to grab it and hold it until the instructor comes out with my 25-26 year old Appaloosa, Stardust [cue My Little Pony song]. And then instructor tells us Margaret will follow Stardust and we're off - no instructions.

This is Brooklyn. This is a stable in Brooklyn. We go straight into a busy traffic circle and have no idea what we are doing, specifically, how to stop. We make it past the circle and into Prospect Park and all is lovely and well until my horse decides to dive for food. Of course, I get the hungry horse. We are supposed to keep the reigns straight so there isn't a lot of slack if the horse decides to go for this bush or that bunch of weeds. "Why are you letting her eat?" the instructor yells. It takes me everything not to get pulled off. We did get to the bridle path and learned how to stop, start and turn. I'm getting the handle of moving with the horse until our instructor decides it is time to trot.

Not good. We are supposed to follow the movement but I'm bouncing like crazy and M is leaned over on one side. "Why are you falling off your horse! You are not ready to trot. I cannot take this lesson any further. If you want to go further, I recommend you get a private lesson." Well, that is fine with us. It was so unbelievably painful and our tushes hurt for 2 days after that.

We made it safely passed the traffic circle and to the stables. "That's a big horse," a passerby-er says to M. M really bonded with Margaret - her "30 year old sweetheart."