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As Winston Churchill is once supposed to have said, “There is something about the outside of a horse which is good for the inside of a man.” He was so right! I have spent some 40,000 hours horseback riding and very few of them have been wasted. Of course it is wonderful exercise for the body, but it is also most uplifting for the spirit. There is, or anyhow should be, a feeling of comradeship and trust which develops between horse and rider which cannot be duplicated by a motor cycle, however powerful.

Good horses, like good working dogs, love to feel that they are accomplishing a task and they can be extremely good at it. Many of them love to work cows and know how to accomplish the job better than the rider. In the old days a good buffalo horse was worth many squaws to the Indians. They were indispensable to the hunter in accomplishing what must have been one of the most difficult and dangerous equestrian feats of all time. A fast horse can outrun a buffalo and position a rider with a lance so that he can thrust up behind the galloping buffalo’s rib cage far into the vital organs of the animal. This enabled the hunter to make many kills cleanly and the horses apparently seemed to take the greatest pleasure in the hunt and understand fully how to position themselves.

Most horseback riding today is less exciting and doesn’t put much meat on the table, but it is grand fun.