As part of Quin's Lil'l Dumpling Farm adventures (a fun little thing that I signed us up to do), he got to go horseback riding. The idea of this seemed fine to me, as I had taken horseback riding lessons and have always loved horses. I figured when they are this small they would be secured into the saddle in some way.
The Monday before we left for Europe we went to the farm to go horseback riding and Quin was really excited about it, even though he had no clue what we were going to do. We get there, and everything looks great. A hand full of cute little ponies are all lined up ready to go, as well as two regular horses. So far, all things are good. Next, we get helmets. Quin finds one that fits him really well (most of them are huge), so that makes me happy. Next, Bridget (our teacher), asks us to pick out a horse. Well, of course Quin heard that one was named Frosty, so considering his slight obsession with Frosty the snowman there was no doubt in his mind which horse was for him. So, we walk over toward him. As we are walking, I realize that the one my sweet, little, innocent, 2 year old child has chosen to ride is none other than the large, full-sized horse! Could Quin have picked a cute little pony only a few feet off the ground? No, he needed the one named Frosty. I tried to convince him that one of the other horses would be better, but his heart was set on Frosty. Okay, we could make it work. After getting him on the horse, I realized that there was no way to secure him to the horse. Quin, my spastic, overly energetic, not always the best at following directions, 2 year old was being asked to hold on for dear life while the horse was to walk around and around in a pen. I asked our teacher if this was really safe; she said that it was fine and not to worry. She instructed us to simply lead the horse where we wanted it to go and the kids would have a great time. She continued that the horses are very tame and used to having small children on them.
Right from the start, a lot of the kids were crying. A good handful were afraid of the helmets and/or the horses and didn't want anything to do with them. In a weird way, I wish that had been Quin because then I wouldn't have been so scared of him being on the horse!
At first, he really enjoyed being on the horse, Frosty was very well behaved, and he was holding on really well. I lead and the horse followed. After a few laps around the ring, Frosty began to get a little too close to the horse in front of us and Bridget advised us to take Frosty away to the outer edge of the ring to give him more space. Okay. That seemed easy enough. That's when the trouble started. Frosty saw a handful of yummy grass blades and decided that he had to have them. The lunged forward about ten feet and Quin nearly fell off. As I held Quin on and tried to control the horse, Frosty spotted more grass a few yards away and took off. If I had not grabbed Quin the second I did, he would have been upside down on the ground. Thankfully Quin did great job listening to directions and held on very tight. After Frosty got a bit over zealous with the grass, Quin decided that he was done with horses and started to sob. He was terrified that he almost fell off the horse.
Quin got down and decided that it was better to pet the horse from the groung. After a few minutes, we got him back up on a gentle pony to restore his confindence. The last thing I wanted was for him to be terrified of horses forever because of this incident. Cambria, our pony, was much slower, more docile, and very gentle. Quin liked her, although he was still a little teary eyed while riding her. After one lap around the ring, Quin decided that he was done.
When we left for lunch, Quin was very excited about having ridden a horse and had forgotten all of his fear. Tim and I were just happy that our son was in one piece. Letting your kids grow up and do things is really tough!
I have to say, that was one of the scariest moments of being a parent, so far. I really thought that our sweet little boy was going to end up badly injured. How my parents ever let me ride, I will never understand.
