Good Dudes and Bad Dudes

We had some favourite people that came to rent a horse on a regular basis. Mr .Parsons was one such a person. He was a tall man and I think a retired lawyer. Because of his height we had to pull our tall horses out for Mr. Parsons to ride.   He soon had three mounts he preferred:

Bingo a black and white paint   Ruby a sorrel mare 

or Charcoal a black mare

 Mr "P" was well-liked by us all and I should note here that Charcoal was hardly ever sent out with a man.Women would not have a problem with that horse but very few men could bring her home in decent condition. She would fret and work herself into an awful sweat. I remember Doug, (one of our helpers) could ride her and bring her home in great shape and also Mr.P which said a lot for that “Dude”.

   Our big sign also read that horses were to be brought home “dry”, or the customer would pay double.  This helped to settle down the would-be cowboys that wanted only to run the heck out of the horses for their money. ( A measly $2.00! ) An alternative, was to walk your horse “dry” behind the tack sheds. If a rider preferred to pay double the twins were employed as walkers. But none of the horses were ever put away “wet”. Sweaty wet horses had to be settled down and walked dry. A heated up and “hot” horse going for water could mean a very sick horse. I remember once Mary found her son had put his horse out “wet” and in the ensuing chastisement I believe he picked himself up off the floor with a split lip! This then, was a definite no-no.

   I had never considered that I had a bad temper, but there, at Twin Bridges, I learned  indeed there was a red hot temper in me that could be aroused! We worked very hard and very long hours. So at the end of a day, to put it mildly our butts were draggin' and our patience lacking. On such a day, we had a group of mouthy teenagers come out riding. When they returned, it was requested that they walk their horses dry. This request was not taken lightly by the group and as they walked the horses there were many loud comments and complaints. Always sensitive to others' moods, I tried to ignore it all. Then the mouthy girls called one of the Siamese cats over and petted it. Shortly after that another of the group walked their horse over the cat and with a horrendous yowl, the cat took off running. That annoyed me to no end and the next mouthy comment had me moving! I honestly did not remember starting towards the girls and literally was “seeing red” as they say. Suddenly I snapped out of it to find a young girl looking at me in fear saying “Don't you hit me!” My goodness! I had never hit anyone in my entire life! However, appearances were such that my intentions were obvious. From that day on I knew I had a temper and throughout my life it would not happen again! I would not LET it happen again! In any case, the teenagers soon left and I was glad to see them do so. I hoped they wouldn't return. The poor cat however needed to have its tail amputated at the vets. All I could think of was that if they had not called the cat over it would never have been stepped on and that is what had tipped my temper over.

   It was necessary, of course, upon greeting a customer, that I ask how much they had ridden. Most people were honest and asked for a very quiet one or if they could ride would tell me so. We tried to match the horse and rider as best we could and often gave instructions so they would have a good ride.
   One young man immediately got me a bit riled with his attitude one day. When asked if he could ride he replied that he could probably ride better than I! He also did not want a saddle etc. Fine thought I. In our corral we had a grey(white) horse called Scotty. This horse was “hot” in another way, as in excitable and a bit hard to control. Needless to say Scotty did not get duded out very often. With, what may have been a wicked grin, I told him I had just the horse for him. As I listed off a few rules about running the horses over a spot with gopher holes etc., this cocky fellow didn't seem to be listening or care. Off he went and I knew he would not obey the rules. Sure enough! Once again we heard the thundering of hooves and knew a horse was returning at a rapid rate. It was Scotty with green grass stains all over his knees.(Gopher holes,right?) Some time later the would be “Great Rider” walked in and began a tirade of complaints. This fellow had ticked me off in the first place and I found myself getting so angry I went and got Ken to deal with it. The minute a man was facing him “Mr. Great Rider”, changed his tune a lot and paid double and left. This was a much better way to handle things instead of losing my temper. Ken was a very calm person and reasonable. I was glad he had been around to step in.