Horseback Riding in Hollywood

We had a great time on Sunday. The stable is at the north end of a street that dead-ends into the Hollywood Hills. You drive right past the original offices of the Hollywoodland Realty company that put the original Hollywood(land) sign up, and the stable is only a few hundred yards from the sign itself, and most of the way up the mountain. You ride west through a gate, and you're in Griffith Park. After going up a while to the top, you wind down the other side, winding up in Burbank, at the 134 and Forest Lawn Drive. There's the Los Angeles Equestrian Center there, next door to a Mexican Restaurant, so they tied up the horses, and we had lunch. After lunch, it was back on the horses, and another two-hour ride back to the stable. We rode out at 11, and got back at 4.

And, yes, I'm really sore. The worst was my bottom, what with the horse insisting on trotting a lot of the time, so I was bouncing on that seat -- and I don't have much padding between the leather and my bones. Especially on the way home, he pretty much insisted on trotting, so I got pretty good at detecting the little half-step that indicated he was about to shift into trot-mode, and pulling him back down into a walk. Too late, though, I guess. My bottom is better now, but my back is still pretty stiff.

We did have a near-tragedy -- about 5 minutes from getting back to the stable, our 'expert' rider dad somehow managed to get his horse's back feet off the edge of the trail, a 45 degree slope. The horse was digging in from a reared-up, Hi-ho Silver position, and Roger fell off. The horse scrambled back to the trail, but kicked him two or three places in the process. Fortunately, it was just his calf, and a small ding to the forehead. The rangers got him out of there (somehow -- we kept going on to the stable), and the paramedics took him to the hospital. They did X-rays and CT scanned his head, and he's OK. Not a good thing for his daughter to have to watch, though. Fortunately, by the time he was loaded into the ambulance, he was past some of the pain and joking around, so his daughter was able to see he was OK. That ol' Roger always has to be the center of attention. I told him it was pretty nice of him to throw himself under the horse to cushion his fall.

Anyway, naturally, on Monday, on their long walk to school, Geneva started the campaign to get a horse. Of course, Daleen, having owned a horse herself already, won't hear a word of it. Even Geneva had to admit that 'maybe I shouldn't have gone on that ride.' She is 'working' down at the Camp Cookie stable for their Girl Scout project, so that helps. Unfortunately, they're supposed to be cleaning and repairing the stable, not playing with the horses, but it's hard to get Geneva to remember that...