I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but I remember being old enough that Dad finally trusted me to cinch my own saddle.
That felt like a pretty big deal.
We were heading down to the pasture to check cattle. Nothing unusual. Just get a head count, make sure nobody was missing, and look for anything sick or injured.
Dad, our farm hand Tim Schutt, and I loaded the horses into the trailer and made the mile drive down to the pasture.
Dad rode Dude. Tim rode Blue.
My horse was Beauty.
The horses were already haltered for the trailer ride, so after we pulled in and opened the gates, we unloaded them and tied them along the side of the trailer. We put on the saddle blankets, saddled up, and got ready to go.
Including me.
For the first time, I cinched Beauty’s saddle myself.
We mounted up, Dad gave the word, and the three of us started toward the herd at an easy trot.
This was exactly my speed.
As we got closer, Dad and Tim split off and started working opposite sides of the herd. I was still pretty new at this, so my job was simple:
Stay nearby.
Stay out of the way.
I was doing an excellent job at both.
Then one cow broke from the herd.
I don’t know why. Maybe we spooked her. Maybe she saw a snake. Maybe she simply noticed some grass somewhere that looked better than the grass she was already standing in.
Whatever the reason, Dad and Tim took off after her.
Dude and Blue went from cattle-checking speed to full pursuit.
Then the rest of the herd started following them.
Apparently Beauty took one look at all of this and decided there was absolutely no chance she and I were getting left behind.
She took off.
Until that moment, I had no idea a horse could go from zero to a hundred in what seemed like a microsecond.
All I could do was hang on.
I’d been taught that if you wanted a horse to slow down, you pulled back on the reins.
So I pulled.
Beauty went faster.
I pulled harder.
Beauty apparently interpreted this as encouragement.
Within seconds, we were gaining ground on Dad and Tim.
At first, I actually thought that might be a good thing. The sooner we caught them, the sooner this would all be over.
Beauty, meanwhile, had transformed into Pegasus and seemed determined to prove she could catch anything in front of her.
That’s when I noticed something else.
My saddle was moving.
Not much at first.
Just slightly off-center.
To the right.
There are moments in life when complicated situations become remarkably easy to understand.
This was one of them.
The only thought going through my head was:
OH SHIT.
I decided the obvious solution was to lean left.
And for a moment, it worked.
The saddle started coming back toward center.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t accounted for momentum.
Now the saddle kept going left.
I tried to correct again.
Beauty was still at a full gallop.
The cattle were running.
Dad and Tim were somewhere ahead of me.
And I was now engaged in some kind of high-speed saddle-balancing experiment for which I had received absolutely no training.
Somewhere during all of this, I had enough presence of mind to realize how this was probably going to end.
I pulled my boots out of the stirrups.
That may have been the smartest thing I did all day.
I made one last attempt to right the saddle.
A moment later, I was parallel to the ground.
Then I was flying through the air.
Then I wasn’t.
I hit the ground, rolled, and eventually came to a stop.
For a few seconds, I just lay there.
Then I picked myself up and looked across the pasture.
Beauty was still running.
The saddle hadn’t fallen completely off. It had rotated underneath her belly, where it was now bouncing around and interfering with her stride.
Beauty was understandably unhappy about this development.
She was galloping, bucking and kicking while trying to rid herself of the thing underneath her.
Dad and Tim were still after the cow.
Beauty was after Dad and Tim.
And I was standing alone in the pasture watching my former mode of transportation disappear into the woods.
Eventually, everyone vanished.
There wasn’t much else for me to do.
So I started walking.
All the way back to the pickup and horse trailer.
Alone.
I climbed in and waited.
And waited.
It seemed like hours.
Eventually Dad and Tim appeared.
They were still on horseback.
Behind them was Beauty.
She still had her bridle.
She did not have her saddle.
Nobody needed to explain what had happened.
I’d just received the cowboy equivalent of “Welcome to the NFL.”
We went looking for the saddle.
We searched the pasture, but that wasn’t exactly a small place. There were roughly 200 acres of grass, sandhills, trees and ponds along the river where Beauty could have finally managed to get rid of it.
We never found it.
I can only assume that somewhere during her trip through those woods, the first saddle I ever cinched was broken into pieces and scattered across the pasture.
Dad had given me a little responsibility that day.
I learned something about horses.
I learned something about momentum.
And I learned why pulling on the reins only works when the saddle stays on top of the horse.
But mostly, I learned one of those lessons that comes with growing up around a farm.
Sometimes the difference between being one of the kids and being one of the guys is simply being trusted to do something yourself.
And sometimes you celebrate that new responsibility by losing an entire saddle.
If this resonated with you, you’re not alone.
