The Barrel Jump

I was born when I was very young, and from that day on and before dad was the manager of a Cooperative Community Pasture, running about 1200 head of cattle every summer. The Neeley Lake Coop Pasture was where I got my cowboy training on the job. So because of that I started riding at a very young age. We had to ride every day in the pasture, checking the cattle for sickness and checking fences and so on.

I remember riding with my mom the most, and with dad when he was able. Dad was sick lots those days and so never rode as much as he once did. I had two brothers and four sisters, I remember riding a lot with them as well. My oldest sister was away from home already so I only knew her by her married name and from going to visit at their place. My oldest brother and I rode and did the most things together, more than I did with the girls. But even when my youngest brother came along I even got to ride with him a bit.

Well, I told you all of this to tell you that it was from these experiences together that these following stories derive from. After riding so many miles together and experiencing many adventures together, I figure a fellow should have just a few stories to tell. So the first one is one that I will call...............

THE BARREL JUMP

We were members of a 4-H club and we trained our horses to do different activities in our spare fun time. One of those activities was teaching them to jump over things. One of the things we had them jumping was two 45 gallon drums sitting on the end with a pole across between them. On this particular day my eldest brother Chuck was riding his horse Chub and I was riding old Shorty, Meachy was riding Dusty, Charlie was riding Skip, Marbles was riding Rudy and Bubby was riding on Socks.

We were all having a ball trying to get our horses to jump over all of the different obstacle's we had set up. All of the horses were doing really good on all of the jumps, except for mine, every time I came to the barrel jump he would, instead of jumping it, dodge it and would almost dump me off on my head. This had happened a number of times and I was getting very frustrated with him, finally Chuck said, "Get off the old brute and let me see what I can do with him." After all big brothers could do anything, so he would make him jump it.

So I got off and he got on, and was going to attempt to have Shorty jump over the barrels this time and not around them. Now you have to get the picture here a bit before I go on, my older brother is eight years older than me, he is taller and has longer legs, he is in his twenties and I am not quite a teen yet. Get the picture - long legs, short stirrups. Well, needless to say he didn't take the time to lengthen the stirrups, there he was perched up on Shorty like a jockey, ready for the half mile open and was about to make him jump close to a four foot jump.

Chuck rode out a little ways, back from the barrels and turned his mount around and charged full speed towards the barrel jump. He was fully expecting Shorty to dodge around the jump as he had done with me so many time before. So Chuck now poised and ready was he for the steed to bolt when to his surprise he did not, instead he arose to the challenge and jumped that pole that was in front of him, but Chuck even jumped higher than Shorty did, for as Shorty lunged over the pole, Chuck arose from the saddle and went as high as his little short stirrups would let him go and then came down head first over the head of his mount, Chuck landed and rolled first and then Shorty landed a second later, missing Chuck as he went rolling across the ground out of harms way, away from the pounding hooves of the steed he was riding. You had to be there to see how funny it looked, he was like a large frog being hurled through the air.

I don't think I had ever seen dad laugh so hard, well he laughed so hard that he sat down on the ground and just hooted and hollered and the rest of us joined in. No man or animal was hurt in this altercation, just Chucks pride was hurt a little, but proud of the fact that he did get the old horse to make a successful jump in the end.

I don't remember if I personally ever got that horse to jump over that jump again or not, but I can only imagine that I did because we didn't hardly ever stop trying until we succeeded in what we had started out attempting to do. I also know that I taught a lot more of our horses to jump and had a lot of fun doing it.