Sunny Days

When I was 13, 1 month, and two days old, I got a horse of my own.

All Christmas season I watched the presents pile up under the tree – a giant box in the back for Danny, lots of medium sized ones for Larry. Leslee, Carrie, Beth and Tom all had their piles of loot accruing. But nary a one for me. Instead of being distressed about the lack of abundance, I took it as the sign any hopeful young girl looks for . . . that maybe her parents had heard her plea, and were at last getting her her own horse.

On Christmas morning we opened gifts. I opened the few from my brothers and sisters, and watched as each sibling in turn opened their troves. And when all was said and done, and each child scattered to play, only then did I feel a real panic.

I remember standing at the desk in the corner of the family room, when mom walked up to me and nonchalantly handed me a manilla envelope. “Here, this is for you.” she said.

I opened it to see a pedigree chart, and more papers. It took me a moment before I dared ask if this meant . . .

“You got me a horse?!”

And at confirmation I jumped up and down, gave hugs to my mom and dad, and grabbed the phone to gush to Andi the good news. It wasn’t until later that I realized that was not my most sensitive moment, as Andi was still plagued with the young girls want of a horse of her own. Still, she congratulated me, and agreed to go with me that very afternoon to the place in Draper where my family kept our horses.

She came as “Kandy Delight” – a green-broke four year old chestnut with a blaze and stripe down her nose. But I immediately renamed her “Dark Sunshine” – the heroine-horse of a dusty old book I’d read once.

Sunny, as she was called, was tall, slender, and gorgeous, head strong to a fault, and afraid of everything. She threw me more times than I care to count, and I became an expert at “bailing,” when she would run away with me, or start bucking, or kicking or what have you.

Of all the many times she and I came to odds, two stick out in my mind. One, because my mom still talks about it . . . it must have really scared her. While I remember the event, I don’t feel the trauma about it.

We were riding in a narrow gulch at the very top of Tibble Fork. Sunny, who was afraid of water like it was a snake, refused to cross the six inch wide brook that created the V in the particularly narrow canyon. We were on a deer trail, I remember, and there was no room to maneuver – even to turn around. So I climbed down, jumped across the stream, and started pulling my stubborn horse by the reigns, trying to get her to follow. At last, she cocked her hind legs, took one wild look at me, and leapt . . . like she was jumping a six foot fence, across the stream and on top of me. She threw me to the ground, and I rolled to keep out from under her hooves. After a moment she settled, and I climbed back up on her. My mom watched from above the trail, in apparent terror.

Another time we had brought her home to our house in Holladay, and I was riding her in the baseball field behind our church. I had a saddle on, but rode bare-foot. As I cantered across the field, Sunny decided she was enjoying the stretch, and took off in a full bolt. I lost control of her, and she made a sharp turn. I was thrown off the side – but my foot had slipped through the stirrup. Luckily I grabbed the saddle horn on my way over. I remember her running, full speed across the field, and knowing that if I let go, I would be dragged behind her. I held on for literally dear life, until she winded and slowed.

But not every ride on her was such an adventure. Most of my memories of horse back riding growing up involve lounging in the hot sun, riding bareback on the horses – playing games of tag and keep away, and designing elaborate choreography of circus riding antics. I remember using Sunny as a step ladder to get up into the apple tree in the field behind our house, and I remember riding with Andi into a forest of scrub oak so thick that the saddle was wedged so tight between two trees that it slid off as Sunny kept walking.

One story that Wyatt LOVES to tell when ever he has a listening ear, is the time when we were dating, and he wanted to go horse back riding. We drove to Draper, and Wendy (the person who boarded our horses) directed me to a field across the street to retrieve Sunny. At this point, I like to interject into the story that you must understand, Sunny was TALL for an Arab. So when I entered the field, I grabbed the tall beautiful chestnut and led her back to the arena. Wyatt volunteered to go first, so I handed him the lead rope, tied over as reigns, Wyatt climbed the fence, and jumped on, cowboy style.

And the horse took off Cowboy style too – bucking and broncing, and finally bolting in a dead run around the arena. Wyatt made it half way before he bailed onto the powdery dirt below.

And then Wendy came running out, asking what was I doing?! That wasn’t Sunny you see, it was a two year old gelding that hadn’t yet been broke – hadn’t even had anything on his back before.

Wyatt took it like a man, and cowboy’d up. But I still can’t get him to ride to this day.

(By the way, since Sunny was a TALL Arab at full grown, that two year old, not-finished-growing, but already as tall as Sunny, gelding was going to be HUGE! That’s why I didn’t look to close when I grabbed him from the field).

(Now Wyatt want’s to add his two cents).

I’m going to set the story straight! Andrea has been around horses ALL her life. She has certainly been around Sunny for most of her life. To think that a girl would go out into a pasture and not recognize her own horse, that is female by the way and about 11-12 years old, and instead “mistake” her for a horse she has never seen, that is male and only 2 years old by “accident” is ridiculous. I’m confident that had I chosen to sue Andrea, a jury of her peers would have agreed with me. The thing is, I was whooped! First by having recently met Andrea and of course by hitting the ground at about 78 MPH when the 2 year old gelding that had NEVER had anything on its back before, never broken, finally managed to buck me off him. I had one hand in the air the whole time, bareback, and was riding for well over 8 seconds….and for the record..I was in the process of getting back on the horse, while Andrea said NOTHING, when Wendy came out shouting about us messing with her horse! Not to spoil the ending…but I still pursued her, won her heart, and married that girl with only a small grudge held to this day! Love you babe…….except when you’re a jerk with horses 🙂

Ok, so we need counseling.

I remember in the summer my mom would drive Andi and I up to Park City, and drop us off on the back side to ride across the fields of sage brush, promising to be back in the evening. We’d explore the mountains, only stopping at the barb wire fencing, if we ever found any. Other times we’d camp with the horses, sleeping out under the stars at the top of Nebo Canyon, the horses hobbled and grazing in the fields beside us.

So many adventures were had on the back of the horses growing up.

Today, 20 years and two weeks and four days since my mom handed me that manilla envelope, my mom called.

Wyatt urged me to answer it, (‘she doesn’t usually call this early, it might be an emergency’ he told me) and mom told me that Sunny had colic.

She called me back later that morning to tell me they had put Sunny down.

The last time I was in St. George was last summer, for Thomas’s farewell. It was a whirlwind trip – so much to do in such a short time. But I felt compelled to go see Sunny, to take some pictures of her, and give her a good rub. I was so busy, I almost didn’t go, but I did. I got to see her one last time.

I remember singing to Sunny on those hot dusty afternoons as a kid . . .

Sunny days
Sweepin’ the clouds away
On my way to where the horses play . . .

Riding horses was something I could do without pressure to be or act or look a certain way. I could exude what very little athletic ability I had, and have fun just being a girl growing up . . .

The weight of the world could wait, I was going to ride my horse.