The horse looked at me like I was a moron. Of course, my decision to wear green Pumas to a rodeo didn’t speak to my intelligence.
Within a few minutes, the horse was so confused by my presence it decided on its own to head back to the stable at Parsons Stadium in Springdale.
We made it perhaps 50 feet before the horse realized it was best to ignore me and just return to where it had spent the past few hours doing nothing. All I could do was hold on and accept I had been outsmarted by an animal.
My only time on the back of a horse lasted a little longer than it took Smarty Jones to win the 2004 Kentucky Derby.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. How could I in good conscience cover the Rodeo of the Ozarks without ever riding a horse? I had at least driven a car by the time I covered the Daytona 500 a decade ago.
My first idea was to attempt to ride a bull — a small one, of course. However, after being told enough horror stories of people busting their faces on the back of a bull, I altered my plan.
A horse seemed safer, though the ride didn’t turn out much better.
A few years later, my riding experience amounts to that one failed attempt to give instructions to a horse so well-trained it was deemed perfect for a first-timer from New York. The horse owner didn’t know a fool was getting on the back of her horse.
The Rodeo of the Ozarks returns this week to Springdale, and again I’ll help cover it. That gives me a few days to get back on a horse and try not to embarrass myself — or the horse.
This time I won’t wear green Pumas.
In the past few years, I’ve walked around Parsons Stadium and hidden the fact the children competing in mutton busting have more riding experience than me.
I’ve spent hours watching barrel racers, bareback riders and steer wrestlers dart around the rodeo on an animal I couldn’t control. They make it look easy, and none of the horses seem to ignore their riders.
They look to be in unison unlike my horse from a few years ago. It stared blankly at me as if I had asked it to deal a hand of poker while singing a Spanish love ballad.
What makes it even worse is my wife is an experienced rider who spent much of her childhood on a family horse ranch in Oklahoma. She cleaned horses and cared for them. She attended rodeos and rode around in a pickup truck with a horse trailer attached to the back.
Whenever we watch a Western film, I turn to her and ask, “OK, so what kind of horse is that?”
Still, I can’t ride.
It was apparent a few years ago I couldn’t lead a horse to water or kick its sides hard enough to get it to move forward. I was too worried about hurting it. Clearly, not everyone is cut out to compete in rodeos.
Unless I’m not too big for mutton busting.
Alex Abrams is the assistant sports editor for NWA Media.