When You Ride a Borrowed Horse

When you ride a borrowed horse
At a bird dog field trial
You are thirty seconds away
From a mishap

Unless the horse beneath you
Is that rare breed that protects you
From your own ineptitude

As itinerant farrier Howard Wood said truthfully of me
“You just do not look right on a horse”

That condemnation stung
But I could not deny it
For some including me
Do not have the grace or talent
To adorn an equine neath their loins

But by the time ole Howard
Let loose with that harsh line
I was ready to retire
From field trial reporting aboard an equine
After three decades attempting

And each season colliding
With the hard ground on some occasion
Due to my own graceless way
Of horseback riding

But it never happened when
I rode one of these guardians
Mounts with instinct to know I required a keeper
To protect me from myself

There was Leonard at Chinquapin
And John Russell’s Scooter at Paducah
Later Ferrel Miller’s ancient Trigger
And Greg St John’s older-still tall bay

But the best guardian mounts of all
Bomb-proof and stump-hole seeing
Were a pair supplied me at Coney Lake
By Luke Weaver my favorite trialing partner-in-crime

They were big and strong like Luke
Cross twixt Walker and Percheron
Bred big to carry Luke
But safe so safe for me
With a rocking-chair slow lope,

Their names were Pete and Cochise
And I loved them much as Luke did
Cause a mount that will protect you
From your own ineptitude
Is like a kind grandmother you remember
From your childhood