A Pony and a Cart

I grew up in a house in the country. We had a long paved driveway with horse pastures on each side. One year on my brother's birthday, my mom's friend brought over her pony and cart to give rides to the party guests. But guess who was most impressed? Me. I was in love with that pony and cart. I have thought about that for about 40 years now and have always wanted a pony cart of my very own. I never did achieve that. Sure we've always had ponies and horses but never a carting pony. And I just couldn't get it out of my mind. Last year at Christmas my brother surprised our family with all of our home movies put on DVDs and there it was again...that beautiful pinto pony pulling the cart....with me hanging all over it.

My neighbor grew up with a pony and a cart and every chance she gets she tells me about when her pony freaked out and crashed the cart into the fence. She expresses that feeling of being out of control and not being able to stop. And apparently everyone I meet has a horror story of some kind involving a pony cart. The gal at the fruit stand at the end of our road had Shoshone, a white, old as dirt pony that pulled a cart for 20 years up and down our road when one day she freaked out (that's always the word they use, freaked) and jumped into the path of an oncoming car. The car hit the pony and she went through the windshield. The gal that was in the cart broke her shoulder but fortunately the pony was fine. When the man in the car called the next day to see how things were the gal said, "Oh my daughter and I are fine." He said, "Not you, I'm wondering about the pony."

My other horse friend told me about a friend of hers that spent months in the hospital after a pony she was showing "freaked" and she got tangled in the cart and was drug for sometime.

So when I saw that Sunny was cart trained I was a little excited but wondering if I had the courage to ride in a cart after all of these stories of good ponies gone bad. I decided I would just see if he would ground drive in spite of the fact that I have no equipment for that. So I hooked a long line on both side of his halter and took him out on the road (away from the lure of green grass) and got behind him and told him to "Walk on" clucking a little with my tongue. And sure enough he did. We went a little way and I clucked a little more and he settled into a nice trot with me trotting after him with a huge grin on my face. What fun! We went flying up the road. As I neared the piece of property that Hubby was clearing I screamed his name to come out and see.....I was driving my pony! We drove up the road and back again. As I was about to the pasture I saw Long Winded Louie walking up the road and had to slow down and be neighborly and say hello. Louie said, " Hey, my daughter used to show P.O.A.s and we had a cute covered wagon that one use to pull and one day in the middle of a parade he "freaked" and went running for the crowd. If it wasn't for a quick thinking bystander that grabbed the bridle that darn pony and wagon would have been all over that crowd. I'd never have another pony and cart."

Talk about raining on my parade. So I don't know if I'll drive a cart or not. For now I just might be happy with my feet on the ground running behind my pony.