FOR LOVE OF A HORSE
Rex Burress
You see people riding horses on the many trails around Oroville, and they have a pleased look as if proud of their steed...and their ability to ride loosely in the saddle of life!
Horse riders have the advantage of effortless exploring and seeing the woodlands while sitting, but there is that balance-and-mounting condition to contend with, as well as tending your horse, transportation, and stable issues. Most riders are also horse lovers and find joy in caring for their friend...to the tune of big bucks [dollars]!
Feather River Nature Center president Becky Smith is a horse lover and now has her own horse! Becky said, “My dream was to have a horse when I retired from teaching,” and the lithe lady now has “Hot Bubbles“ to provide for and love, even riding the beautiful Bay when time allows to put on the saddle, padding, buckling the saddle into place, and putting on the bridle with the 'bit' pulled into the munching mammal's mouth!
Of course, then comes the mounting, and preparing to sit there a good distance from the ground in hopes one doesn't get thrown off! Peter Maki, prominent Oroville leader who spear-headed the creation of the Feather River Nature Center in 1997, retired to a central Missouri farm, where he and his wife Cindy obtained horses. Cindy's horse was spooked by something on the trail and bolted, throwing her and causing some broken bones. Well...you can fall off a bicycle, too, or even falter and fall on foot! Be a watcher in all aspects of activity!
How did all this horse stuff start? Of course, the 300 kinds of domestic horses today had a wild evolutionary background revealed in fossils, just as all living species have some lengthy history. The horse ancestor was a dog-sized, multi-toed forest creature about 55-million-years-ago (mya), named Eohippus, and there were up to 14 similar families. Only three families advanced--horse, tapir, rhinoceros—and about 5 mya, the horse became Equus ferus, the hoofed ungulate we know today.
There are about ten million total domestic horses in America presently and about 59 million in the world. The approximately 67,000 “wild” horses on Federal American plains today are feral escaped domestics, and the issue of habitat versus horses is being emotionally debated.
The domestication of wild horses started about 4000 BC in Asia. Mysteriously, the small prehistoric horse in America became extinct about 10,000-years-ago not to appear again until the modern Equus horse was introduced into the America's with the Spanish explorers. Escaped horses thrived and became beneficial to Native Americans, cowboys and early explorers as 'beasts of burden.' Amerindians were indeed afoot before becoming excellent bare-back riders.
All this horse history aside, I do have some experience with horses back on the Missouri farm in the 1940's. Dad tended his 100 acres with a team of well-trained horses, and I brought in the milk cows from the bottomland on my pinto 'Ranger.' From that higher vantage point I was once able to reach two Luna Moths on a tree branch, and I thought I had discovered a new species, but Smithsonian set me right! Then there was the time when I rode the game warden's horse bare-back across a flood channel to rescue stranded cattle!
Dad pampered those work horses, a blond-colored team able to pull the cornfield harvest wagon at voice-command as Dad husked and threw ears of corn against the backboard. The team did all a tractor could do—and didn't spew fuel on the soil or pound the ground down! The deposits they left helped things grow! Those two were pampered with daily currying, grain mixtures, and choice alfalfa in their barn stalls. Putting on the harness was a complex job, but they pulled everything: wagons, grading sled, plow, cultivator, mower, sulkey rake, and I led one to pull the hay stacker.
Those are stories that need more space, just as horses helped carry settlers into the great open space of the western frontier. Horses are rode largely for pleasure now and are voted the world's fourth favorite animal behind the tiger, dog, and dolphin! But they are still used for agricultural work and cattle herding, with about 27-million used in Africa. What is there that doesn't love a horse!
“A horse is the projection of people's dreams about themselves—strong, powerful, beautiful—and it has the
capability of giving us escape from our mundrane existence.” --Pam Brown
“It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.” --Mark Twain