The Princess trades a fish for a horse

Having been somewhat traumatized by my fly fishing experience, which probably caused some trauma to our guide as well, we decided to take a leisurely horse ride in the hills of western Maryland. I was soon reminded of the unique mathematical phenomenon that you must take into account if you are not used to riding: One hour spent on a horse translates into three days of not being able to sit down. And electing to take a boat tour after riding might mean you will not be able to walk completely straight for a few hours afterward. The Hero, not greatly afflicted by either of these maladies, was amused at my not being able to walk OR sit for a while.


My horse's name was Cupcake, probably because the name "Horse that Has Gone Over to the Dark Side" would have been too long. But it would have been more appropriate. Cupcake ignored the well-trodden path all the other horses were dutifully following, preferring instead to pick her way through the most overgrown and rocky sections of field alongside the path. At various times she would, without warning, break into a trot, which felt like a full gallop straight down the hillside.


Usually guides will tell you this sort of thing about a horse: "Ha, ha! Yep, Jasper there is quite a practical joker!" As you ponder what this might mean, you suddenly feel yourself leaving Jasper's backside and note that you are heading toward a clump of bushes. "Oh," you say to yourself as you go sailing through the air. "THAT kind of practical joke."


But our guide told us nothing about our horses other than their names. Cupcake took advantage of this ignorance, and of our position at the end of the short line of riders, to carry out her mischief. Knowing from previous experience that a rider must be firm with a horse, I tried to rein her in when she got too far off the beaten path. She retaliated by taking me as close to trees as she could, and probably poison ivy as well, and staying very close to the edges of cliffs. With that, we firmly established who was in charge: not me.


At one point we walked directly into a tree. The guide finally turned around to see what was going on, probably tipped off by my yelling, "I might need some assistance here!" Seeing me extracting tree limbs from my person, she scolded Cupcake, but without really meaning it. "See?" Cupcake whinnied. "You can't get ME in trouble. I have immunity."


I tried talking to Cupcake in an assertive yet friendly voice, figuring that if it supposedly worked for black bears, it should work for a horse. Of course you are not sitting on a black bear when you try out this voice. 


Near the end of our ride, where the trail split into a low road and a high road, every other horse kept to the low road. Cupcake veered upward, where the trail, I assumed, probably ended abruptly at the edge of a cliff.


"See, down there?" I said to Cupcake in my assertive yet friendly voice, pointing to where the other horses calmly trod. "That's where WE'RE supposed to be."


The horse looked directly at the other path and made an independent decision to keep right on going. If there WAS a cliff edge where we were headed, no doubt she wanted me to experience the view from it, like a valley strewn with the bones of her previous riders.


At that point I had one last piece of knowledge about what to do with a stubborn horse, and I put it into action immediately: I let Cupcake do whatever she wanted. Fortunately for me, that was to go back to the stable. Before we got off and limped away to our car, the Hero and I paused for someone to take a picture of us on our mounts ("Duke and the Hero," "Cupcake and Her Prey"). I have not yet looked at the photo, but I know Cupcake is grinning.