Horseback Riding
By: Robert Carlson
Tags: Stables, Creek, Summer Camp, Horses, Pittsburgh

Horseback Riding

Vignettes of Growing up in Oakland

Summers in Oakland held so many amazing things to do. Running around and meeting up with school friends with a few coins in your pocket resulted in treasured memories that seem to be able to withstand the passage of time and the sometimes ravages of aged memory loss. It seems to be the more recent memories which become fugitive first. Impromptu days dominated those years but there were parental planned activities too.

Two horses in the stable

One such activity centered on the Schenley Riding Stables. Deep within the city park was a riding stable and a bridle path snaking down into Panther hollow. At this obscure little amenity my sisters and I first learned horseback riding. It was a cultured thing to do in my mother’s mind. She liked things such as that. Not only did we learn all the aspects of riding but we had to dress for the part. Jodhpurs, white shirt and a black metal helmet, the kind with a chin strap and a button on top to complete the image of English gentry. I hated it. Loved the horses and riding, but the outfit was an embarrassment to me.

Riding was English Style: a saddle with no horn to hold on to; double reins to hold in a specific way; posting to match the horse’s gait. That all seemed silly to me. Cowboys would not be caught dead wearing the jodhpurs and helmet standing up and sitting down in the saddle. A walk, a run, trotting but never a gallop. No real fun.

After learning the essentials of equine pursuits, we headed down the bridle trail into the deep verdant valley on the black earthen road which meandered around Schenley Park. At the bottom we were allowed to trot for a short distance before reducing back to a painfully (for me) walk.

Grey Ghost was the horse assigned to me. She set the record straight early on by ducking her head and throwing me onto the muddy ground, jodhpurs and all. I was pissed and ready to call it quits when the Instructor demanded I get back up and prove I was the boss. I was admonished that if I didn’t get right back on, I never would. So I did. Grey Ghost treated me different after that.

Schenley Park was only the first of the places for riding back in those summer days. My mother found Windy Hill Riding Stables in the North Hills somewhere. There we honed our riding skills, still bearing the suit of English style riding. They had many more acres of trails to ride and a stable of horses who had an attitude. Molly embodied her name. She was persnickety, as they said, and needed a firm hand. With my prior experience (and hers) we managed to learn to jump rails and hedges while staying firmly together.

Summer camp entered my life in that same decade. The YMCA Camp Kon-o-Kwee became my usual haunt during the summer. They had Western style horseback riding! I knew my way around both ends of horses by then and managed to get assigned to stable duty the second summer I was there.

Horses were always trying, ultimately in vein, to show they were boss. In the corral located in the low meadow of the camp, campers rode around in circles to essentially “get a taste of horseback riding.” All the other boys were “tenderfeet”. I knew everything. Knowing everything amounted to naught when the horse was being a silly bugger and ornery. I hoisted myself into the saddle and prepared for the endless circling on the enclosure. My horse decided that moment was the exact perfect one to lie down. He or she, I don’t recall which, did a slow motion dip and roll. I ended up with my leg trapped in the stirrup under the ribcage of this massive beast. The soft earth beneath the two of us saved me from physical injury, but the problem was how to get the horse up and off my leg while I was still lying on the ground fuming.

The Corral Instructor had a procedure for this even though I suspect the occurrence was rare. He loosened the cinches while his assistant held the horse’s head against the ground. When the saddle was free of the horse the let it jump up while pulling me away from under my shoulders.

With nothing hurt but my pride, they told me to get the horse saddled again and to catch up to the rest of the group. They were laughing at me, but mime was last. They got a short ride around a side meadow adjacent to Conoquenessing Creek and back to the corral. After that day, I had secured the position of riding the horses down from the barn before breakfast and back up again in the evening.

Looking Out at Life

Sure the duty included shoveling the manure and placing new hay. But it included feeding and currying them and riding twice daily with an open gallop when they felt like it on the way home to their stalls and a bucket of oats.

One summer the ultimate equine experience topped off my summer at that camp. We did an overnight ride to some obscure campsite along the Creek. The snorting of breath made billows of condensation in the morning air. Other boys were returning from their canoe trips upstream. We were kings.