Hold Your Horses...Tightly

Here in Iceland, horses are kind of a big deal. Icelandic horses are a breed of their own: smaller in size and built thicker than normal horses that we are used to. They are really really beautiful to look at, and normally very friendly. Other cool things - if you take an Icelandic horse to any kind of horse competition worldwide, it will automatically win. The catch is that you can never bring it back into the country, because Icelanders don’t want the other Icelandic horses to be contaminated with disease or by cross-breeding. They even have a special walk that no other horses in the world can do.

Horses are everywhere here, and because it is me, I’ve had a few tragic encounters with them.

In my blog post titled “On the Up-and-Up” (I think that’s what it was called?) I told you about the really long hike that my host parents took Megan and me on. What I failed to mention was the crucial 10 minutes before the hike started where we were waiting around doing nothing while our host parents and their friends got situated and ready to go. We were standing outside a gorgeous little farmhouse in the middle of a fjord with no other houses around us. They had somewhere around 12 horses chilling in the wire fenced in area right next to the barn. They were so pretty, and I had already a magical experience with these fancy Icelandic horses.

(Pause for magical experience: my host parents took Megan and me for a drive one night during our first week here, and we randomly hopped out of the car before we were about to head home right next to a gate where around 15 horses were grazing probably about 100 meters away. These horses recognized my host dad, Kristian, because he is the cousin of the horses’ owner. Also, Helga has been there many a time because she loves these horses. We got out of the car, and immediately the horses started running towards us – no fear whatsoever. When we got inside the gate, they all came right up in our faces because they wanted attention. So I was petting four horses at a time and it was heavenly. I thought that nothing could possibly go wrong with these new Icelandic horses.)

Unpause, because this is a story about me, Charlie Kristine Brickner, and somehow unlucky, and often embarrassing, occurrences always find their way into my life. No magic in these next couple of stories.

So there we were, outside this beautiful lonely little farmhouse, with nothing to do but twiddle our thumbs. Orrrrr, as I thought in that moment, I could go pet the pretty horseys over there in that wire fenced in area because I love these beautiful animals.

I’ll tell this next part in third person for the effect:

So Charlie went over to the pretty horseys and was petting them all nice. There were three of them that walked right up to her as she approached, and she was so so excited that she wanted to get as close to the horseys as possible. She was petting them for a couple minutes and was very content with life. She inched closer to the fence. As she did, she noticed the horses all jolt simultaneously, backing away from Charlie’s hand. And then not long after that, Charlie’s head got all fuzzy and she couldn’t feel her fingers or remember where she was.

Yeah. My dumb butt put my legs right up against an electric horse fence, with the key word there being electric, and shocked the three horses I was petting. At first I thought, “Oh cool, maybe this is a superhero kind of moment and I’ll be like a horse whisperer or something!”

Turns out the effect was quite the opposite.

Remember those horses from my magical encounter? They come back here as crucial characters.

On Sunday, my host parents went to the central northern part of Iceland for a family reunion and a 25 kilometer running race that they were competing in (both of them did really well!). That meant that Megan and I were home in the apartment all weekend long with nothing to do (except study – and we actually did that). Our host parents felt pretty bad about having to leave us home by ourselves, so Kristian set up horseback riding for us with his cousin, who owns 2 of the 15ish horses we met when we pet horses for the first time on that car ride.

Some important pieces of information that I wish I had before getting on this horse:

1. Kristian’s cousin knows minimal English. For example, “hold on tight”, “don’t panic”, “this horse hates people except for me”, and “this horse is a little s*** so this might not be the best idea” apparently weren’t in his vocabulary!

2. Kristian’s cousin is very shy and awkward. So in tough situations, he often conveniently says, and does, NOTHING helpful whatsoever!

3. As foreshadowed in number 1, my horse, Prince, hates people except for Kristian’s cousin and is a little s***.

I think this story is best told in first person, so we’re going to hang out in this point of view for right now.

Our journey started when we got a knock on the apartment door at around 7 pm on Sunday. Kristian’s cousin waited for us to put our shoes on and we headed down to his car.

His car. You know, when you’re getting into someone’s car who you don’t know that well, often times you don’t check out the situation as you are getting into the car too closely because you don’t want to be rude. It isn’t until after you are in the car and settled that you notice the messiness or the trash or what have you. This car, however, was some sort of Jeep that reeked of manure even before you opened the door. I don’t know, nor do I want to know, how much animal hair or other things I had on the back of my jeans when I stood up. So I just held my breath for 20 minutes in silence (awkward guy, remember?) and listened to the sound of the horseshoes clanking around my feet (that’s a real detail of the story, not just one for effect).

We get to the field where the horses are, and Kristian’s cousin immediately hops out of the Jeep and starts calling the horses over. This is where I should’ve started picking up the warning flags. This guy owns some of these horses, he has food with him, and yet none of them even start coming over. When we were there the other day, they RAN over to us. That was bad sign number one.

Finally, they pick up what he is putting down and the horses come over to this fenced in area. The cousin starts coaxing and fencing in a couple of them and the rest go back to grazing where they were before. Then, I stepped in horse poo. Bad sign number two.

The cousin shows us which horses are ours (one for me, one for Megan). Mine is a brown and white horse named Prince. First thing he did when I met him was bite my jacket. Bad sign number three.

Megan and I pet our respective horses until the cousin gets them all saddled up and ready to go. My horse, Prince, was not happy with the whole saddle business. He wanted no part of it. That was bad sign number four.

Then we had to get on these horses. Bad sign number five: when I got on, the cousin had to hold my horse back and comfort him because you could tell he wasn’t happy about it.

And finally, bad sign number six was when we were practicing stopping and turning with our horses in the little fenced in area and Prince was booking it around this place. The cousin would say, “Go in a circle,” and Prince would take off. I said to the cousin, “He’s going so fast, why is that?” Megan’s horse was behaving perfectly fine. He just said “Yesyes” and nothing else. BAD. SIGN.

The cousin decided we were ready for the big leagues and opened the gate to the road that we drove in on. Immediately after that gate opened, my horse started running full speed. And he didn’t stop for about 4-5 terrifying minutes where no effort to stop or turn him was working. I debated jumping off onto the gravel road below, but you don’t realize how high you are on a horse until you’re really up there. I kept asking my horse to stop, but he just said “Nei” (Icelandic jokes y’all).  So I just held on for dear life.

Finally, we got to a turning around point and Prince responded to me pulling the reins out to the side and did a turn around, only to sprint (yet again) the whole way back to his owner. Where was the owner this whole time? Yeah, that’s what I was wondering too.

I was a shaking mess when I got off that horse, and it took everything in me not to immediately start crying. I have never been so scared before in my entire life, and I will not soon forget that feeling.

But that’s sad! So let’s rewind and shift point of view.

Annnd the gate is open…And there goes Prince…he’s running…heee’s running…he’s looking good out there!…but his rider isn’t looking so great….she’s a small female…looks quite inexperienced…bouncing around quite a LOT out there…but Prince is looking great!...he’s still running!...annd he makes the turn…and he’s coming back!....He’s coming in hot!...annnd he makes it back to the gate in record timeee…

Or here's a different point of view for you: 

I *gasp* JUST *gasp* WANT *gasp* TO *gasp* RUNNNN!! WOOOOO HOOO!!

(that was Prince if you couldn't tell)

Back at the gate, Megan and the cousin were pretending to be concerned on the outside, but internally laughing hysterically. As I would be too, I wish somebody got this whole thing on video. How can you not laugh at it, it is just such a Charlie thing to happen. And apparently, Megan thought I did it on purpose for a while, so I must have looked pretty darn good up there.

So the takeaway from this is…NEVER tell any horse riding instructor that you have gone riding before. He will for sure give you the bad horse.

Annnd there goes my horse whisperer theory.