Sweet Mama came from a line of champion race horses including Little Request a thoroughbred who in 1975 was the leading living sire of Quarter Horse racing register of merit qualifiers. Sweet Mama's great, great grand sire was Do Good who produced the most famous racing quarter horses ever to run in America. Sweet Mama's dam was Viking Lady whose sire was Viking Victory whose sire was Coletown who ran second to Citation in the Triple Crown Derby. Sweet Mama was never raced. I trained her to be a Western pleasure horse. At age 20, she was as fast and spunky as ever. I bred her to a racing Arabian stallion, and the foal is a filly named Sweet September. I spend my free time training Sweet September. She is a handful as was Sweet Mama when she was young.
I saddled three year old Sweet September and rode her to a creek behind my house in Vista, California. The horse stopped at the edge of the creek and refused to cross the narrow strip of water. I used the reins to slap her rump, and my heels pressed her flanks to coax her. After more coaxing she jumped the creek and galloped up the bank. She ran under the overhanging branches of live oak trees. I ducked and held my head low to avoid hitting solid, thick limbs that I knew were under the tree. I had passed safely under the tree many times. This time my head was not quite low enough. The top of my head struck a ten inch diameter limb of the tree.
The force of the blow knocked off my hat and skinned the top of my scalp. I was thrown to the left. I grabbed the saddle horn, and the loose saddle cinch allowed the saddle to rotate to the left side of the running horse. I let go of the saddle and landed hard in a patch of poison oak. I managed to hold a rein and keep the frightened filly from running away, but she dragged me through the poison oak. I felt dazed and could feel wetness on my head. I rubbed my hand over the top of my head and was relieved not to see blood on my hand. My head seemed wet with blood. I had a headache, my head hurt and I thought my head must be bleeding. I wiped my head again and was surprised to see only a small smear of blood on my hand.
I coaxed the nervous horse back under the tree to recover my cap. The saddle hung under the horse's belly, and Sweet September danced around making it difficult for me to reposition the saddle on her back. With difficulty I mounted while we were still under the great oak. We rode up the hillside away from home. I felt unsteady. After a hundred yards we turned back, jumped the creek and returned home. I felt like I had enjoyed enough adventure for one day.
One thing about riding spirited horses is this. You never know when you are liable to have a little excitement. At home, Barbara ordered me to remove my tainted poison oak clothing and take a bath.
In 1997 Sweet September provided me with another adventure. She became frightened while I was teaching her to let me throw a lasso rope. I tied the rope to the saddle horn and threw the rope to uncork the rope and make it easier to open the lasso. When I started coiling the rope she spooked and took off running a hundred yards to a fence where she whirled around and ran back the way she had come. As she turned, I decided to bail off. I reached for the fence as I slipped out of the saddle. My left hand was just short of the top rail, and I landed hard on my left hip. The ground was hard, and I was aware of sharp pain. The horse was moving at a run dragging the lariat rope behind her. The loop of the rope caught my right foot around my ankle and gave me the hardest jerk I have ever had in my life. The rope ripped my shoe off and the shoe landed twenty feet away from me, but at least the rope came off saving me from worse injuries if I had been dragged. The instant pain in my ankle was all I could bear. I was dazed as I watched Sweet September run back behind my house.
I sat on the ground and moaned and cussed for a minute before crawling to the shoe and putting it on with some difficulty. I knew my ankle was injured, but there was no blood on my white sock. I unleashed the shoe lace and carefully put the shoe on. I was able to limp to my back yard to where Sweet September stood trembling with her saddle pulled clear under her belly. I took the saddle off and put it back on. Then I rode the horse for a minute to calm her down before putting her out to pasture.
In the house I washed my skinned ankle with soap and water and put on clean white socks to keep the wounds clean. I was awake most of the night with stabbing pains in my right ankle. My wife Barbara asked me, but I wouldn't go see a doctor. I looked at the skinned wounds where the rope had caught me, and felt the wounds would heal if kept clean. I continued walking with a limp for a week. Then I felt sick, my right foot swelled up and the skin turned red for an inch around the scabs. If a red streak had run up my leg I would have been scared of the infection. Reluctantly I agreed to go to Kaiser Permanente for emergency care, intravenous and oral antibiotics, and keep my foot elevated above my heart for another week. I decided to stop playing cowboy for a while.
A young doctor had my ankle X-rayed and my blood tested. He had a nurse bandage my ankle with an antibiotic ointment, gave me antibiotic by intravenous, and sent us home with enough equipment for Barbara to give me five more doses over a five day period. They left a tube in my vein to make it easier for us. The doctor also gave me oral antibiotic capsules enough to last for ten days. I was told to keep my foot elevated above my heart. I did it by sitting in a recliner watching television or reading with my right foot propped up.
I was a good boy, and I stayed in the house most of the time. I read Treasure Island, David Copperfield, Madame Curie, and Call of the Wild. I watched many good movies on T. V. and left the house only to do grocery shopping or to manage problems in our two retirement homes. Barbara drove me to Escondido and to Mira Costa to see doctors, and we went out to eat a few times.
After two weeks of rest, antibiotics, and daily dressing changes, the two inch hard black scab on my ankle looked better and was reduced to less than an inch. A Stoma Therapist from our office used forceps, tweezers and a scalpel to remove the hard scab. The next day the wound showed excellent improvement and continued to heal over the next few days.
When I was seventy one I was riding Sweet September next door on hard dirt. She shied at a piece of paper, spun around to the left while I was leaning to the right, and I fell straight down to the hard ground. As I fell, I realized I needed to roll on the ground to prevent injuries. I turned my body to the right side while I was in the air, but I fell straight down with no momentum for a good roll. I landed on my right hip and apparently broke a couple of ribs and bruised my right hip.
The next day X-rays showed fractured ribs so I came home to rest, taking some pain killers. Two weeks later my right upper chest caused so much pain I was hospitalized two days. I thought the pain was from my heart, but all they found was a small aortic aneurism.
My wife wanted me to sell or give September away. I agreed at first. Then as weeks passed I remembered all the fun I have had with Sweet September. I started working with her from the ground and found she remembered how to count with her right front hoof, and she would walk next to me like a dog without using a lead line. She turned left and right moving her head when we turned right. She kept her head next to my right shoulder and did not try to out walk me. Then I hired a professional rodeo cowboy to work with her. After two lessons the cowboy said she was easy to ride, turned and stopped well, and he didn't feel she needed lessons.
I started riding her in the horse ring at first and later, in my yard on the grass and she behaved fine. A teenage girl and her mother visited us from France for two weeks. The girl loved to ride horses bareback, so I let her ride September in the ring and they trotted or galloped around in both directions. September seemed to like having the pretty girl ride her. One day I rode Sweet Mama who is Sweet September's mother and the girl rode September. We rode in our field next door and suddenly Sweet September wheeled and ran back to my house. The girl fell off, but the ground was sloped and she rolled, so the fall did not injure her. She got back on the horse and rode some more in the ring but not out there where she fell off. I decided to keep riding September but only in my large front and back yard. I didn't know how to stop her from wheeling when she got scared.
Yesterday I put a small pony saddle on her and spent an hour giving horse back rides to two seven year old granddads of mine. After riding with the saddle they asked to ride bareback. Then they asked to see her count. Using her right front hoof September told us how old she was by counting up to nine. The kids smiled. I smiled too as I turned Sweet September out to pasture.