Not an amusement-park ride— but a horseback riding venue in a state park (Shelby Forest) when I was ten years old. Camp Fire Girls started accepting boys that year and I joined maybe the only boy who ever did in the 1970s and because there weren’t enough horses for me to ride with the girls, I was the odd ‘man’ out and, determined not to be deprived— was to ride the trail alone after everyone else came back.
But it was time for the horses to eat dinner, and the horses didn’t WANT to be ridden on the trail after five P.M, and any horse out there would resent his rider and want to get back as soon as possible and depose of the rider by any means necessary
When I got on, people kept telling me to pull the reins to slow the horse down. But damn the commands, so thought the horse. The horse charged ahead bouncing me violently—I pretended to be tough and like I enjoyed it.
For several miles of a wooded, hilly area, this horse ran as quickly and violently as possible, and took every opportunity to scrape me off with tree branches. It even attempted to throw me off in ravines. Any relatively straight stretch of the trail, this horse ran/galloped as fast as it was physically able—probably not touching the ground more than touching. It wanted to get home and eat. I was ten years old, frail, and gentle, This horse wanted to complete the ride as quickly as possible to get home and eat, with the other horses.
I finally did get thrown in the home stretch and had to walk about twenty minutes uphill-downhill before meeting the entourage from the end of the trail who had come searching for me. There were no cell phones in those days, so those who began from the beginning of the trail had to walk the entire trail—almost two hours, before discovering that I had been found. I was battered and bruised and scratched up quite a bit from branches and bark. I had a back injury but nothing serious. I do not believe horses really intend to hurt people, but in a state park, horses obviously get quite a bit of abuse and probably see their riders as a burden rather than real people they relate to and can actually harm.
I wasn’t angry or resentful as I might be nowadays. But realized even then that I would always have a story to tell about.