Some Like It Hot: The Jethro Addition

My love affair with hot horses started at a very young age.  When I was very young my parents tended to keep me on the very old and lazy horses (Twinkle and Spice), but Twinkle was getting old and the long days were hard on her so she was getting phased out.  They didn't like having me ride one horse every day, so they decided to try me on Jethro.

Twinkle (left) and Spice (right)

He was a very solid horse but he hadn't been ridden by kids forever like Twinkle and Spice had.  My mom warned me the very first day I rode him that I could NOT smack him with my reins like I did with the other two.  Keep in mind I am only about four or so my legs are pretty useless for kicking.  So rather than being exhausted in the first 30 minutes from trying to get my horse to keep up, I started using my reins (long split western reins) as a crop and would pop the mares on the butt and they would walk a littler faster.

I am sure you can tell where this is going... I managed to make it about five minutes from the corral before I forgot my mom's warning.  Jethro was lagging behind the group (4-5 adults) and rather than kick to get him to catch up, I popped him with the reins.  He jumped straight into a canter and took off down a brush covered hill past the other horses.  He was jumping some of the bushes.  I finally got him pulled up and my mom caught up with me.

Jethro is the closest one

She asked me if I was ok and I giggled and wanted to do it again.  This was just the start of the antics with this saint of a horse.  I am 100% sure he is the only reason I survived my childhood.

Another day, my parents were working in a hay field a mile or two from the house and my sister and I were at the house.  There were some hunters that stopped to talk to them.  One of the hunters asked if they knew who owned the horses that were up the road a ways.  My mom said that they owned them and asked why.  The hunter said well there appears to be a little red headed girl running them up and down the road and they were concerned because they couldn't see a saddle or a bridle on the horse.

Jethro (right) was such a cool guy

Yep that was me...I was too small to be able to saddle or bridle the horse but I could bribe him over to rocks and scramble on bareback.  He was a saint and would stop gently if I started to get off balance and let me steer by tugging on his mane.  I was in a lot of trouble that day because I had all of the horses hot and sweaty by the time they got back to the house.  I learned about cooling horses out that day.

As a kid, he was always my favorite horse and so many of my best childhood memories have him in them.