A lot of Dad's stories have horses in them as he rode them often.
For some reason I thought of this when typing the last few stories. When I was a kid I only remember having two horses. Red and Trix. From what I knew Red was a good saddle horse. Trix, I think was just a horse for us kids. We all could ride him with no trouble. I really didn't like to ride but did a few times. Trix always tried to see if he could wipe his rider (or maybe it was just me) off on the haystacks! I wasn't a great rider but I could prevent that.
Dad and Red used to play a game, or it seemed like one to me. Sometimes Red was kept in the pasture just down the hill (it wasn't much of a hill, but that's what we called it) from the lawn. Red hung around down in the *bottom* quite often and sometimes Dad would walk out to the pastures. When he was going over the barbed wire gate, if Red was there he would reach over and grab Dad's cap with his teeth and wave it in the air out of Dad's reach! Eventually he'd let Dad have it.
I remember watching that and thinking it was so funny. I'm guessing Dad didn't mind. He always had great affection for any of his animals.
If anyone wanted to ride Red, they had to ask Dad, because Dad had to ride him first and wear him down some. He was very spirited. But if you were on the ground he was very gentle. I remember if you went into his pasture, he'd run up to you very fast and then come to a complete stop right in front of you. Almost as if he wanted to scare you. Backing up did no good. He wasn't stopping until he was directly in front of you.
I remember once seeing my oldest sister, Myrna, being drug by Red. Her foot was caught in the stirrup as they went past me. She was probably drug at least a quarter of a mile before Red stopped in the driveway of the shop. I'm sure Myrna told me that the saddle started slipping as she was coming back to the house. It spooked Red and he started running. She was lucky in that she only had a broken leg (ankle?) when all was said and done. Bet she was sore though. I was pretty young and don't remember much except for seeing them run by me as I stood by my bike in the drive out to the road.