The Beauty to Riding Breakers

Today I rode Wilbur, my 3 year old breaker. It was, shall we say, a bit of an adventure. For the past week or two we have been doing a lot of yard work so I have had very little time in the saddle to split between my 5 horses. As a result, young Wilbur has been out to pasture for a few weeks and today had forgotten much of what we had covered previously – namely focusing on the job and not your friends, and not throwing temper tantrums at work.

We started the day tailing cattle – leading a mob of cows that had been penned in the yards out to graze in the paddock for a few hours before returning them to the yards. This is a fairly low key activity and is usually Wilbur speed, but today he was just not in the mood. He was stubborn and fussy and cried out constantly to the other horses. However, we made it through 4 or 5 hours of calmly herding cows, including riding in the lead, the rear, and as point – all more challenging positions than simply the wing and all new for Wilbur.

Then, at about 1:30, with ominous clouds sweeping in from the south, Cameron drove up and reassigned us. Instead of lazily following cattle, we would be moving 1,500 heifers back to the house yards – a trip that would take several kilometers and several hours. Not only that, but unlike the doughy cows we had been moving all morning, these heifers were feisty and pushy. To top it off, once the motorbikes and chopper had gathered the cattle in from the holding paddock, it started raining, a slow, steady drizzle. Needless to say, these were not optimal conditions for Wilbur on his best day, and, let’s be honest, this was not his best day. Not by a long shot.

With the mob all gathered, Adam, our head stockman, said “Jena, take the lead.” A whole muster riding lead! I haven’t ridden lead for a muster on ANY horse, let alone Wilbur. I was stoked! I gathered my reins, urged my steed full speed ahead and then… disaster. Wilbur lost his mind. He reared and whinnied, he kicked and spun, and then he learned his new favorite trick – he took the bit in his mouth and violently shook his head. With this one moment’s outburst, the whole tone of the day changed. Suddenly I was demoted back to the wing, and instead of riding a charmingly inexperienced breaker, I was seated on a monster.

Although the drive went well, Wilbur’s mood did not improve, and he spent the whole afternoon pitching a fit. Imagine a 2 year old going to pieces in the floor of a grocery store. Most of it was manageable and we were able to get our work done in spite of him. After a few hours of this, with the cattle moving smoothly, we reached the point in the drive where the road passes through thick scrub. After only a few minutes of this, Wilbur thrashed his head so hard that his bridle was thrown forward off his ears and was left with only the bit dangling from his mouth. Suddenly I was riding a half trained, unbridled breaker in the bush. With images of me being run off with helplessly, I leapt off my horse and grabbed the reins around his neck. It seems like I saw it happening even before it did, and, as I pleaded “No, no, no!” Wilbur reared up, broke away from my grasp, and bolted. He didn’t just run off into the bush though. That would have been bad enough. No, my horse burst into the mob of cattle, setting them into a gallop and scattering them into the bush.

There I was, on foot, bridle in hand, alone in the bush, swearing profusely. Within a few minutes Adam rode up, following the stream of profanities. “It happens,” he said. “That’s the beauty to riding breakers.”

I spent a few minutes walking behind the mob, watching the helicopter sweep up the debris and listening to Adam and the other horsemen mending my mistakes. As I watched, Fonzie, the chopper pilot, swooped back around the tail of the recollected mob, and settled in the road in front of me, shaking his head and laughing. He then pulled out a second headset and pushed open the passenger side door. In a few short seconds, my whole day turned around. Suddenly, instead of being the idiot who loses her horse and has to walk home, I'm the idiot who gets to fly!

We spent the next hour watching the progress of the work below, first as the long line of white cattle filed down the red dirt road and pooled at the fence line waiting to be let through the gate, and then the drama as Adam and Jesse, the top hand, tried to catch my renegade mount. Clearly Wilbur was pleased with the freedom he had stolen, and he gave them the run around for at least half an hour - coming just out of reach and then dashing off again. In addition, Fonzie pointed out landmarks that I had only ever seen from ground level and showed off a little with his chopper, zooming down on cattle in an adjacent paddock, hovering just above the swishing treetops, and climbing high into the air so I could get the full view of the landscape.

Later that evening I had to go to the Rec Club and sheepishly apologize and profusely thank everyone who had helped retrieve my horse. In the end they simply added him to the herd of cattle and drove him to the house yards with the rest of them where they were then able to catch and unsaddle him. I am truly and immensely grateful and I do feel terrible that I made so much extra work for everyone. but honestly, it's hard to fully regret the situation when I got a helicopter ride out of the deal! And let's be honest, that's worth a few blows to my pride.