I got my first horse when I was 15. He was a  dapple grey appaloosa that went by the name of Domino, I don’t recall his age. We paid $300 for him. I bought him from a little place on Highway 9 called Flying G, they had a tiny barn and about 15 acres of pasture  on the riverside of Main St, just before Lockport.

I don’t remember how but we had lined up a place for him to stay, it was a big huge abandoned dairy barn on the corner of Leila Ave. and Pipeline Rd. I think they may have had string for the pasture and not much else.

The day I bought the horse , I borrowed the saddle and rode him , alone, from Lockport to Leila Ave. It took a few hours, and I didn’t have a whole lot of control. I crossed Highway 9, my horse spooked at something and ran through a yard at  McPhillips Rd. , right through the clothes line, which luckily broke.  I got yelled at for riding through the middle of  a newly sprouted grain field, funnily enough I remember it , it was the one at Highway 8 and Miller Rd, I drive by it all the time. I must have rode down the side of highway 8, but we made it to his new home  in one piece.

I don’t know what they fed him , I think it was called chaff, and was bits and pieces of straw and not much else, but they did have a pasture. I rode the heck out of that horse. I lived on Scotia St  and Leila Ave, so could take my bike the 3 or so miles to see him. I rode him down Leila, before Garden City shopping center was there, down to my house on Scotia, of course after dark. I still think about those lawns we rode over, I am sure when they cut their grass they probably wondered were the heck the hoof prints came from. I rode him up to a party in Tyndall park once . I rode him to my friends house on McPhillips across from the Northgate shopping center, double. He dumped us on the side of the road, in the grass, and a huge semi was just about to pass and he blew his horn, memory is vague on which came first, but it was only about 3 feet from the road.

My parents then rented another horse, the same summer. Her name was Ginger, big sorrel quarter horse mare, from Art Butler. So then I didn’t have to ride double. I remember standing on the side of the stall fighting with her to get her bridle on. My horse experience to that point was trailing riding at Bar NK on Pipleine, until they closed down. Then at Sunshine Ranch on Saskatchewan Ave., that was just occasionally  because it was a long drive. So I knew NOTHING!

What a great learning experience it was, luckily I survived and so did the horses.

Unfortunately at the end of summer my parents said no more. I sold Domino to Art Butler and returned Ginger. I do recall Domino got in one last buck when I rode him over to Art’s place, he dumped me in the grass as we went past a place that had a pony in the yard, he wanted to stay there I guess.

Ginger

Domino