Sometimes I feel a little melancholy watching climbing documentaries. Like, I WISH it was something I was into or could do but it’s not and I can’t. I’m big. My feet are in near constant pain from being broken. My carpal tunnel is so severe I can barely use a lighter or open a Ziploc bag. Also, I’m absolutely terrified of heights, to the point where I’m actually absurdly proud of my tentative proficiency with a ten foot orchard ladder. I guess it’s not just climbing- it’s a couple of different extreme sports. I’m a person of extremes- they’re extremely appealing to me. I tend toward impulsivity and ‘all or nothing’-ness. This can be construed as a flaw or a virtue, but I digress. When I was 16 I dropped out of highschool and moved to the UK to pursue a career with horses. I’d been riding for years at that point and wanted to get more serious about it.
I may never, and probably never will, climb a mountain. (I dragged my sorry ass up Finlayson with my fourteen year old dog, that was enough.) But I’ve ridden a galloping thoroughbred at full tilt past the grandstand at Epsom Downs (not in a race, but nonetheless, stellar). Many, many people have sat on a horse, taken a riding lesson, gone for a trail ride, even ridden for year, but few have had that experience. Many, many people go to climbing gyms, boulder, climb professionally, summit extremely technical mountains, but few have climbed Meru or K2. This is a loose lateral comparison- to be honest, I don’t think there’s any comparison between the skill and athleticism it takes to summit a fucking mountain and what it takes to breeze a thoroughbred. The comparison lies between pony rides and going to the local climbing gym for a birthday party in the eighth grade.
So I will probably never climb a mountain. But at one time, I got to ride six or seven horses a day. At one time I was a competent enough rider to school a client horse or back a green pony or ride on of the trickier horses, and then ones that bucked, reared, bit and kicked, and in time, I came to enjoy those ones. Horses that bolt or can’t be passed or walk on their hind legs or spook at the wind or at nothing or are mildly traumatized. I like those ones. I was a really timid rider when I was younger and I fell ALL the time but I kept going and got around to sticking, most of the time. I may never climb a mountain, but most people will never ride a Spanish pony down the sand gallops in Epsom with it bucking and rearing at a flatout gallop, having lost both stirrups and enjoying every second of it (especially the part where I stayed on).
I may never climb a mountain but most mountain climbers will never be out on a hack in west London, the eye discernable beyond the indistinguishable scramble of shiny buildings, when the companion horse colics. Sir Gregory (god damn ridiculous racehorse names) went downhill quickly, the big, fleabitten grey gelding going to his knees while I held frantically onto Ginny with one hand and the other groom and I chased him in circles with a falling branch. It is vital to keep a colicing horse moving forward so they don’t roll and twist their bowel- almost a guarantied fatality. Between chasing him with a branch and holding onto the high-strung paint mare it was hard to pull out my old flip-phone and call the yard in a panic for someone to bring a trailer. We were about as far from the yard as you could get without doing roadwork, an hour’s ride with the canter up the hill included. So they came with the lorry and I had to ride Ginny home alone. Horses are herd animals- they don’t like being separated. This big colored mare was a bit flighty to start with (before I’d started working there she’d dumped her owner and broken her arm) but she liked Irish folk songs and we rode the hour back to the farm while I sang The Rocky Road to Dublin, The Raggle Taggle Gypsy and Wild Rover to her over and over again.
I may never climb a mountain… but I’ve galloped a son of Sadler’s Wells four furlongs in a training saddle, tasting life and death all at the same time, faster, faster, faster than you knew a horse could go, faster than you knew you could hold onto. The uninterpretable instructions of the trainer from Tipperary, lost, gone, and all there is to do is is ride.