Me and King

My horse's name was King. Gretchen snapped this photo of King and I (wasn't that a musical?) when we stopped to let the horse eat a bit of grass. On a somber note, this picture could very well have been the last picture taken of me. About an hour after this picture was taken, my horse got spooked by a mountain biker who came up silently behind him. King reared up and then took off running and jumping! It was seriously all I could do to hold on. We were, obviously, riding English saddle, which has weird stirrups (as opposed to Western saddle), so my right foot came out of the stirrup at some point. Thankfully I was able to finally pull back on the reins and get King to stop, just in time. Poor Gretchen was just as scared--if not more scared--than I was. And I don't mean to sound overly dramatic, but it was pretty scary there for a bit. Thankfully we all made it back safely.