On page 10 this week is a photo of Darwin Stadneck, who brought his horse to small-town Saskatchewan for the first time and is thankful that all went well.
It brought to mind an occasion in small-town Alberta when a horse visited town and things didn’t go so well.
It was fair and parade time. A local restaurant owner, new to the community, was swollen with corporate citizenry and decided to embrace the western traditions of the town by riding a horse in the parade.
He wasn’t an experienced rider, but he managed to borrow a horse and saddle up for the shindig. The new western shirt, with its sharp creases, plus a spotless stetson, helped him blend with the cowboys who would ride in the parade before riding in the rodeo.
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But he didn’t blend in much.
Well, you’ve seen small town parades. There are kids and bicycles, clowns, bands, floats and fire trucks. There is noise and smell and flapping ribbons and clapping and people throwing candy.
The borrowed horse took it all in for the first block or two. But by block three, you could read its thoughts about urbanity in the whites of its eyes.
Maybe the fire truck siren started it, although it could have been the clown on stilts or a wrong note played by the guy on the glockenspiel.
Whatever it was, that horse took off like a shot. It raced pell-mell down main street, with the hapless business man clutching the saddle horn tighter than copper on a penny.
The horse’s unshod feet clung for purchase on the asphalt and the business man’s legs flapped like a spastic grasshopper as he lost his stirrups.
It took only seconds for some cowpoke to size up the situation and race after the runaway. The crowd hooted and yee-hawed as the horses swept by.
They galloped down main street, past the drive-in and right through the town’s only stop light.
And they kept right on going.
Meanwhile, the parade wrapped up and the crowd moved on to the bench fair, the cattle show and the rodeo.
A few people went over to the restaurant later, having heard there was some sort of blue-plate rodeo special.
By all accounts, the meat was stringy and oddly not up to the usual standards one expects in southern Alberta. But no one thought much more about it.
And as far as anyone knows, the business man never rode a horse again.
