In the early 1970s some of my friends and I bought horses and kept them at a stable run by a man named Red in the small farming community of Cantil, Calif. We’d ride around the alfalfa fields and into the desert. Sometimes we’d ride over to Red Rock Canyon where a lot of movies, television shows and car commercials were filmed. (Now it’s a state park.)
My horse was a buckskin gelding named Dunny that must have been used in rodeos as a barrel racer, because he could turn on a dime. He was also very fickle. He would spook at white or dark things on the side of the road. Red said my horse couldn’t be trusted.
One day my friend Joy and I decided to ride our horses to her hometown, California City, which was about 15 miles away. We meant to take them swimming in the golf course lake and spend the night at Joy’s mom’s house.
About halfway there, we came across a large puddle of water. We couldn’t tell if it had rained or if there was an underground spring. We weren’t close to an alfalfa field, so there were no irrigation pipes.
I tried to get Dunny to walk into the puddle but he kept backing away. I was finally able to get him into the puddle — and the next I knew, he rolled onto his left side, with me still in the saddle. Joy kept yelling for me to get out from under him. I was too busy trying to free myself to think about the danger I might be in.
I was able to get one foot loose from the right stirrup, but couldn’t free the other. Finally I was able to break the left stirrup and get out from under Dunny. He rolled in the mud a couple more times, then finally stood up.
I was lucky that the mud was soft, so there was no damage to my leg. But I had to ride to California City with only one stirrup. Once we arrived, some official told us there was a law against horses swimming in the golf course lake.
We spent the night at Joy’s mom’s house and rode back to the stables the next morning, me with only one stirrup.
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