A poorly titled story about riding a pony on the beach

by Sharon Waugh (South Africa)

I didn't expect to find St Maarten

As a child, I was always obsessed with ponies (at least until I found out that unicorns are real, but that’s a story for a different time). I was never actually into horse-riding, but I had a collection of My Little Ponies and a romantic fantasy about riding one on a beach someday. One day, while working on cruise ships, I was given the opportunity to go on a guest shore excursion on the island of St. Maarten. When I discovered that I was going to go horseback riding in the ocean, I couldn’t have been more excited. I wasn't naive enough to think I would get a pink pony or a blue one, but I did have a number of other fanciful notions about what this experience would be like. For instance, in my dream, I would be wearing a pretty flowing dress, the colours of which would complement the colour of my horse. I could envision the Instagram picture in my head! There would be a light breeze blowing my hair back and it would change direction with me to always blow in my face, while I rode in slow motion the whole time. The helmet was never part of my fantasy. When the tour guide handed me one that's when I realised the reality of the situation: Not only would I not be picture perfect windswept, but there was probably some danger involved too. The last time I rode a pony was when went to the local petting zoo as a child. This time, however, there wasn’t some guy holding the reigns and leading the pony. I had to hold the reigns myself and make it go in certain directions, and not stop for lunch (that was tricky), and not rear up and throw me off, damaging my spleen or my spine and maiming me for life both physically and emotionally. Suddenly my idealism turned to nervousness. I was assigned a pony named “Viva”. It turns out she had a very nice temperament for such an ugly brown horse. We did a nature trail first on a hill with views of the ocean. Going up and down the rocky paths was a little daunting but I must have done something right because my spleen and spine are still very much intact (and I really like both of those things). When the group of us came down the hill onto the soft warm beach sand, I started to relax. I forgot about my childhood fantasy, came to grips with reality and I started to enjoy the experience. After nervously trotting over rugged terrain, my head sweating in my rental helmet as the sun beat down on me, we entered the ocean. The seawater cooled me right down, along with my equally sweaty horse, as it flowed past my legs and her beautiful ugly brown body. It was lovely! It turns out though, that it wasn’t just the humans who were starting to relax. At that moment, the horse in front of me defaecated in the water. Yes, that really happened! Viva was no longer the only brown thing in my vicinity. I was too scared to lift my feet up out of the stirrups so I let the poop brush right past me. Okay, that was gross, but I wasn’t going to let one faecal incident ruin my experience! A moment later, the horse in front of her urinated in the water. (Yes, you could see it, even in the ocean.) I later found out that the person behind me, at the back of the group, got the raw end of the deal as not only did he encounter faeces and urine, but my horse was a bit flatulent …for the full duration of the ride. Anyway, the next time you watch a movie or a soap opera and Ridge and Brook get married on the beach again and one of them arrives in slow motion on a white horse, all windswept in a pretty dress (and not ugly but practical shorts like the ones I ended up wearing), think of me and remember: That’s probably not a fresh ocean breeze blowing through her helmet-free hair!