Unhappy Trails : There’s Not Much a Rider Can Do on a Horse With Unbridled Animosity

SOMETIMES YOU HIT it off. Sometimes you don’t. I had a really strong feeling that Patsy didn’t like me. But what could I do? She had on the only saddle with stirrups that were short enough to fit me.

Boy, and I’d hoped that this half-day trail ride through Bryce Canyon National Park would be an adventure in which I’d finally get to shine. Horseback riding is one of the few forms of recreation that I’m better at than my husband. For a week, Duke and I had been hiking through Utah’s scenic wonderlands, and I was tired of trying to keep up with him.

But there I was, being tortured by a four-legged prima donna. Patsy used to be the lead horse, ridden by experienced cowboys--The Star. Recently demoted, she nursed a poisonous hatred for the other horses. I clung to the saddle horn as she gave Blondie, the mare behind us, a swift kick.

She had no love for her new class of riders either. She balked. She rolled. Worse, she spoiled a great opportunity for me to prove that I was brave.

My husband, a former Boy Scout, is fearless in The Great Outdoors. He dreams of sailing a small boat to Tahiti. He swims in Santa Monica Bay. But I, an all-time urban dweller, tend to be a little cautious.

Inevitably, I get cast as the phobic spoilsport. For example, a few days earlier, we hiked the Emerald Pools Trail in Zion National Park. We were at a scenic spot near the lower pool, where we had to walk across a sandstone cliff. My blood froze as Duke ambled off the beaten path and up to the precipice to admire a view like the one you get from God’s lap. “Honey,” he said excitedly, “come here.”

I remained as glued to the trail as lichen on rocks. The National Park Service had posted a large sign: DANGER--CLIFF. SLIPPERY SANDSTONE. UNSTABLE ROCK EDGE. And just in case you miss the point, there’s a little drawing of a hiker plunging to his or her doom.

“The sign’s just an attractive nuisance,” Duke scoffed. “It’s perfectly safe.”

If I had a dollar for every time he’s said that, I could take an enormous insurance policy out on his life.

Not that Duke was taking any chances on the Bryce Canyon horse trail. He made sure of that at the corral. A casting agent’s vision of a cowboy was assigning horses and mules, asking about riding experience. “Do you have one with an automatic?” asked Duke. “I can’t drive a stick.”

He wound up on Jenny, a sturdy, sure-footed, sweet-tempered Tennessee mule with long, aristocratic ears and a resume that included a stint at the Grand Canyon. Meanwhile, our guide, Binky, a buckaroo who looked and acted as if he’d done time at the Wild West Stunt Show at Knott’s Berry Farm, gave me the petulant Patsy. “Like Patsy Cline,” said Binky. What were her hit songs? “Crazy”? “I Fall to Pieces”?

It was not a good sign.

Along with a posse of tenderfoots, we descended through Bryce Canyon’s breathtaking labyrinth of fantastic red rock formations with fanciful names. Binky pointed out Queen’s Garden, The Cathedral, Seal Castle and Naked Woman. “Only one I see around here,” he joked.

Duke rode in front of me, placidly snapping pictures as his mount plodded along as smoothly as an escalator. I tried to appreciate the scenery. But I was busy obeying Binky’s orders: “Don’t lean, don’t scream.”

The horse trail, which drops 1,000 feet, is narrow, steep and windy, with hairpin turns. The animals are trained to walk near the edge, to give you a better view. (Who needs that good a view?) My husband says that I’m afraid of heights, but that’s not true. What I’m afraid of is falling.

Patsy sensed that instantly. With her glory days behind her, she had little reason to live. Why not take a tourist with me? she thought. Patsy shimmied. She shied. She craned her neck over the brink, looking for the perfect spot.

“Don’t jump, Patsy!” cried Binky, and then he burst into merry laughter. Duke focused his camera and told me to smile. I didn’t know which one of them I wanted to kill first.

For the record, I’m not a blazing coward. I stayed calm in Death Valley when Duke lost the dirt road up to Dantes View from Amargosa and we wound up in a blind canyon. “There’s nothing to worry about,” said my ever-resourceful mate. “We can always set fire to the spare tire, and they’ll find us.”

I knew he’d get us back on track. The spare tire was new.

“Turn, Patsy, turn,” Binky yelled as my horse lurched to the brink again. This was getting old fast.

Forty Binky guffaws later, we arrived back at the corral. “If you enjoyed the ride, tip the guide,” he coyly hinted. I tipped him anyway.

By then, Duke and Jenny were so chummy that I half-expected them to run away together. He stroked her flanks and bid her a fond farewell. I would have patted Patsy, but she bared her teeth.

Sometimes you hit it off. Sometimes you don’t.