Today’s expedition was the main reason I came to Wales: horseback riding. I’ve never been before and saw myself riding up and down mountains at thrilling speeds, but that wasn’t exactly what happened. After an intimidating prep course during which we were given helmets and chest armor (the horses may shoot at us?) as we watched the horses take mighty shits, we mounted our mighty steeds. Mine was a brown-spotted white horsie named Kentucky. All right, I thought: such a fast horse that it’s named after a derby. Actually, it ended up moving at the speed of the fried chicken most of the time: n matter what I did, the damn horse wouldn’t do anything but walk in a straight line. The horses were so over-trained that they would never pass the lead horse. So, we were held to the speed of the slowest rider, that being some annoying girl who, although she’d ridden before, somehow managed to zigzag her horse to eat at different sides of the path for hours straight. We did get to gallop a little, but it was for under 5 minutes and always in our carefully arranged line. Overall, I think I could have outrun us on a bike and would have been competitive even on foot.
More importantly, something about riding rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t mean that I didn’t like it, I mean literally. I now know why the riding instructor wore padded spandex pants. Other riders agreed: the ride was fun, but seriously chafing. After my hours of horsing around, I definitely want to go again. Next time, I’ll try to do more than horsewalking and definitely wear goofier pants.