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As an Englishwoman living in South Louisiana, I always knew that the locals had a particularly odd way of speaking the Queen’s English – and they all had the cutest little accent! I had become accustomed to the multi-syllabled four letter words, and to that truly most Southern habit of children addressing adults as “ma’am or sir”
The first time a child called me “ma’am, I quickly responded that it was perfectly OK to call me Jenny. I immediately received a lecture on Southern manners from the mother – whose thick Georgian accent was almost incomprehensible to me – but she got her point across!
With the exception of accents – which I don’t think I have, although everyone else seems to disagree –I felt that I had assimilated into the Southern culture pretty well. I even learned how to eat crawfish, make a roux and smush cockroaches (ugg).
But it wasn’t until I decided to take my first ever riding lesson at the age of 45 that I realized just how far apart we still were.
In September 1996 I answered an ad in the local newspaper for riding lessons, and off I went to fulfill every little girl’s dream of having a pony.
Everything was fine until my instructor asked me to get the lesson horse out of his stall – five minutes later I realized stall meant “loose-box”. The halter was a little daunting – took two tries to get it the right way up, but finally managed to get the horse out of his stall and tied to what I called ‘the hitching post’ (trying to speak American cowboy). I was quickly informed that that horses were tied to the rail.
Next was the task of picking up that monstrosity of a western saddle (do they put weights inside that thing?) and getting it on the horse’s back. There were no stirrup irons to run up, so after getting bonked on the head twice by the stirrups, I was shown how to hook them over the saddle horn.
Finally I was in the arena and ready to mount. Did I mention I’m only 5’1”? Finally the instructor grew weary of trying to give me a leg up, and with the aid of a step stool, I was actually up.
Having devoured every issue of England’s Horse & Pony magazine, I knew how to keep my heels down, and how to hold the reins. Indeed, I had practiced for hours using my sister’s pigtails as reins. Unfortunately pigtail practice didn’t help with split reins...
My instructor told me to drop my reins – so I did; one on each side of the horse. After an astonished look, and a very long shake of the head, he picked them up and placed them correctly in my hand. Ahh, drop your reins didn’t mean on the ground!
So off I went walking around the arena, feeling like Prince Charles on a polo pony, sitting as straight as I could, heels stuck so far down my toes pointed at the sky. I felt so proud – in my mind I was ready for a quick canter down the track in Kentucky.
However, I was quickly brought back to earth, with a stern comment about staying on the rail. Now, no matter how hard I looked, the only rail I could see was the one the horses were tied to, so I concentrated very hard on only riding up and down that 20’ rail.
After a few minutes, I realized that was not the correct rail, but I still couldn’t find another rail. Another astonished look, another head shake – ahh he meant stay on the fence.
And so it went on…I would translate one term, only to have another thrown at me. Lope was fairly easy as it was the next fastest gait to that incredibly fast trot that resulted from squeezing with my leg – school horses figure you out so quickly!
My favorite miscommunication had to be the “pinch your shirt” command. If I had the reins in one hand, the other desperately gripping the saddle horn, how on earth was I supposed to pinch anything? In all the Pony Club magazines, the rider always had two hands on the reins and wasn’t pinching anything. It took a while to realize that if I kept my shirt pinched, I had the choice of either letting go of the reins, or the saddle horn. It soon became apparent that dropping the reins led to mass confusion on the part of the horse and incomprehensible (luckily) yelling from my instructor. So I reluctantly let go of the saddle horn and frantically pinched my shirt for all I was worth. It didn’t seem to help much, but at this point I just wanted to stop being yelled at...
Basic steering was OK, until he told me that when riders are approaching from the opposite direction, you pass like cars – did I mention that we drive on the opposite side of the road in England. There were many near-misses on the rail as I suddenly remembered I was supposed to be passing on the inside.
12 years and 38 horses later, I am fluent in South Louisiana Horse, but dozens of newbie students are amused by my pronunciation of squirrel, or even stirrup. And even my wonderful, patient instructor-coach-trainer Russ Mixon understands what I mean when I tell him ‘not to get his knickers in a twist’. And yes, I do still pinch my shirt when I hear the command!
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