Tim's Take

Since the latest scientific research traces the potential origin of humans riding horses to the Yamnaya people of Eastern Europe more than 5,000 years ago, I’ve got to assume the point of this story is not the novelty of riding horses, but rather getting people who generally have no business riding horses to ride horses.

And this brings me to me: I love horses, and always have — but from afar. Watching the Kentucky Derby, say. Picking up on their beauty, grace and steely determination from the exhilarating pages of “Seabiscuit.”

But on the back of one? Uh, no.

I didn’t have a great feeling about getting on a horse, even before having a reason to, at age 16, in 1986, on Kiawah Island. But I did have a reason, moments after — namely, that he or she threw me right off his or her back. I’m not sure why. I tried not to take it personally, but I certainly didn’t plan to try it again.

But birthdays and relationships measured in decades are a funny thing; you’re always trying to surprise, and it gets harder. So I began planning a horseback birthday present a couple of years back, at the same time I was trying to plan something involving shooting something inanimate, and even got in my head some kind of combo where we were now acting as something akin to extras in a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western.

For a variety of reasons — regarding the latter, perhaps not a huge surprise — the plans didn’t pan out. But, because of this story, I found myself recently on the back of a character named Elvis in Montauk, trailing, sometimes severely, my wife’s horse and a couple of others. This is because Elvis was definitely akin to late Elvis, Vegas Elvis, Elvis on the couch trying to see the TV over his stomach after several peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches.

Elvis, like the real Elvis, does it his way.

So we shuffled along at the back of the trail, and when, every five steps, he found the energy to bend his neck down and eat a pile of one kind of grass or another, I let him. Hey, if I was hungry, I wouldn’t want someone locking the refrigerator. And so he played me like a fiddle — ate everything in sight, dragged me through bushes if doing so prevented him from getting mud on his hooves, generally ambled along at his own damned pace.

And, the funny thing is, I responded with recognition and love, rubbing the right side of his neck and telling him he was a good horse. Maybe because he was doing all the work, and yet I had the nerve to be sweating through my T-shirt.

But probably just because he seemed so real, so relatable. Like when he noticeably picked up his pace when we turned around to head back to the stable, when he knew his ordeal of lugging around my 207 pounds across a beautiful stretch of trail and beach would soon be over.

And so, if you’ve never had the urge, or nerve, to get atop of one of these magnificent animals, I’d recommend it for the oddest of reasons: You may find a bit of kinship to cherish, because those moments can be hard to locate in a world that seems to be increasingly devoid of them.

— Tim Motz