War Story #11, Horsewabling in Martinsville Indiana. Challenger Day Camp, "I don't need a saddle. I don't need a leash, and I don't need no stirrups, because they're not in reach" -- Patrick Tyrrell

Pinto

(C) Patrick Tyrrell and RockNRollConcerts.com

I was seven years old.

It was summer, and the tall grass had grown.

I caught a yellow school bus to Martinsville every day, for Summer Camp.

One thing the Day Camp did for part of the day, was we sat atop horses, with teenage counselors leading the animals along by short ropes to their mouths.

The sun was bright, the sassafrass sapling forest vigorous with growth and sunbeams in the Indiana heat.

The teenage fellow who was leading me along was a floppy-hat wearing fellow, he was just thinking about dumb stuff as he walked along.

At one point he turned back to me, at age 7, and he goes, "Ok, I am going to hand you this rope, because I know there is no way you would ever take off on me," he said, handing me the rope, and he walked away to go check on something on another path.

The dopey teenager's eyes told me he was a person who thought it was very "OBVIOUS" I would not go anywhere.

As soon as he took about five more steps, my heals dug into the horse, a Pinto which was named Dr. Pepper, like the soft drink, and into his sides. I leaned forward, and hugged his mane, and we tore past everyone else, running real quick!

Yeah, green branches whipping past our faces and ears, we ran like that through the forest on not the widest of trails for quite some time, galloping much of the way in the noon day sun.

The horse was a black and white Pinto mare named Dr. Pepper.

We ran up hills, down hills, and back up hills, with lots of roots and rocky ledges along the trail.

But we did not 'Ride Out The Storm' (and we were not trying to).

After a while I drove Dr. Pepper -- the horse -- back to the barns where the counselors were distraught and were experiencing various levels of freaking out.

"Ha-Ha-Ha," I said laughing, and I clapped my hands as I dropped down off the horse.

I walked away. And I got in no trouble.

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About ten days later, on a day when I was back in Martinsville, Indiana day camp, and a nice college-age woman counselor, cool as Hell, like every teenage girl who was a teenager around me in the 1970s in semi-leadership positions was back then who raised me -- she asked me a question.

"Can I ask you something sweetie?"

"You know that horse, Dr. Pepper, you rode through the forest on?"

"Yeah," I said.

". . .Well, that horse is a Pinto, and he was born a wild horse. But he was captured in Colorado or someplace else, and so now he's a tame horse," the blond girl with a green or purple bandana on her head said to me.

She frowned, "That horse you rode is no longer tame," she motioned with an X at the ground, "Could you maybe try to calm him down?"

"Yeah, sure, I guess so," I told her.

We walked around the barnyard to behind a different barn where the black and white horse was in a muddy fenced-in area, trotting around the area shaking its head and mane. When I got closer to it and went inside the enclosed mud pasture, the pinto reared up on its hind legs, a good distance away from me and neighed while kicking it's front hooves skyward.

But I couldn't tame any horse.

I don't know what happened to him.

(C) Copyright 2025, RockNRollConcerts.com and Patrick Tyrrell