Rusty and Me

I would like to introduce myself, my name is Lori Plakos. I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I would like to share a horse story that has been with me for many years.

It started in 1982 or around that time frame. I had a huge (15 hands, 1800 pounds) chestnut gelding that was named Rusty. I had adopted him or should I say he adopted me. How appropriate. . . It was on a summer morning, around 7:00 am, about 5 of my friends decided to get together and do an early morning ride, the sun was just starting to appear upon the horizon. As some of the girls were still tacking up, I was resting on Rusty's back, no saddle, or blanket. I normally ride bareback.

Finally everyone was ready to go. Rusty and I were positioned with a pasture behind us near the first part of the barb-wire fence followed by regular board fence. As the riding party was just about ready to take off, a shot rang out. A shot that sounded like gun fire, but later was discovered to be a backfiring of a car.

The sound was so startling, Rusty was so spooked that he reared to a full extend of himself. Someone had told me that he was "standing on his tipy toes." Rusty lost balance. I fell off of him on to my back and Rusty came down on top of me. His back met my front.

When Rusty regained his footing and stood up, he started to put his head down to meet mine. All I remembered was looking up and seeing his muzzle nuzzling me to get me up. I first had to wiggle my fingers and toes to make sure I could move. I did. There are two lucky parts to this story. One, my horse was there when I needed him. He put his head down, so I could grab his neck, and he lifted me up! I loved him so much. And two, is what we landed down on. The ground was soft like mud, and when Rusty landed on me, I sank down so his weight would not crush me. Thank-God I didn't have full tack.