When I was about twelve I started riding some local farm horses. I was fairly green so the old farmer, Mr. Newberry, gave me a green horse. Sounded good to me. Her name was Star. She wore a hackamore bridle, neither of us knew anything about saddles. Mr. Newberry stood in front of the barn with a whip and his son stood at the end of the drive with another whip. My only job was to keep her out of the garden. We practiced this trick until I was no longer falling off. Another day in paradise!
I rode every day, I even snuck out at night to go riding. I put reflective tape on Star’s butt that said “STOP”. I went on excursions into the woods with Chili, cheese and a Dr. Pepper in my backpack. I wore shorts, tennis shoes and knee-high socks to save my legs from the mesquite thorns. My mother did not see me until my weekly bath. (Disclaimer: I had a great mother. She knew where I was every minute lucky for us the barn was so close! She swears this part is completely untrue but this is how I remember it and she never swears!!!)
At 16 I heard that people rode in carriages in downtown Fort Worth. Wow! What a life, to get paid for being with horses in the big 
city??!! I worked for Zane Brainard (he looked like W.C.Fields) and learned to drive on a Clydesdale named Robby. My teacher was David Lewis who drove a hitch for Owens Country Sausage. My lessons went well but on my first night alone I became nervous and tried to neck reign from the box. I dropped a line and the circling began. I was agile and fixed it quick. The police were impressed, or maybe they liked my tight Wranglers.
When I turned 18 I left my carriage team and moved to Lake Tahoe. When I returned, after a year I was so surprised to find out I no longer had a job. My mother was tired of seeing my long face so she drove me to Dallas to interview with Charles T. Smith of Dallas Surrey Service. I was excited and nervous. He was extremely stern. He hired me and it was on! I did not have a car or a driver’s license but my desire to drive carriages was greater than my transportation limitation.
Charles fought the city for his right to drive and he fought for the welfare of the horse, coming up with a standard of temperature plus humidity minus wind had to be less than 150 for horses to dissipate their sweat. Charles kept a tight rein on his staff and horses. He was kind and fair, but he knew how dangerous this business was so we had a long training schedule with regular driving tests and harness checks. He had us ground drive a new pair until we could not walk, then drive with a trainer for weeks in the neighborhood and nights of unpaid lessons with the advanced driver/trainer downtown before you could take the new horses by yourself. I did not know it at the time but we were receiving world-class training from extremely skilled drivers.
Charles often shared a few words of wisdom with his drivers: when something goes wrong it is always driver error; horses can feel what you are thinking and more people get shark bit in the state of Texas than struck by lightning. These were all words to live by and important to the job.
I was enthralled by the sound of their hooves trotting through the empty streets. There were very few apartments downtown, so after five, the city was mine. Charles would sometimes sit somewhere in the skyscrapers, sipping on a cocktail with a two-way radio, and catch me speeding. I’d be trotting along, headed right out-of-town and I’d hear, “Slow those horses down”. I was grounded and moved to a slow or “beginner” horse when I got caught, which I was often.
It was a fifteen hour a day job for the drivers and Charles was always busy preparing for combined driving events, which are three-day events where a horse’s skill, strength and stamina are measured. Charles had thirty six horses and fifteen carriages. We put hours and miles on all of his horses. They were solid, healthy and bullet proof. It was such a rare experience to work with such well-trained, finely tuned athletes.
After dark we would drive through the city between buses, amid heavy traffic. We parallel parked right beside bands that you could not talk over. We were allowed to utilize every street and I did. My passengers took the longest trips their wallets would afford, happily. As directionally dysfunctional as I was, I managed to find my way to all of the outlying sites using a tall green building as my beacon.
Then one day I was allowed to compete…… Having a horse you have already spent 1,000 hours behind made it seem easy. But it was not. I was nervous. I had never been on stage. My first day I navigated for a friend and fell off. Not knowing the rules (really) and being in shorts did not help my situation. 
I bounced out and hung on as the horse drug me through the woods. Against her wishes, I stopped the horse myself verbally (they all know whoa). I had nearly torn my knee off on the sharp grates of the Kuhnle. At the first vet check they wrapped me in bright pink vet wrap. The horse had not even broken a sweat. Terrible pain kept me from sleeping that night but tomorrow was cones and I was entered! I finished without a hitch.
After that I continued to attend but Charles did not ask me if I wanted to compete again. It was expensive and it was nice that he took me in the first place.
