Run Away Horse

Fear and courage are linked with a bridge. To reach courage, the haven of accomplishment, this bridge must be crossed. But crossing this bridge is a hard and painful task. You would have to jump over the holes of failure and disappointment. Courage lies in the smallest things you accomplish and the award for overpowering the tyrant of fear is immense; it is something that you can never take advantage of, never use to hurt anybody, it is something that comes with generosity, honesty, and kindness. And it is a memory for a lifetime that you learn from and never forget about, just when I discovered my courage.

My courage began with fear. I clutched at my mom's warm jacket and kicked at the arms that were trying to grab me.

"I don't want to!" I screeched so high that even the horses looked at me annoyed. The horses... Oh, how they scared me and riding one was just too much for me to take. What if I broke an arm? My friend, who was eight-years old, just like me, used to ride horses, until one bucked her off and she was left with a broken arm, an unpleasant memory, and an unforgiving attitude to all horses. I was afraid and I had come terrified to the grasslands where the Mongolian horses grazed. My parents had said how enjoyable the site-seeing vacation would be and how it would be a wonderful opportunity if I rode a Mongolian horse. But it would be a life scar if I broke something.

"I don't want to!" I screeched again. This time I could almost see the anger in the horses' eyes as they all glared at me.

"You will never get another chance to!" my parents exclaimed.

And before I could argue any longer the Mongolian man had plopped me on the back of a dark brown horse. I shivered in the cold Mongolian winter and studied the horse that I thought held my life. He was not like the rest of the big, brown-eyed horses. His hair was all over the place, his eyes were bright with giddiness, and if I put my hand on his chest I could feel it heaving and his heart racing. He stomped his hooves impatiently on the ground, leaving a deep dent in the mud. What if I fell down and he used those sharp hooves to trample me? My teeth started to chatter and it was not because of the cold.

"My name is Arban and I will be your guide today. Now come, let me show you the beautiful land of Mongolia," he had an accent and unclear English, but I managed to make out what he was saying.

He led the way and slowly, one by one, the horses followed. First my confident, care-free brother, Sunkulp, on a black horse walked behind Arban. Sunkulp was showing off, not even holding the horse's reins, with his hands on the back of his head and a content smile on his face. Sunkulp's eyes looked closed, but I knew that they were really half-open, watching me struggle to sit upright on my horse. I knew once the tour was over he would boast about how balanced he was on his horse and how I was close to falling off. Next my mom followed, giving me a reassuring smile, but even she was not very comfortable on the horse. Then my dad came, looking wildly about taking in all the scenery and turning his head to the different sounds so many times, that by the time my horse started tagging along behind his horse, I was kind of giddy from watching him.

My horse's hooves hit the ground fast and hard. He was moving at a much faster pace and I knew this horse should have been ridden by a trained professional. His eyes darted from side to side, his head swung right to left and back, and his nostrils flared.

It felt like I was flying. For a few seconds I did not realize what was happening. One moment I was looking at my dad's black horse, the next moment the wind blew in my face and my horse was running away from the guide. He was crossing the grasslands and going off the trail that he was supposed to go on. The Mongolian wilderness that lay in the distance was getting closer and closer with each heartbeat. Tears were dotting my eyes and my head began to hurt. I glanced desperately around, where were my parents? Everything was so blurry and the only sound that I could hear was my own heart beating in my ears. Blood rushed to my face, even when it was so cold.

I could hear shouting far away, "Someone save the girl!" I could tell it was the Mongolian man speaking, for it was coated in a thick accent.

My thoughts were racing and my breath was coming out in rasps. I had to focus, what would stop this horse? The horse tried bucking me off and sweat dripped from my forehead at trying to stay on, as the wilderness seemed to be coming to envelope me into darkness, danger, and the unknown. In my head I was hating this horse with fury. This horse was going to be the cause of me getting lost or hurt and it was all his fault. It was not my fault that he started running, foolishly, into the wilderness when his job was to follow the guide! Now I was stuck in this dreaded mess that this dreaded horse made! What was I supposed to do?

I realized that the heels of my boots were digging into the horse's side and my hands were gripping his hair roughly. Ripping the boots off my legs and letting them crash to the ground and releasing my nails from the horse's hair was enough to make him stop. I gasped as I saw the mark that my boots had left on the horse's skin. It was red and if my feet had been piercing any harder, than the horse would have probably started bleeding. I was very close to injuring him. When I stroked his rough head, he nuzzled the palm of my hand. Courage and realization flooded into me and I was enlightened.

The reason the horse had been going so fast and running away from the guide was because he was in pain, confused, and was trying to get me off. I was hurting it. It was my fault, not the horse's. I had ignorantly blamed the horse just because I had thought it was a dumb animal. I had thought it's job was to follow the guide, but doesn't it have a right to be free, like us? Why does it have to spend its life lugging us around on its back? I pulled at it with reins and tugged at it's hair, when really it was a beautiful animal that deserved to run on its own, when it wanted to. I had thought that this horse was wild and untamed, when in real fact it was just trying to survive, to stop the pain, which was just a natural reaction. I was wrong. The human race is wrong to use these animals for riding when we do not need to. We have cars, trains, and planes, we do not need this transportation. Then what is this joy we get from riding animals? Don't they get rights too? They are living things just like us, they are not inanimate objects, so, why do we treat them that way?

Courage is not only conquering your fear, but learning from it. Courage is the ability to understand something pure that others are scared to. Courage is part of life, because no one is born courageous, you climb to reach that point. Courage is like a path with many milestones that you must face. Courage is worth more than any materialistic prize, because with courage comes knowledge.

I gained courage that day. I had the courage, the open-mindedness, to understand these intelligent animals and see them for who they really are. Animals are not supposed to be used for betterment of human life, they should be treated equally with love. I surpassed my fear and replaced it with a kindness towards all animals. Now, I have joined PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) and have supported numerous campaigns and generous charities for animals. My ignorance that day was the ignorance of our world today, just like my 8-year old friend. We must inform people that not all animals are what we see them as. This discrimination we can diminish. We can give animals the rights that they deserve. We can all be courageous.

Mongolian wilderness
http://www.private-guides.com/guide-in-mongolia/pipi-430/index.php

PETA logo
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/4793514-peta-tells-monks-stop-unchristian-chicken-breeding/image/44150195-peta-logo

This Mongolian horse is much like the one I rode.
http://danny.oz.au/travel/mongolia/khovsgol-lake.html