No Easy Ride: Reflections on My Life in the RCMP by Ian Parsons Read Free Book Online Page B

equitation training, we realized we would be paying for our indiscretions. For the remaining 50 hours of our riding classes, we were seldom astride our steeds. Instead, we performed all of the required formations on foot while leading the horses. At the conclusion of our riding pass out, Corporal Landers, in the company of the entire riding staff, informed us we were the worst troop to ever pass through Depot. We were told to exit the stables and never come back.
    We returned to the rest of our training curriculum with enthusiasm, thankful that equitation was behind us. For many of us, any love and admiration we held for horses would be forever tainted as a result of our RCMP training experience.
    THE LAST POST
    The following poem was written by Constable J.K. Crosby (January 19, 1939–March 25, 2009), a member of RCMP “A” Troop, 1958, at “Depot” Division, Regina, Saskatchewan. “A” Troop gathered for a reunion in 1994, where Ken Crosby presented these memories of equitation training.
    On quiet days a sudden flash, a scent,
A sound, or something else to stir the other time
A shout, a distant roll of drums
A marching tune or bugle on the wind
Can summon up the pride of what has been
The memories report for watch again
A clopping horse’s hoof re-echoing on the pavement
Although there be no horse
The ammonia blast of the overnight void
Although there be no stalls
The warmth beneath the curry comb and brush
The warm neck to lay a head on
The gruffness that hid the real affection
    The strength, the firmness of shoulder and haunch,
The might, the fright, her of me, and me of her.
A fright to overcome with persistence and love.
The warmness of the horse’s teary eye
Its nodding head approving the affection given
Responding with a recognition that
Although ridden by others, the horse was truly yours.
Their names flash by from time to time
My “Gypsy”, a “Rebel”, “Dawn” and “Gail”
A “Rogue” that really wasn’t and a “Faux Pas” that was
    I remember “Newton” biting Sam Strang’s thumb
Strang the Roughrider, Harry Armstrong, Ralph Cave,
Jesse Jessiman
They’re still forming troops in my memory
and making sure that we used the saddle soap
On our supple fragrant tack.
Still shouting “Ride, prepare to mount”
As I hear again the leathery grunting squeak of the stirrups
And saddles along the assembled line of exhaling horses.
    By sections and half sections through weather’s best and worst
Enough cold to freeze a breath and steam and ice a horse
Enough warmth to quickly sweat and bring froth to a horse’s coat
I remember the scent of the horse’s sweat
Its warmth and its wetness
Its feeling on my cheek as I hugged the horse’s neck
Its smell on my clothing
Its splash between my fingers as I “Made Much” to my horse.
    I remember jumps, my grunts, the horse’s grunts, the awkward landings,
the surprise I was still mounted
And suicide lane and the order “quit reins, quit stirrups”
Tipping a forage cap was never so funny
As when doffed by a rider with weak knees
A rider with weak knees shouting “Good morning Corporaaal”
    I remember “Roman Riding” and “field days”
That were more of a day-off than “General Equitation”
I remember a big inflated ball that stood as high as a horse’s withers
Except for “Gaul” of course, who stood seventeen hands
I remember the soft tilled soil of the Riding School
As opposed to the gumbo outside
That exacted such punishment to our ironed Strathcona boots
That were spit shined, be they Hart made or McDonnell.
I remember “the ride”, I remember the precision
I remember the gaits, the canter figure of eight
The pleasure of having missed hitting anyone in the crossover.
I remember wondering how the music kept in time so well
with the “bump trot”
And in the Riding School, there came those fleeting fantasies
of those great cavalries that had gone before
From the Cossacks on the steppes through to the Strathcona Horse
From the Charge of