Rodeo

It is the morning of the rodeo. The horses are still calm.

Billy has no horse assigned to him yet.

He tries to look at each horse in the eyes. They don’t seem very fond of cowboys, bastards who tickles their flanks and don’t deserve to ride them.

Then Billy notices a young horse that seems more friendly. He’s also the most different looking one. All the horses are brown, this one is all white, with a pretty shiny hair. His name is Wishing Star.

They look at each other’s eyes and seem to connect somehow.

The horse is nervous now. At the time Wishing Star is released into the arena a little accident happens. The flank strap doesn’t get tight and the annoying ticklish sensation never comes. He relaxes but senses Billy tensing, with the possibility of being eliminated. He jumps and pounces and bucks as if being tickled, but making sure his new friend won’t fall.

Billy wins the big prize, and gets a friend for life.

The story was inspired on the photo prompt provided by Scott, for the Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers.

The first version of my story was based on the wrong belief that the poor horses get their privates tightened up for bucking. Then I did some research and found out this is not true. Some information about how the flank straps work can be found here.
I wasn’t sure if I should start all over with a different story, or just modify it. It would have made more sense if the private tightening was true, because horses would have a real reason to be unfriendly. But for lack of other ideas, I decided to just modify it.
If a new idea comes to my mind on the course of the week, I may give it a second chance and have another story written.

;o)

To see other stories, click the blue frog bellow.

16 thoughts on “Rodeo”

Great story! I’m glad he won the prize and has a new friend! I’m also glad they didn’t have to tighten up his privates. lol. Poor horses if they did! In your sixth paragraph you have his name as “Wishing Start” instead of Wishing Star (just a little typo). I really like this story and if you think of another story for it, I would like to read that too. Thank you for participating in Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers Challenge.

How sweet…they connect, befriended for life- very nice

Great friendship! So sweet 🙂

Oo, from the horse’s POV, nice touch.

I can relate about the research — I had to do some for my story too. Like, how does she even jump onto the horse and ride it if there’s no saddle or reins? Turns out you can, if you’re trained right.

Nice story about the bond between a man and his horse or broncho. Interesting take on the photo prompt.

Great story!

Excellent story though you might need to check the tense in the first sentence…I like how you created a real sense of tension.

strong bond between man and his friend. Glad he discovered a white horse 🙂

It’s amazing how animals can sense our emotions so clearly.

Isn’t that white horse a beauty? I’m glad you picked up on that and made him a Wishing Star. Great!

I didn’t read the first version but I can relate to discovering stuff after the story is done 😦 Ack! You seem to have done a nice editing job. (Check out that first sentence for tense)

Enjoyed reading this.

Ellespeth

I like the friendship angle. The horse was attuned to him. They understood each other.

Nice story. It’s great that the horse seemed to understand him right away and decided to help him out. That will prove to be a great bond between them.

Great story and a great friendship made.

Billy and Wishing Star won things that aren’t as common as they should be: respect and an evergrowing friendship. Great job! And thanks for the creative way of informing those of us who didn’t know about or ever consider the tightening up of…privates. ^_^

Sometimes two people are just meant to be together and be great friends. And sometimes one of the people isn’t human, but that’s alright. They’re good friends just the same. I enjoyed this story a lot. I love the idea of it.