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Ski-Joring

by Charlie Anderson, Time Piece Arabians and Sporthorses, Olympia, WA

My booklet on skijoring starts with:

1. First you get a good bottle of wine, open it and enjoy it.
While slowly sipping, you decide which horse hasn't been used
much lately. (Pulling power is everything)
And you make sure that your husband has had enough wine as well so
that he actually says he will ride "Old Frosty" in that beat up old
western saddle that you haven't oiled in years...

2. Then you get your second good bottle of wine. Drink Slowly.
(Make sure the hubbie matches you glass for glass.)
While enjoying the second bottle of wine, you get out your
winter clothes and put 14 layers on in case "things get a bit
difficult."
Then, after visiting the bathroom for the last time, you march
(waddle in all those protective clothes) out to the barn, attach a
rope to the handle of that flat, wide aluminum barn shovel that you
use all the time...Add a protective layer of folded grain bags to
protect your tush...

3. All the while, your hubbie has been out trying to catch "Old
Frosty" and get him saddled. Once that is done, you point that
prancing, blowing, snorting, animal (and the horse that he is riding)
out AWAY from any trees, fences, barns, onlookers, or anything else
that may get in your way of a straight dash someplace.

4. You check the length of line from the shovel handle to the
saddle horn. Too short and you eat snow (and anything else that may
be blowing in the wind from your beloved partner), too long and you
don't make corners real well if you have to turn. (At this point,
Remember the whiplash effect). Dally, (DO NOT TIE) the rope
around "Old Frosty's" horn. Dallying, not tying, may be the key to
joint survival in the near future.

5. Hastily, finish off your third bottle of wine, and as the snow
shovel goes by, ("Old Frosty" really wants to do his Haflinger thing
now and PULL!)make a flying leap for the safety of the grain bags.
Put your feet forward so that you are looking at the back end
of "Flying Old Frosty" and can see what may be coming up...Impromptu
ski jumps, that old stump that you were going to take out last
year...(OOPS! Don't need to do that any more!)and hang on to the
handle with one hand. (Don't forget your bottle of wine in the
other) Or, if you don't have that third bottle, you can do a SeaFair
wave to all of your neighbors as you pass them by at Mach 8.

6. Continue until the snow melts (because if you haven't
gotten "Old Frosty" accustomed to having something dragging behind
him before you attempted all of this, it may take that amount of
time to get him stopped....Or, continue until the bottom of the
shovel melts through...At this point, maybe you should have had that
third bottle of wine and forgot about how cool the Seafair wave
looked...