A Fall Beneath Pounding Hooves: Can Dolly Save Us?

I was sixteen and walking on clouds. We had brought Dolly home to us only a couple of weeks earlier. Since then, I’d spent almost more time in the saddle than on the ground. And loving every second. 

The smells of sunshine, leather, and horses flooded my senses. Ah, I loved that scent. It’s the smell of freedom; of dreams come true.

“Time to ride, right, Dolly?”

 I give one last tug on the cinch before swinging, not so gracefully, into the saddle. I was pretty excited that this brown and peach saddle actually fit Dolly. I’d bought it online years before and had lugged it around in our family’s move from Missouri to Wisconsin. But as far as saddles go, it was still brand new. Dolly was the first horse to wear it. 

At that moment, my younger brother, Ben, comes running from the porch, grinning from ear to ear.

“I’m ready!” He declared, plopping his brown cowboy hat on his ten-year-old head. “And I can climb up there!”

I pulled my foot from one of the stirrups. Ben used that stirrup to pull himself up and clamored to sit behind the saddle. He made it look so easy. It wasn’t our first time to ride double on Dolly, but she had always done so well with it. It was as if she knew exactly how much fun we were having with her and she loved it.

“Here we go!” I said as I asked Dolly to start walking down the driveway.

We didn’t go too far. We just trotted down the road, meandered through our small pasture, and giggled as Dolly tried to eat corn stalks when we rode by the field across the street. We turned to head towards home.

“Want to go faster?” I asked, already knowing what Ben would say.

“Yes!” He cheered. 

I brought Dolly to a stop. “Hold onto me real tight.”

He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I signaled Dolly to start loping. Her gait was smooth, like gentle waves, as we rode down our fence line. Ben and I shared the same thrill. I heard him laugh; I couldn’t help but join in with him. 

But my excitement, so full, so complete, staggered and tripped as I felt the saddle shift. I must’ve been pushing my weight into one stirrup, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I hadn’t been riding very long, but I knew that this was bad. We were slipping, or more specifically, the saddle was slipping. And it was happening fast. 

“Hold on, Ben!” I yelled as I grabbed for Dolly’s mane.

    I did everything I could to pull the saddle back into place. Though straining every muscle, nothing I did seemed to help. My face was now inches from Dolly’s shoulder. The branches of the line of evergreens slapped our legs and shoulders. I could hear her hooves pounding the ground; could hear the thundering of my own heart. It felt like an eternity had passed, yet it had only been a few seconds. I lost all grip as my hands tore through her mane. The saddle slid almost under her stomach. All breath left my lungs. 

We were airborne. For a split moment we were flying - all thrill was devoured by terror. I knew we were going to fall beneath Dolly’s hooves; I knew what that crushing impact would do to us. And I was struck with the helplessness of also knowing there was nothing I could do about it.  It was as though someone had pressed ‘pause’ on the scene playing out before me. I could see, from my position frozen in air, the saddle now dangling between Dolly’s legs. I could see Dolly’s eye, wide and startled looking back at me. And then I watched her do something I didn’t realize was possible: she jumped sideways. Like ten feet sideways. Away from us. Not even waiting to slow down. It wasn’t some random action. It was purposeful, calculated. 

My mind caught up with my body and we crashed into the thick evergreen tree branches. I felt pain in my head and my world went black. I have no memory of actually hitting the ground.

I didn’t get to see what happened next. But my family has retold it more than a hundred times, and it’s no less amazing now than it was that day. Dolly didn’t slow down after we fell. Instead, she kept going - running down the rest of the fence line and up our driveway. But she didn’t go back to where Cutter was grazing, nor to where she’d be unsaddled or fed. No, she went loping to our front porch. The long, urgent whinny is used by a horse that is worried or in distress; they will use this cry to call for other herd mates to come to them. This was the sound that Dolly used at the front door. She did it two or three times until the rest of our family heard and came dashing outside. The empty saddle, draping reins, and Dolly’s wide-eyed expression: these told the story better than any words could have done. 

“They fell!” Mom cried as my older sister, two younger brothers and my Dad rushed onto the porch.

But Dolly wasn’t done. Once she had their attention, she turned and began running back down the driveway. Somehow my brother, Thomas, and my sister, Tiffany, were able to keep up. Everyone rushed to follow Dolly, not knowing what they’d find.

I’ll never be sure of how long I was actually unconscious. The next thing I remember was opening my eyes to a canopy of branches over my face and a body that ached all over. The whole fall replayed in my mind - like flashes from an action scene.

“Ben!” I rolled to my side so fast my vision blurred. 

My younger brother pops up beside me. “I’m okay.” He quickly said.

His cowboy hat was missing, lost to the wind long before we hit the ground. He had scratches down his right arm and one scratch down the right side of his face. He says he still remembers the bone-rattling impact of our landing. If not for the branches breaking our fall, our injuries would have been worse, much worse. 

I hear the pounding of Dolly’s hooves again. I push myself to a sitting position to see Dolly come to a stop at the end of our driveway. She looks over her shoulder before loping towards Ben and I. Slowing to a walk a half dozen yards from us, she drops her head and comes right up to me and then Ben. She gives a low nicker, like how a mare would murmur to its foal. 

‘Are you alright? Are you hurt?’ She was clearly asking.

“We’re okay, Dolly, we’re okay.”

“BEN! MADISON!” 

We hear our family’s anxious voices calling our names as they come running. I lean on Dolly’s neck to pull myself to my feet. Our family surrounded us seconds later, expressing concern and checking us for injuries. As we slowly walk back to the house, Ben and I recount the story as best we can. Dolly walked gently beside us all the way home.

I often think about that day. And honestly, I’m still in amazement. I can't explain how Dolly did what she did, how she knew to go get help, how she came running back to us. But I do know why it happened: Dolly loves being ridden, she loves her rider and she will do everything in her power to keep them safe.  God has used her to protect us; she’s proven that over and over.

She may not be a show champion. She may not win ribbons or have world-class bloodlines. 

But to me, Dolly is a one-in-a-million horse. Her worth cannot be calculated in dollar signs. It’s in the size of her heart and the way she loves every single person who climbs on her back.