I've also described this before, but here goes... Sorry if I go on a little long...
One late afternoon, many many years ago, toward the end of a long ride, my stepmother called back to me, said that Lady (her thoroughbred/arabian) was getting tired. We'd already covered about two miles, so I agreed. Bigfoot (my Quarter horse/Morgan) had been such a good boy, hadn't been a pill or acted up, so I thought I'd allow him to stretch his legs on the way home. He liked to do that -- gallop home. I guess he felt he'd get his sweet feed faster, the addict.
But this time, as I turned him, I scooted closer to the pommel, got a tight grip on him with my legs, and drew the reins up to his neck. His head lifted high, his ears pricked. I could feel him capacitating under me. I knew this time would be different from the other times I'd run him for home.
I barely touched his sides, said "Take off," and he erupted, digging his back hooves into the earth. A bunny hop buck, and then he launched. I'm glad I'd had the foresight to adjust my position in the saddle or I would've been flat on the ground. I could never remember that he'd been a barrel racer in his former incarnation. I even sometimes took for granted that he was half Quarter Horse -- he was such a lazy boy, laid back, unexcitable. His chunky physique belied the speed he was capable of.
Lady was fast. Bigfoot was terrifying.
Everything became a blur. All I could see clearly was his head with his ears laid back. His pace was so rapid, it became choppy, and I could no longer move with him. I had to raise myself just above the saddle to maintain my balance. It was like trying to stay upright on a cannon ball.
Along the old highway, signs were posted "45 mph" in some places, "55 mph" in others. There was a car up ahead. Bigfoot blasted by it as if it were parked. That's when I knew I was riding the fastest horse I'd ever thrown a leg over and the surprise was it was MY horse -- my big grunting lazy "pat-me" Bubba. I was stunned. I'd ridden a million horses and never had I felt as if I was strapped to a rocket.
He wasn't galloping. He was soaring. The only thing that told me we were still in contact with terra firma was the heavy thud of his hard black feet, with barely a skip in the rhythm as he hurled himself over a train track. He was attacking the distance American horse style -- enthusiastically, inelegantly, powerfully.
I took a chance and cast a look over my shoulder. My stepmother was no longer to be seen. Lady was a speck behind us, furious at having been left behind. She hated that.
I decided to rein Bubba in a bit, slacken his pace so I could put my rear end back in the saddle. My thighs were screaming for relief. I hauled him down to cruising speed, and the scenery to either side began to crystallize again. No more warp-speed blur.
The car we'd blown the doors off of came rolling up, matched us. Arms and clapping hands were flailing out the windows followed by hoots and cheers of approval. I laughed, waved a little. I couldn't do a big wave -- I was exhausted and Bubba was still juiced up, so I dared not drop the reins. I gradually slowed him to a trot, then to a jaunty walk. I was patting him, crowing praise. He lifted his neck straight and I patted him and patted him. His ears stood up and he turned his head a bit -- "Look what I did!"
"Yeah, that's right, Big Boy!" I said, tugging one of those twisting ears. "You were 4 years old again. Very impressive!"
He strutted the rest of the way home, promenaded across the sprawling front lawn of my father's house. Dad came out and asked where we had left my stepmother. Dropping out of the saddle, I prevented Bigfoot from tearing up a huge mouthful of grass and began to hot walk him. I told Dad about the warp-speed tear along the old highway, and Dad raised his eyebrows. I wasn't the only one who'd forgotten about Bubba's breeding. My stepmother finally arrived with Lady in a foam.
"You were flying!" she laughed. "Lady is so mad at me right now!"
We bought Bigfoot when I was 11 and he was 13. He'd always been known to be fast, but he never felt like showing that off. Not much. He was much too easy-going to be truly bothered with speed. If you wanted a mad gallop, you got on Lady, who was part Thoroughbred and was never allowed total control of her head at a gallop because she could be fiery and willful. She was a horse that you couldn't take for granted in any way. A sweet, beautiful, cuddly gal without a saddle on her. An equine Hera under tack who wouldn't think twice about casually unseating someone. She wasn't mean -- just felt like she was the Boss.
Bubba -- you could practically fall asleep on him and nothing would happen. He'd probably have fallen asleep himself before you did. A cop car, sirens and lights going, shot by him and he simply turned his head to see what the trouble was. Lady, a nervous street-smart little mare, did NOT like surprises.
Bigfoot, over the years, showed flashes of brilliance when the mood took him. As I'd said, Lady was quick and surefooted as a jackrabbit. She kept her back straight while churning her legs at a gallop which made her a very easy horse to keep pace with. She would have made an excellent mount for some cowboy in the old West.
Our boy, he was just too lazy. The cowboy would never make it home again. But strange things happened, when all the planets aligned. A spell would come over burly, temperate Bubba and he'd turn into Pegasus. This is when the Quarter Horse in him would exert its power. Anything under a quarter mile was toast. Sometimes, in a turn, he'd channel his former self, plant a forefoot, and swing his entire weight around, dipping his muscular body so close to the ground the stirrups would gout the dirt. He was racing again...
But never so fast as that one day along the highway. That was the fastest he'd ever gone under my command, never to be repeated. He would have been about 20 years old then, I was about 18. Unbeknownst to us, we were both reaching the end of our riding days together. Soon, only a year or two later, I had to stop riding because I could no longer do so without pain. Pain was rising in my spine, radiating out its despair into every inch of nerve and muscle. Bigfoot began to have serious trouble with lameness -- his injured back leg had never quite recovered from that run-in with barbed wire. He was kept as a pet for the next several years, a companion for Lady, and for Dad who'd grown very attached to their manly morning visits.
I didn't realize that that would be our last ride together.