Steve, I'll bite and answer your question about ever having ridden any critters.  When I was a toddler and up until I was in kindergarten or first grade, I was able to ride on the back of our big ol' St. Bernard. 🐶 I'd wear my cowboy hat and plastic cowboy boots and pretend being in the cavalry or herding cattle up the Chisholm Trail.  When I get older, and bigger you might say, I switched over to riding our horse, 🐎 Rhubarb (yeah, I grew up on a farm), and I did that until she passed away when I was in high school.  I rode with friends on their horses a few times after that, but I think the last time I did that was in the 1980s.  Thanks for helping to bring back those memories for me.   

Well, I almost rode a pony as a child. Almost you ask? Yes. I no sooner was sat on a pony's back by my uncle (the owner of said creature) and let get settled when it bucked. Gravity ensued quickly, my trip through the air over the pony's head was short-lived, and I found myself sitting on my backside on the ground in shock at how quickly it happened. Nothing was broken except for my hope of a pony ride. No way was I gonna get back on that thing.

And that was the both the beginning and the end of my equine adventures.

Living out here in Central Massachusetts, not only the center of the universe, but smack dab in the middle of what's left of our small farming community, one would think the opportunity and the chance to go galavanting on the back of some four-legged means of conveyance would abound...sadly, just not so. 

I have, however, had a moment on a mechanical bull. Calling it more than a moment is being generous....does this count?

Irvine's sounds like my dream store! 

As far as horse stories, I have a million of them. The one that comes to mind first was getting swept downstream in early spring in a storm flooded river on my young gelding. I still have periodic nightmares. I was with a friend and we were anxious to get back to riding in the Grand Valley in Pickering, Ontario after a rough winter. It was a few miles from our boarding barn. I had no intentions of crossing the river. I was just standing on its edge shocked at how different it looked when my gelding leapt in on his own, following the path we always took in summer. We were completely submerged and I was swept off the saddle when he was flipped over by the current, only finding the surface after thinking I never would. I couldn't tell up from down. When I saw daylight I was along a very tall bank quite a ways from our leap off point, where the river had a sharp bend. It had eroded that bank. I clawed at the dirt and grabbed roots and rock until I managed to get a good grip and clear the water. I really shouldn't have survived, and my friend watched in horror as the whole thing happened.

He told me once I found solid enough ground that my gelding made it across once we had flipped over. He righted himself and got to the opposite bank. So there I was with bleeding, ripped fingers (badly injured) and wearing a soaked and very heavy leather jacket, and my horse was on the other side. Long story short, my friend climbed up to a railway trestle and started crawling across because I was in too rough shape to do it. Meanwhile, I was on his horse, a smart old gelding who was huge. My gelding was calling , very upset, and Beau, my friend's horse decided he was going to cross too. It was the last thing I expected, but he leapt in and I was back in the river. Fortunately, though we got swept, he didn't flip over and I hung around his neck with my arms and legs. He leapt and thrashed, and he was powerful enough that he finally reached footing. My friend, way up high, watched in horror again. He made it across the trestle and we left the valley by what was the long way. I shivered for hours but we made it back to the barn and the owners put me in a warm bath after I fell to the ground. It took a week to get skin back on my fingers, but I was fine, and so were the horses. 

*shudders at reliving it* 

When I was in PT school, we went to visit a hippotherapy center to learn some more about it.  We were all supposed to ride the horses.  They asked for someone who had ridden before to go first and I had a few times during vacations and such, but getting up there with no saddle or reins or basically anything to hold onto except the animal itself, was an experience.   

The owner of the farm next to ours when I was growing up had horses.  He and his son sometimes rode them over to our farm.  When I was about 4 or 5, he rode over on what I now realize was a very tall horse and offered to lift me up to sit in the saddle.  I seemed to be really high up!  Later, I rode a few times now and then with my best friend's horse, but was not good at it.

Horses well cared for are beautiful animals and I enjoy watching them.

To clarify since @wildone is being a cheeky butt and will be punished.  I was not given a pink tractor as a teenager.  Our family had a tractor, mostly just sitting around. It ran. It was one of those smaller John Deere tractors, and I made the comment one day, "It's an ugly green color, it would look better in pink." I got on it some summers just for fun and to show people that I knew how to drive it and bush hog my Mother's pasture fields.

One morning my Mother told me to go look in the barn. She had it professionally painted pink.  It looked grotesque, but it was pink. 

As for Western wear, a good pair of jeans can do a lot of work for a man that can wear them. As far as the whole western look, not a fan. If your belt buckle is bigger than your head... (the one on your shoulders), we both know there are some coping or compensation going on for that, I said what I said. Unless I'm in Texas, Montana, Oklahoma, I really don't see the reason for it. Especially if you've never roped a cow in your whole life.  

I used to ride horses, trail mostly. At one time I was riding a horse twice a week during the summer and winter breaks from school. Then on Sundays during the school year. They're beautiful animals. High maintenance things that demands a lot to do them justice, but it was fun. 

Grew up on a small ranch, so I have ridden since I was young, although have not been on a horse in many years now.  While I think they are majestic creatures, would rather keep my feet on the ground now, bones break way to easily at my age.

I have always wanted to go to the Calgary Stampede but have never been; so many men in Wranglers, must be heaven.  

I was put on pony rides as a child at school picnics.  As a teenager we would go ride trails at a local horse farm.  Sadly that place is now a subdivision full of tract homes.  I never learned to saddle or care for a horse.  My grandfather told me stories of him having and riding a mule as well as using a pair of mules to plow the field.  Unfortunately he lost the farm in 1932 during the depression when my mom was nine years old.  She was mad because her uncle bought it in a foreclosure sale to pay the taxes on the county courthouse steps and promptly evicted them.