When I was a toddler, my father carved me a rocking horse for the holidays. It’s the first gift I remember and still have. A little sorrel carved out of a cottonwood branch, streak-faced, with a little painted-on Navajo saddle blanket and the base of a deer shed for a saddle horn.
Oh, the places we’d go. There’s no telling how many miles or bad guys we chased.
Years later, my folks lent out Ole Sorrel to a friend of ours, so her kiddos could crawl on board and have their own adventures. Now he’s kicked back out at my folk’s place, enjoying his retirement, a few chips of paint missing and some wear on the stirrups, but still ready to see some country.
We all have our bucket list, and up near the top of mine was to build a rocking horse for my boy one day. Maybe I should have started this with, “I am not a woodworker,” because I was reminded of that the entire process.
I started with a cottonwood branch, long since dried out, and after a couple of days of using a horse rasp and dehorning saw I could almost make out the body of a small and stout little Cayuse. With chokecherry wood for legs, some used-up wooden rockers off an old rocking chair from the local thrift store, some paint and the hair off an old bison robe, the little cowpony somehow started to come together. And if you squinted just right, it looked perfect.
Luca proudly named his new horse Cortez after one of our Mustangs. He’s spurred Cortez about everywhere; paint is missing and the reins are almost worn through. I’ve watched him get thrown — I don’t know how many times. I couldn’t have been happier to have the honor of making him something handmade to keep.
Go make your kiddo one. You won’t be sorry that you did.
This article was originally published in the December 2023 issue of Western Horseman.
