Where it all began- Part 1

Hello everyone and welcome to my first ever Blog! This is all very new to me so I just wanted to start by saying if you are new here thank you for your support and I hope you will join this new journey with me but for now we go back to the start.

My journey with horses began when I was around 3 years old. My brother Alan and I began riding at a local riding centre that my mum had also learnt at as a child. It wasn’t a big place. They had a small indoor arena surrounded by the ponies stables. I remember being fitted with a different hat everytime I went, back before I realised how unattractive skull hats are without silks and certainly before I knew about KEP Italia hats!

I rode at that stables every week for 2 years until one day I went alone for a private lesson. The instructor was on her phone facing away from me when my pony “Gorgeous” decided to try to get down and roll with me still mounted. In distress my mum decided this would be a great moment to scale the large wall that separated the gallery from the arena and come charging to my rescue. Luckily my excessive ‘Pony Club Kicking’ meant the pony never made it the whole way to the floor. Despite my being uninjured my mum vowed that she would never take me riding again as she couldn’t cope with seeing me get hurt.

In this time I was doing dance and gymnastics with my Brother. We competed in latin and Ballroom dance and participated in the annual shows for our studio, dancing everything from Hip-hop to Ballet. I enjoyed both dance and Gymnastics but nothing compared to riding. I missed it so much.

Enough in fact to begin writing essays at school entitled ‘I hate my parents’ and ‘My parents destroyed my dreams’! I was 8 years old when it reached the point where my parents were called into school and lectured off the headmaster about failing to let me reach my potential. So after 4 years of torture my parents finally booked me in for my first riding lesson…

The new stables seemed so much bigger and busier than the last. I remember walking down the yard for the first time and feeling like everyone was staring at me. I was assigned a pony called ‘Quizzy’ and a member of staff brought her up onto the yard for me to lead into the arena.

The instructor helped me mount and not before long we were doing ‘All around the worlds’ where you turn around 360 degrees in the saddle.

I started in the 11’Oclock lesson which was the beginners lesson and over two years I finally made my way into the 2’Oclock advanced. This was where I properly met Sarah, Becki and Hannah who with myself were soon to become ‘The Dream Team’ (but we’ll get onto that later). My parents began dropping me off for the afternoon and we would all help muck the stables out, water and groom the ponies before walking up the road to buy some sweets from the shop.

It was also around this time I began begging my parents to get me a horse. In the school library there was only one decent book on horses and I checked it out every week and spent all my lonely school lunchtimes reading through it. There was a picture of a grey Arab in that book and I always used to look at that picture and dream that I would have a horse like that one day. So that was where I began my search.

My parents gradually became more accustomed to the idea and before long I had found him. Dreamer.

The ad read “15.1hh Arab x Gelding for sale” and I just knew he was the one. My parents were in agreeance when they rang too as due to him being 15.1 they figured I would never outgrow him so therefore they would never have to get me another…(jokes on them as we have 15 now…but besides the point).

I remember my last time at the riding school before going to see him and being so nervous because I thought they might ask me to tack up and I still had no idea how to put a bridle on.

The day finally came and we made the three hour long trip to go and see him. We had the trailer attached too.

When we arrived it was a large stone yard at the back of a farm and after meeting the owners we were directed to a large barn where Dreamer was kept along with several other horses. I will never forget seeing him for the first time… HE WAS MASSIVE!

At least, he seemed it!

I was very little at the time so he seemed enormous. Then I did something that to this day remains one of the most embarrassing things I have ever done in my whole life.

I ran to the car and got my brand new grooming kit out of the boot and when I came back into the barn I ran to a stable door opened it and went in…the problem was…it wasn’t his stable! There was a large ‘cobby’ type, grey horse in there! I had to be directed back to Dreamer! So embarrassing!

Then it was time for our first ever ride and a moment I will never forget for as long as I live.

His previous owner rode him first then after putting at least three twists in his stirrups, it was my turn. I mounted off a grassy bank then started riding him. Being directed as to what to do as if I was riding round in the riding school. I popped a couple of cross poles out of trot then I pushed him into canter.

Maybe it was that he was bigger. Maybe it was just the difference between ponies and horses or riding school horses but to this day I will never feel as free on a horse as I did that day with Dreamer.

His canter floated. Each time we turned down one of the long sides his canter lengthened and I felt the breeze pull my hair back and my eyes watered as the air hit my face. I couldn’t wipe away the smile. Even now just thinking about it, I still can’t.

 

I hope you guys enjoyed my first ever Blog post! I’m going to try and do one of these a week to start with! I really don’t know how this site works yet and if you can leave comments or likes or anything but if you can please let me know what you thought to this and any ideas for future Blog topics!