My riding story is very choppy, so buckle up because this will be a journey!
I started riding at a riding school about 30 minutes from where I lived, I rode a little dun pony called Whitson, who ended up being my favourite at that riding school. However, because of the distance I only had two lessons there before I started going to a riding school that was only 15 minutes away on a pony called Splash.
I loved it there, but there were a few problems, the person taking the lesson would constantly answer phone calls during the lesson, and one day her phone spooked the horse and I fell off. It also wasn’t uncommon for us to drive there and be told that actually she wasn’t going to do the lesson because she had a stomach-ache. This was really hard for 7-year-old me because I’d look forward to my lessons for so long and would get all the way there and then be told that I couldn’t do it.
So, I went back to the original riding school. I done loads of own a pony day, had loads of lessons and went on forest and beach hacks. It was great! However, I then started getting problems with my back and because of the distance it just got more and more difficult, so I stopped.
I always wanted to go back, but we kept putting off finding somewhere until I was about 14 and we found a hacking yard not too far from where we lived. I went for a couple of hacks and then asked if I could volunteer there. I started helping there and to start off with I was probably a massive inconvenience, I didn’t even know how to put a headcollar on. But I learnt so much in a very small amount of time. I also made loads of really close friends who I still speak to often.
However, this came to a grinding halt when we had to leave the yard because they wanted to develop it. I felt like I’d lost my happy place, I kept seeing all the horses and when we found a new yard I’d go every weekend to help out. It was then that I started doing a lot more, I was a lot more involved in the running of the business and was trained to take hacks out and a lot more intricate care for the horses, and how to run a yard. It was then that I really built up my confidence in both handling and riding horses.
But that wasn’t quite enough, in the time that we didn’t have anywhere I wanted to keep up riding and started going to another riding school. Although I could stay on, my riding was far from technical, and there was still a lot more to learn. The owner of this yard was fierce, a true old fashioned horse woman and she taught me a lot!
Then, one night when I was at my bar job, someone came over and we got talking, she said that she had two horses and that she was looking for someone to come and ride one of them to keep them fit in exchange for some yard duties. I jumped at the chance! This is where I met Bully, he gave me more confidence than I’ve ever had, and I done things that I wouldn’t even dream of now. But I just trusted him 100percent. He made me think I was a great rider.
I helped them for about 6 months, and this is where I decided that I was capable and could afford a horse of my own. I spoke to Bully’s owner who said that she would happily go halves with me, and a share would be a good start. This is when I bought sky. I’ll go into more detail about my time with sky in another blog, but for now, just remember how confident Bully made me.
After a few months of sharing sky, I was struggling to get to the yard twice a day every day because it was about 25 minutes from where I lived, and at the time I couldn’t afford the fuel as well as everything else, so I bought Sky off the woman and moved her closer to home.
We soon went into lockdown, and this ended up being the best thing that could have happened in regards to Sky. During lockdown my mum started coming to the yard with me and decided that she would like to start riding, I very quickly told her that I didn’t think sky would be appropriate to learn to ride on if she valued her life!
So, we started looking for another one. I knew I wanted a gelding because I had seen a rug that I liked that had dinosaurs on (I wish I was joking) we saw a few online that we liked, but nothing really stood out, they were too big, couldn’t jump, or older than we wanted. That was when a little black cob named Rupert come up. We instantly fell in love and that weekend drove an hour and a half to go and view him.
He was so quiet and done everything we asked, he was perfect! We bought him that day! He arrived the following weekend and I’m still convinced they brought a different horse because he’s been a pain from the day we got him. But that’s a story for another time.
I moved them both a few times in the time that I had them trying to find somewhere that suited us all. I actually ended up going back to where I first had sky when I first got her as a share. We were very happy there for a long time.
During the time we were there I unfortunately lost sky, it was a freak accident, and it absolutely broke my heart. However, I still had Rupert to care for. We stayed there for another about 18 months, but due to bullying on the yard I left and I’m now somewhere closer and I’ve never been happier.
My riding journey so far has been a choppy one, full of change, a lot of laughs and some heartache. But it made me the person and the rider I am today and for that I couldn’t change anything.