Pea’s Journey – My Favourite Story To Tell

This might be a post exclusively for me.  I am completely obsessed by my pony and am totally aware that other people might not quite be as interested.  Nevertheless it is my blog so here goes.

One of my greatest wishes would be to know the beginnings of Pea.  As far back as I can trace her she was called Gypsy Dawn and a man swapped her with the gypsies for some hay.  In her early years she had two foals, Star and Betsy.  She was heavily pregnant when she was sold in 2012 to a lady with the words

‘This mare can be spiteful with other horses and can be difficult to load’.

At this point ‘Gypsy Dawn’ was meant to be about four but as with many ponies of traveller descent, noone really knows her age.  Not long after, in April, beautiful baby Boo was born.

Sadly, in May 2012, the lady who owned the renamed ‘Scarlet Sweetpea’ had a nasty fall off another horse and ended up with more broken ribs than ponies!  In the later stages of that year Pea wasn’t showing signs of having been a ridden pony (contrary to what her owner had originally been told) and with a long rib to riding recovery journey still to go, the lady was given the option for Pea to move to an equestrian centre in the Cotswolds belonging to a friend, which is exactly what happened.

At the beginning of 2013, at Bourton Vale Equestrian Centre, Pea started her ridden career with hacking, riding school activities and was leased by a child.  A year later I had my second hack at BVEC on a fluffy cob – Pea!  As I said in my earlier post, in April 2014 Pea became my lease pony, we even took part in the yard summer show!

Pea was a challenge to catch at the beginning.  I spent many hours sat in the field with a bucket but once she was caught she was a fantastically well behaved pony to hack in groups and kept my confidence up well.  In the school she could be challenging, she used to take the mick out of the children who rode her in lessons. I learnt to block her from random turns to the side and we were able to produce a pretty acceptable intro dressage test.  We entered dressage competitions held in the field at the yard each summer.  Cantering in the school was an issue, in the early days she just used to put her head down and bomb off but it didn’t really matter!  Cantering out was fine though and we enjoyed several fun rides together.

As time went on, I was not fully satisfied with just leasing Pea.  Other ponies from the yard were sold and I couldn’t bear to think of Pea belonging to anyone other than me.  I remember the yard owner saying

‘Are you sure you want to buy Pea?  Don’t you want ***** instead?’

But ultimately it wasn’t just a pony I wanted, it was Pea.  In January 2016 I bought myself the best late Christmas present I could have ever had.  I can’t quite describe the feeling of achieving a life long dream which had seemed impossible for so long.  She continued to ‘work’ on tourist hacks from the yard but no longer did lessons which was my choice.  No more taking advantage of children!

In August 2017 there was another big change.  I had got a job at a school in Malvern, working at the stables.  It was time for Pea and I to both fly the nest.  My greatest fear about the move was that Pea wouldn’t be happy.  Clearly I should have been more concerned about whether my leg would hold up but we all know where that one ended!  After initially moving in as a lone pony and being a little concerned over the new situation, Pea was joined by lots of pony friends and was much happier.  We had a wonderful seven months of hacking out, we even went cubbing once – an experience that she enjoyed but I did not! Ouch!  I started to go out to dressage lessons, suddenly I had the confidence and the support to be able to work towards my dreams.  Top thanks go to my yard colleague there for her encouragement and my wonderful OH for becoming a driver, groom and pony holder!

So here we are, back home.  I will never forget opening up the trailer the day she returned to the familiar sights and smells of BVEC.  Aside from being slightly shocked at the amount of mud and the arrival of pigs as an accessory to the arena, she settled in as though she had never been away.

I could have very easily slipped back into our old ways of going nowhere and doing nothing.  The fantastic instructor I had found in Worcestershire was too far away now but I found another instructor closer to home and Pea and I have been making fortnightly trips to do lots of hard work!  We even went on a pleasure ride (https://younghipandhorsey.com/2018/05/20/pleasure-and-pain/).

The next chapter is a fuzzy one for Pea.  I will be incapacitated and things will certainly change in the temporary.  Pea is earmarked to do some tourists hacks to keep busy (if anyone can catch her!) and I’m hoping that she will keep ticking along until I can get back to normal.

 

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Pleasure And Pain

So the other day I said I was amping it up with the riding before I have to have a while out of the saddle post op. Today I took park in a BHS pleasure ride. I haven’t been on a fun ride since December 2016 because of what the hours in the saddle does to me.  The pleasure ride isn’t about careering around the countryside and jumping though, it was meant to essentially be a long, chilled country hack – sounded perfect!

My family have always used the simile of slices of cake to work out distances on journeys. If today’s ride was split into slices, the first quarter of the cake was just normal riding pain and beautiful scenery. During the second quarter my left leg and foot were pretty much numb. We were just thinking that we must be in the last stages when one of the officials uttered the words

‘You’ve done the short part, now you’ve got the long part to do!’

Bearing it in mind my riding party consisted of a tiny child being led on foot and two ladies with a previous broken knee and sciatica issues respectively, this wasn’t great news!

I genuinely felt sick from the pain during the second half and wasn’t entirely sure if I could move, let alone get my bum out of the saddle! When I got off I almost cried – not sure if it was because my leg had started trembling uncontrollably or because I was so full of pride for our achievement!  I feel like perhaps I didn’t need to do what is probably a week of riding squeezed into one day but I am so glad I did.  Who knows when our next fun ride will be or what I will be like then!

At the end of the day though, I will take pain over what another rider on today’s ride experienced.  On our way round we had to pass the lifeless body of a horse who had died on its way round (presumably of a heart attack).  I cannot even comprehend the immense mental pain that rider will have gone through today.  It was so unbelievably sad.  Dodgy hip or no dodgy hip, I was able to go and see my pony in the field this evening – I feel very lucky I can do that.  it was a sobering reminder that life is short and you should count your blessings everyday.

 

Riding – How It All Started

There is no denying I was a very lucky little girl.  My parents took me to riding lessons when I was about five.  I remember going riding with my big brother and sister and a little pony called Nan.  We even had a pony to stay at our farm when I was about six.  When we moved to Devon my mum found a new riding school.  I used to ride a grey pony called Tom – he was one of those ponies who was best off on the end of a rope but I loved it.  I vividly remember the excitement of jodhpurs, my very own riding hat and desperately wanting a pair of riding boots!

As I said in my previous post, all that horsey loveliness came to an end when I was diagnosed with Perthes.  I never lost the love for ponies.  Recently I went through all the kept paper and schoolwork from my childhood and I clearly used to draw ponies a lot!  I read horsey books, I played with toy horses, I played with a rocking horse and hobby horses and, rather embarrassingly, had a long term game with my sister involving invisible imaginary horses!  Between seven and twenty one I probably rode three times – much begged for birthday treats generally!

The desire had never left me but life went on.  When I finished university I got a real, proper, full time job and was suddenly earning actual money.  This also coincided with a number of a dates with a boy.  The story goes that on one date we were driving through the country and talking about his friends who had horses, I expressed my love for horses and desire to ride and his reply was

‘If you love horses and riding so much why don’t you just do it’.

That guy was insignificant but the words were not.  I booked a riding lesson!

The first place that I went to I wasn’t fully sold on, I went there twice and knew that riding was still for me but not necessarily there.  I then went to a new place where I started having weekly lessons.  Monday evenings were the highlight of my week, made even more special by the fact that my lesson was the last of the night so I was able to untack my horse and feed it.  I will never forget my first canter and the immense sense of achievement I felt at each small improvement.

After a few months I wanted more, I found a third riding stables (Bourton Vale Equestrian Centre) which offered hacking as well as lessons.  After two hacks there I discovered the concept of ‘leasing’ – essentially a paid commitment resulting you being able to ride a certain horse whenever you want to and to treat it as your own – I jumped straight in.

To cut a long story short, I had an unfortunate fall out on a hack off the first horse I leased.  My confidence was crippled.  I had the opportunity to swap horses and I did but that still didn’t work – I just couldn’t leave the yard on horseback.  Eventually the yard owner asked the ultimate question

‘Do you actually want to do it?  If you actually want to do it I can help’.

And she did.  I was given the option to ride the old queen of the yard Whiskey.  It worked!

The next stage was slowly but surely swapping from Whiskey to Pea.  By Easter 2014 I was leasing a pony I was comfortable with but who still ultimately gave me enough challenges!  We did the riding centre summer show, we entered  the dressage competitions held at the yard, we went on fun rides and it was all wonderful.