A fright - and hard decisions....
We have been shaken up today and reminded in no uncertain terms that horses are unpredictable and riding can be dangerous – you watch children riding round and round on trotting nags day after day and you forget that things can change in an instant and you can be catapulted into disaster without warning.
Today started brilliantly with J grooming, mucking out and bustling around the yard: it’s a whole new world in the day, the world of the livery owners. I met some lovely people – 3 other mother and daughter pairs as it happens, all of whome were as friendly and welcoming as you could hope, and all only too willing to answer my bubbling-over questions that I haven’t liked to bother Pat with, all volunteering their experiences and information about showing, hacking – things I really burned to know.
A really good day. J rode Whisper twice in the bottom school and jumped her over some small poles. She is a friendly and unthreatening pony to handle, which gave a nervy new pony-mum a lot of encouragement. We even shampooed her tail, which is white and flowing, in striking contrast to her dark grey coat, and which is positioned of course very close to those large and frisky iron-shod back feet – she was calm and patient. Everyone at the stable of course took an interest in ‘J’s new pony’ and were gratifyingly admiring of her looks. So far, so fun.
J has a lesson on Tuesdays with a small group of rather competent teenagers with Pat herself teaching. I yesterday asked Pat if J should have a private lesson this week to assess the pony to see if she were OK to ride in a group lesson – Pat thought this was unneccesary. Pat is extremely competent and experienced and I am not, so I went along with this. J was a little nervous as the lesson takes place in the Top School, which is much larger than the other, and the pony hadn’t seen it before. We did intend to take Whisper up there today but the school happened to be in use at the time.
After ten minutes of the lesson Whisper spooked at something unknown, bucked J over her head in quite a balletic flight through the air, and galloped off across the arena. J was unhurt but shaken. She remounted and rode again. Not five minutes later she was off again. This time she was extremely shaken and Pam didn’t try to get her to remount.
Pat’s verdict is: the pony is a delight with lots of potential. She said that either of the two things which happened today were not necessarily indicative of problems with the pony’s nature – just that she is very ‘green’. She can’t be ridden in the school on working livery until she has had more schooling. The way Pat put that came out like ‘I couldn’t risk my pupils on her yet but it’s up to you if you want to take the risk’. That isn’t what she said but you get the picture.
How would anyone feel, faced with a decision like that? Now we are really torn. My instinct is to keep the pony longer and see what happens. I felt all along it was a mistake to put her into a group lesson but what do I know?
The trouble is, we have no 'longer'. The pony is only lent to us until Friday and her seller will want to take her away if we can’t commit ourselves – she has 4 more potential purchasers lined up for the weekend viewing.
Thinking this through I think we would be mad to take her on. J, while competent and sensible, is not very confident and her joy in the pony is badly knocked tonight. We should maybe go for something slower, safer, and much more schooled. There are cons with that too. What joy is there in riding a bomproof school-type pony who reached any potential it had years ago? Why buy one at all? why not just carry on having lessons?
Yet what joy would there be in 3 months or more of uncertainty and waiting for the same thing to happen again? I felt terror tonight in that split second of wondering if J would ever get up again, if her lovely, fun hobby had become a death sentence – or a life sentence. Christopher Reeve died this week.
Today started brilliantly with J grooming, mucking out and bustling around the yard: it’s a whole new world in the day, the world of the livery owners. I met some lovely people – 3 other mother and daughter pairs as it happens, all of whome were as friendly and welcoming as you could hope, and all only too willing to answer my bubbling-over questions that I haven’t liked to bother Pat with, all volunteering their experiences and information about showing, hacking – things I really burned to know.
A really good day. J rode Whisper twice in the bottom school and jumped her over some small poles. She is a friendly and unthreatening pony to handle, which gave a nervy new pony-mum a lot of encouragement. We even shampooed her tail, which is white and flowing, in striking contrast to her dark grey coat, and which is positioned of course very close to those large and frisky iron-shod back feet – she was calm and patient. Everyone at the stable of course took an interest in ‘J’s new pony’ and were gratifyingly admiring of her looks. So far, so fun.
J has a lesson on Tuesdays with a small group of rather competent teenagers with Pat herself teaching. I yesterday asked Pat if J should have a private lesson this week to assess the pony to see if she were OK to ride in a group lesson – Pat thought this was unneccesary. Pat is extremely competent and experienced and I am not, so I went along with this. J was a little nervous as the lesson takes place in the Top School, which is much larger than the other, and the pony hadn’t seen it before. We did intend to take Whisper up there today but the school happened to be in use at the time.
After ten minutes of the lesson Whisper spooked at something unknown, bucked J over her head in quite a balletic flight through the air, and galloped off across the arena. J was unhurt but shaken. She remounted and rode again. Not five minutes later she was off again. This time she was extremely shaken and Pam didn’t try to get her to remount.
Pat’s verdict is: the pony is a delight with lots of potential. She said that either of the two things which happened today were not necessarily indicative of problems with the pony’s nature – just that she is very ‘green’. She can’t be ridden in the school on working livery until she has had more schooling. The way Pat put that came out like ‘I couldn’t risk my pupils on her yet but it’s up to you if you want to take the risk’. That isn’t what she said but you get the picture.
How would anyone feel, faced with a decision like that? Now we are really torn. My instinct is to keep the pony longer and see what happens. I felt all along it was a mistake to put her into a group lesson but what do I know?
The trouble is, we have no 'longer'. The pony is only lent to us until Friday and her seller will want to take her away if we can’t commit ourselves – she has 4 more potential purchasers lined up for the weekend viewing.
Thinking this through I think we would be mad to take her on. J, while competent and sensible, is not very confident and her joy in the pony is badly knocked tonight. We should maybe go for something slower, safer, and much more schooled. There are cons with that too. What joy is there in riding a bomproof school-type pony who reached any potential it had years ago? Why buy one at all? why not just carry on having lessons?
Yet what joy would there be in 3 months or more of uncertainty and waiting for the same thing to happen again? I felt terror tonight in that split second of wondering if J would ever get up again, if her lovely, fun hobby had become a death sentence – or a life sentence. Christopher Reeve died this week.
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