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Horses and Life

Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

It could be so much easier.

I never thought that, these days, rest would be something alludes me so. Yet my back aches and keeps me up, an inability to sleep well when all I want is for that span of time in sweet, sweet oblivion. Because, if I'm asleep, I don't have to think. My dreams are beyond my control and, oh, how I enjoy that freedom.

Don't get me wrong. In the waking world, I'm all about control. But it's when something that should be within my control is undoubtedly not in my control that I start to have issues. Then why did I have to choose the one thing in the world that is beauty incarnate in the partnership, yet always, irrefutably on the edge of losing that control?

Horses. I don't know why I started with them. I suppose it was a little girl's dream, though the dream of Black Beauty was hardly one of mystical unicorns and princesses. I think, even then, I understood the hardship. But I understood the joy too. And thus, my heart was taken by a ragged little bay pony that I didn't even want to ride because he wasn't black like Black Beauty.

Funny how things work like that, isn't it?

It was too late from me, from that very first ride in the middle of a thunderstorm with my pony (his name was Shaun, by the way - I still remember that) huddling behind the person leading me like she was going to offer him some protection from the driving wind and rain. My parents had thought that I'd never want to go again, dripping in my waterproof trousers (oh, how I loathed those) and coat that, somehow, did manage to keep me mostly dry. The routine, however, had been started and I rode every Sunday from then on, exploring the forestry as they let me off the lead rein and, terrifyingly, unleashed me on the world.

Not the most conventional of ways to learn how to ride, but it did me well enough. I learned the paces and I learned to jump - before I really should have done so, of course. In the winter months, I took lessons at a riding school on the mountain, teasing out the skills that would serve my explorations and hacking best.

Time came to move on from that centre, but I always look back on it fondly as where my beginning lies. From there, it was another riding school down the road, more formal than what I was used to but enough to hone skills that I hadn't really paid all that much attention to at the time. Jumping became part of my lessons and I learned to fold over the horse's neck. I learned about horse care and I was fortunate enough to meet the sweet grey mare, whose name was Sherry. She'll always have a special place in my heart for all she taught me.

The fourth stable yard I made home was the one that I still return to and where the true subject of this story is stabled now. I learned so much that I carry with me to this very day. Horse care was refined, my mucking out routine down to a fine art and helping out at the yard made it easier for me to ride more without emptying my parents' bank account. Money, after all, only stretched so far, as I was learning. School was difficult and the yard was an escape that I sorely needed, especially as I moved on to college and my workload seemed to ever be increasing, even with fewer subjects.

Riding dropped off the radar as I went to university, just riding when I had the chance to visit my old yard again, for it would forever be where I made my heart home. I struggled and I tried riding near my university, but they became angry with me when I cancelled a ride due to gripping stomach pain that I later learned was due to stress. I never went back there again.

The world of work offered me a return to riding, although I had only been scattered with it due to lack of money or a centre nearby. Unemployment and horses didn't really go together at the tail end of university, the gap between acquiring that graduate job and floating in limbo, my studies complete. I rode every couple of weeks or more, when I could manage it, and I developed new skills that I would never have dreamed of acquiring when I was younger. My boyfriend got into riding too and we shared the pleasure of going to shows together, if only to spectate, and started hacking out. Times were good, or as good as they could have been with an ever increasing stressful job on my back.

And then it changed. I wanted more. I wanted my own horse. Our own horse. I was obsessed and, really, who could blame me? I was a horse mad girl grown into a horsewoman who wasn't anywhere near giving up the hobby that made her life what it was. So, we started looking for a horse. Friends were a fantastic help and I found a nice, little yard in the local area that later turned out to be a slice of heaven amongst the clamour and rudeness experienced at other livery yards in the surrounding countryside.

We saw a couple of horses and we thought we'd found the one. I'm not fussy on colour or breed, but he rocked both, a rose grey with summer dapples. An Irish Draught cross, he was also a weight carrier, which was perfect for my boyfriend too. We had an accident in the car - a small mishap - on the way to go see him and he looked after both of us even though we were frazzled and sore. He seemed ideal and moved wonderfully.

Oh, how wrong we were.

I couldn't put my finger on it, why I felt he wasn't the right choice, except that he was younger and greener than what I wanted. But he didn't put a foot wrong when we rode him and he was a lovely horse; both of us were very taken by him. I had no concrete evidence to say why we shouldn't get this horse and, so, we did.

And where do I take it here? I got on him at home and he took off - I hardly stayed in the saddle for a few moments. Same thing the second time and then the opinions started rolling in. Every horseman and woman will do things in a different way and woe betide you if you do not also do things in that way. We tried to cherry pick information, do our research and go from there. It worked for a little while - we were on him safely within a month, but our confidence was never there to begin with, after my initial rodeo moments.

I should have admitted then that it was never going to work and saved myself the heartbreak, but I already missed him so much when we were away on holiday and we just knew that he could be the horse that we trialled and rode so well before. And that was true, we weren't deluded. Only, he would be that horse again with more mileage on him, a more experienced rider on his back and a little more seen through his eyes. Where he was produced, he was isolated, so it's fair to understand that he didn't react perfectly when taken away from that environment. Everything was far from perfect.

Up and down, nothing seems to have gone right. He is well, but two hearts are breaking from this and we just don't know what to do. Our boy is being sold, or preparing to be sold, and it's soul destroying. Livery costs are high where he is for schooling - all worth it - but I'm spending all my time earning extra money so he can have this schooling and get the experience he needs. Spending more money on him before, like when we needed the horse trailer, wasn't so trying, because I could fill the time where I would've been entertaining myself with caring for and working with our horse. Same went for my boyfriend and we managed it well. It was good to get out in the sun and work.

But now he's going and he's so far away that I can't visit him without spending money that I don't really have here to spend. Money is also going on physio treatments for me and the aches and the pains have not left, though I wonder how much is mental. I'm trying so very hard to be positive and think of the next good thing, the next step, how our boy is going to find the home he deserves and will be given the best care ever, but I can hardly think of him leaving without welling up with tears. I was never that emotional, yet horses do this to a person.

So what when he's gone... I thought I would have to give it all up and then I realised what a big hole he's already leaving. Giving it all up would kill me, as overly dramatic as that sounds. If I don't look after myself, it all comes crashing down and I'm one who likes to learn from her past mistakes. So, I must care for myself and care for my boyfriend, doing what we need in order to move forward happy and healthy.

And what we need seems to be another four-legged partner to find the right home with us where we could not offer one before. Another horse that is more experienced, that can be ridden a few times every week or more and can be chilled out with a lower volume of work come winter, at least for a couple of years, as this is likely set to change.

There's a possibility of us buying another horse for a similar sort of cost that we bought our lad for. She's a mare, a good age and sweet. I've ridden her before and she goes kindly and softly, polite to a fault and smooth off the leg without being sharp. In fact, I'd say she was ever so slightly lazy in the school when I warmed up before hacking her, because I was so anxious about being on one of my yard owner's horses that I hardly wanted to push her on into a more forward-going walk with my legs.

She was up for sale about a month after we bought him and I regretted that the timing had not been better then. But that is the way things go. Another grey, she's smart and well-presented, though has had a couple of injuries. One requires therapy every few months to maintain her health and the other has been cured through surgery. She doesn't get enough attention and love, I am told, and part of me wishes we could be the ones to provide that this time.

I just don't know if I can do it again. I don't know if I can have another one. The heartbreak is bad enough on its own, but my confidence is shot after the nasty fall that led to me sending him to the dedicated schooling livery to see what could be done. My instructor says I should ride a cob and that my boyfriend and I are at the same riding level now. I can't believe I've fallen so far and become so bad so quickly. I just feel useless.

But I'm trying - oh god, I am - to replace those horrific images replaying over and over in my head with a good outcome. I'm trying to see myself riding her - or another horse still - at a canter, my seat steady and one with the horse, hands light on her mouth as we move forward together. I imagine seeing my boyfriend riding her in a lesson, the look on his face as he lets her stretch out her neck after working hard, scratching her withers as she snorts. I feel the power beneath me as I let her stretch out into a full gallop, the run we both needed to shake off a stagnant week. And the precision of completing a dressage test, working with reward to build our skills and maintain her strength, the muscle in her hindquarters pushing her on.

It could be perfect. But how can you tell? How is it possible to know which will work out and which you will 'ruin'? Perhaps I do know or I don't know whether or not I 'ruined' Moogie, but he seems to be going well enough now. Just had a bit of a break and I at least managed to keep him fit, if he lost muscle over his hindquarters. His back was always weaker and he needed to work through it more, so I can hardly blame myself for that. He was young and learning and not a ready-made horse by far.

No. I ruined nobody. But I'm trying not to let him ruin me. I need to live, I need to ride and I need to breathe. All three of these things go hand in hand, reins in glove, for what else is there to life?

Yet it would be so much easier to give it all up and walk away. I could do up the horse trailer and sell it on, at least getting back what I paid for it, preferably more. Then I could give notice of ending my livery and pack up all my bits, disperse them to horsey friends who surely would have a better use for them than I. They, after all, know what they're doing. I'm not so sure I do anymore.

And that could be that. Don't book any more riding lessons and forget about the horse world. It's only filled with grief and heartbreak anyway. Let it go. It's not worth it.

Only...it is. It is worth it and it's the pain of needing to be here that makes everything so much more hellish. I cannot walk away and I cannot stand in place, yet I cannot move forward yet until our boy finds his best home. I cannot be where I am and yet I cannot be anywhere else either. Halfway through a movement, unable to back out of it and yet never quite completing it. Until the still frame shifts into a moving one, the video finally playing on and, I suspect, everything suddenly moving far too quickly for my liking, as is the way of it. Nothing is easy and the pace does not suit me. It is what it is.

I don't know what the future will bring, but I know one thing for certain, as much as it makes my heart ache to turn back. But it will hurt even more to flee, hooves pounding and hurling myself away from what my mind suspects is a predator, yet is only my passion calling me in.

For, in my future, our future, there are hoof prints. No questions or doubts: they are there.

And maybe no more is needed.