What happened was: we were down in the lower arena, and the going was great after a rainy winter and myriad puddles, doing a short course of low fences to work on sustaining our rhythm and finessing our lines in. The car park is directly adjacent to the arena hosts horseboxes. I had William, who …
An Excerpt from Many Brave Fools
I talk a lot about the brain in MBF (as I like to call it), as well as the body. For me, horseback riding has been a union of the two, which came as a surprise because I hadn't been aware how separate they were, for me. The paradox is that I have become united …
Getting Better: What Is, Or Who Are?
We've had three Wednesday lessons so far this year and they have been blisteringly excellent. At the end of every lesson we've been like, 'That was good' and then tried to dissect exactly why it was: 1] So much work done! Warming up in open order has gotten productive (not just mooching around behind another horse …
A Competition Is Not 100% About The Competition
I've competed before, up the yard, but never with my white jodhs on. The addition of them, for the first riding club competition of the year, seemed to make a huge difference to my attitude. Previously, I had simply rocked up in my usual whatever, but the degree of planning required to ferry the white …
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What I Learned in a Lesson: Looking Where I Am Going {February 2013}
I just came across this, as a draft labelled '2013/02/06'* Is that June 2nd, or the second of the sixth? No, I think it's February, as this is an American platform, is WordPress. I wonder why we do the dates differently, here? Today is the 24th of the fourth, or 24 April. As we would …
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Acting As If: Lady Of Livery
I knew something was up, that something was out of joint: I have been out of 'real' time for the last while, between bereavement and jet lag — a lethal combo, do try to avoid it as best you can, is my advice to you — so I knew I was in trouble the moment …
The Best Hour in Ages
I know that weather is only weather, but holy wow, the weather. It is horrible. As of this writing, the sun is breaking the stones, but that's just for now. Who knows what it will do later? It could — because it has — turn into November in July in the snap of a finger. …
What. Are. The. Odds.
Our usual instructor was off on her holidays, and our substitute was fab — and I'm not just saying that. I remembered that I had only worked with her once before, in a private lesson, and it had been with Rebel, and as we chatted during mount up, on one of the other tracks of …
Into the Home Stretch…
I have one more chapter to go in my horsey-divorcey book, and I — I don't even know how to get my head around that. The last chapter to go is the penultimate chapter, which is weird, but not. It's kind of the 'biggest' one of them all, and the actual last chapter was really …
Sunshine, and the F Corner: A Weekend of Two Halves
I have been many places in the sunshine, and there is really no better place on earth than Ireland when the sky is clear, blue, and cloud-free. And there is no better thing to be doing than racketing around the fields, up in the hills, on horseback. If you're not me. I have had an …
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MANY BRAVE FOOLS 