A Story of Addiction, Dysfunction, Codependency… and Horses
I hated horseback riding outside from the start. As I recount in Many Brave Fools, the fear started when I went on a ride out without ever having taken a lesson. The horse took off on me (the horse lightly cantered over a puddle and I went flying); my coccyx took the brunt; it would …
Continue reading "The Great Outdoors, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cross Country"
Just... can barely cope. I tried to write about my first Dublin Horse Show in 2007. I didn't even know there was one until someone asked was I going, and I was like whaaaat are you even talking about. I remember having to go sit myself down after only half an hour in the Main …
Continue reading "Many Brave Fools at the Dublin Horse Show 2019"
Look how happy I am! Look how sweet his eye is! That is all. *** Many Brave Fools: A Story of Addiction, Dysfunction, Codependency… and Horses is AVAILABLE NOW. Preorder your copy today: > In the US, click on over to Trafalgar Square Books’ site. > In the UK and Europe, visit Quiller Publishing’s page.
Here's Many Brave Fools in a nutshell! *** Keeping an Open Heart I was talking to a pal the other day, about a bunch of things that are going on for me at the moment, and in conclusion I said, 'Well, I'm keeping an open heart.' The thing is, I know I was going to say that …
I reckoned something was wrong when she didn't turn around in her stable to come say hello. Delilah stood facing the back wall, and when she slowly swung her head around to look at me, she looked like there was a world of hurt in her eye. She picked up a hoof and put it …
...ahhh, just can't resist, though. I am off for The Christmas in seven weeks. I have — hang on — 12 lessons left. 'Sue!' I am shouting at myself, 'Don't!' I have only come off Connell three times this year. I came off Connell three times in one lesson, once. Holy moly, that was a bad …
Received wisdom has it that if you hold up a hand in front of a horse, it will investigate it with its mouth, mainly to see is it edible or not. They like to have a good sniff of a head collar, bridle, or any implement of grooming, juuuuust to make sure — even though …
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 …
Continue reading "What I Learned in a Lesson: Looking Where I Am Going {February 2013}"
I should have just taken the fall. I had already taken one, you see, and was raging that it was going to happen all over again, within ten minutes — if that — of the first toss. And it was a toss, a drop-the-head, shake-the-enormous-chestnut-arse kind of chucking off, complete with squeal. Coming around to …
... which is not entirely inappropriate, as our Mercury was a famous TV star, playing Henry VIII's primary mount in The Tudors. The shrieks that ensued the first time I saw him on the telly! [Mercury, not Jonathan Rhys-Meyers.] The sad news was shared in the yard today: Merc, who was probably around a thousand …
Continue reading "And Flights of Angels Sing Thee to Thy Rest…"
