#2 The joys and terrors of the riding school queue
Not every pony owner was a riding school rider first. But those
who were will surely remember the gut-churning anticipation that was The Queue.
The unadulterated joy of being given your favourite pony… and the utter doom of
the opposite.
Back in the day when a full hour’s riding lesson was only £5.50
(what happened there?), I’d shuffle forwards with my £5 note folded into a
square inside my glove, the 50 pence piece slotted inside, and don my most angelic
7 year old smile, hoping to have my name scribbled down next to my favourite pony
for that week.
The problem was, our riding school owner – like many before and
after him - was a real advocate of giving children and adults alike genuine
lessons in life: not just riding. The main one being, you don’t always get what
you want.
What I really, really did NOT want, was Tramp. Tramp was the stuff
of a 7 year old’s nightmares. He wasn’t that small (though to an adult, he
probably wasn’t that big either); he wasn’t that cute, and he had a temper and
a bite on him to rival an outraged honey badger.
Approaching his stable, there he’d be - glaring at you with his
pointy devil ears, pointy devil muzzle and eyes like a Great White shark. And
to confirm your suspicions of impending death, his mouth was always strapped up
with a great big grackle noseband.
This noseband wasn’t just to stop him
crossing his jaw either – it also helped to prevent him taking a massive f*cking chunk
out of the pony in front. It wasn’t nice being on Tramp when he was spinning
round having the sh*t kicked out of him by that same pony, but it also wasn’t nice
being on any other, and having him lurking behind you sizing your pony up and
striking at will. I will never forget the day our instructor had to drag him
out of the ride and stand him in the middle alone, like a delinquent child.
The horror didn’t end when you got off either. Tramp also had a
habit of making a run for the stable door before you’d had chance to bolt it.
All he wanted was the grass, but more than once, my poor old Grandad would have
to run at the door from the outside and throw all his weight against it, just
to keep that pony inside.
The culmination of these events was a severe loss in confidence.
One Tuesday evening at about 5pm, I was watching If Wishes Were Horses without my usual enthusiasm. I was so scared
to go back and be put on Tramp again, that I just didn’t want to go anymore.
Ever, if that meant not being made to ride him. Fortunately, Mother Goose
noticed that the illness that came over me was completely faked, and managed to
extricate from me the real reason I didn’t want to go. Armed with this
information, off we went to the weekly lesson, with Nana explaining that I
really didn’t want to ride Tramp this week, please. The response?
“You’re riding Tramp.”
Oh.
Good.
Thanks for that.
And do you know what? Tramp was very good that week. No biting. No
barging. No death.
The moral of the story was, ‘I want’ never gets. And sometimes,
though it may not be what we want, it’s precisely what we need.
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