#15 First Encounters of the Flora Kind

On January 9^th 2016, I wrapped up warm and headed for a yard on a working farm about a 5-10 minute drive away from me. Arriving on time (for once in my life), I got out of the car at 9am, breath visible on the freezing air, and walked towards the barn that housed my potential new loan horse: Flora.

I can’t even tell you how excited I was. After 11 years of barely even riding anymore, this would be the closest I’d ever come to my ‘own pony’, at the grand old age of almost 32. All the whining and begging and pleading in my younger years did me no good whatsoever – horses were expensive, enormously tying and that was that.

To this day, I’m still regretful but grateful that I never had my own when I was younger. I can guarantee that I wouldn’t have done as well academically, nor had as much freedom socially. I definitely wouldn’t have lived on the other side of the world for three years and experienced any other cultures. There’ll be many people out there that could’ve juggled all those things; but I know I wouldn’t have been able to. It took every ounce of my being to say repeated goodbyes to my tiny little family and closest friends for those trips. The dread and the tears were just awful - one of the hardest being saying goodbye to my faithful Golden Retriever and little old moggy. To have parted with an equine love, who I wouldn’t have been able to leave in the dedicated hands of my parents, would have prevented any adventure anywhere else.

So finally, 32, mature(ish) and a riding school nutter no more (maybe), I was ready to take the next step.

Call me rash, but I operate off first impressions. I have incredible instincts about people when I meet them, inherited from my mother who has a witch-like sense about these things (and is, crucially, always, ALWAYS right), and I can tell you very quickly whether someone is a good and genuine person or not. Having had my fingers burned once already with a horse ‘for loan’ I was possibly more apprehensive about Flora’s owner than Flora herself, but I really needn’t have been. Alice is the kind of person where you really never have any doubt where you stand. If memory serves me correctly, she had sworn at me within the hour, and I have to say that I’m a fan of a well-placed curse. Contrary to popular belief, if you don’t NEED a swear word but use one for emphasis anyway, it’s a sign of an articulate mind. It’s fair to say, Alice has that.

As we walked into Flora’s barn, there she was. The very first stable, adjacent to the doorway. As I’ve just said, first impressions are quite important to me. So what were my first impressions of Flora?

1.       She was way smaller than I thought she would be.

2.       She was way fluffier than I thought she would be, for a Thoroughbred (yes it was winter, but she was unclipped).

3.       She was still beautiful.

4.       She was an arsey little bastard.

In reference to point 4: Flora was not interested in me, nor anyone else that was either outside or inside her stable. Greetings, baby voices, gushing about how gorgeous she was… not one f*ck was given.

So, it was time to just crack on and try her out.

My friend Jenny - and Alice - had described Flora as a ‘Nana’. So far, I got it. This was going to be a slow plod around some muddy fields on a totally indifferent horse, if her lust for life was anything like her stable manner.

I started tacking her up. But this was when the first hint of her attitude began to niggle. On popping the bit into Flora’s mouth, she proceeded to lift her head up, got the bar caught on her (recently operated on) set of gnashers, and went straight up.

Rearing in the stable whilst being tacked up.

Great.

The speed with which she went from donkey to demon was unreal.

It wasn’t so much what she did that was the problem. It was the complete knob that she had made me look already. I must have put a thousand bridles on a hundred different horses over the course of my life, and some of them were really, really difficult animals. Ex-steeplechasers, ex-abuse cases, complete Satan ponies. So why oh WHY did that have to happen for the first time when tacking up a potential loan horse? Great, I thought. Alice is going to think I’m a complete moron, I fumed. Better do a better job out riding.

But it wasn’t to be. My Nana of a loan pony proceeded to jog, buck, spook and headshake all the way around the hour-long hack. She was a coiled spring and did a very unconvincing impression of a horse that wasn’t naturally quite tense. I did my best to remain calm and my old instincts kicked back in (if not my muscles) and I managed to not depart from my saddle as we made our way round tracks and fields. My back and bottom, however, complained loudly afterwards. The howl I let out in the shower after removing a particularly savage wedgie was unbelievable.

Alice and Jenny assured me that I’d ridden her well; that she was acting totally out of sorts, not helped by the wintertime antics of her stablemates, Millie and Beau. By the time we got back to the yard, Alice was telling me how she hoped I hadn’t been put off by Flora’s uncharacteristic naughtiness.

And despite the stitch in my stomach, the ache in my back, the mammoth wedgie and the distinct lack of any kind of ‘what a lovely hack out’ inner peace, I knew I hadn’t been.

Flora, I thought, was a little cracker.