Owning a horse? How hard can this be? Even at a very young age I knew that one day I would own my own horse and learn about how to keep horses. But I had a lot of experiences before this was to happen.

When I was growing up I was lucky enough to live right out in the countryside, there were no buses or shops but the views and the tranquility of the area were amazing. We had fields to run around in, woods to explore and farmers to annoy. Oh yes, as kids we had so much fun.

My main passion even at this young age was a love of horses. I loved to watch them running around in the fields bucking, rearing and chasing each other. I was probably around the age of 10 when I first sat on a horse, we were on holiday and I pleaded with my mother and father over and over again until in the end they agreed to let me have a go. They did not know what they were getting themselves in for and we set out to find a riding school.

Because I had never been riding or even sat on a horse before I could not go out on a hack with the rest of the group, I had to go out on a lead rein on my own. But the riding stables were short on staff which left nobody available to take me. The disappointed look that I displayed on my face when I realized that I was so close to losing what I had been waiting for must have been good (practice makes perfect for sad face pulling) that my dad said he and mother would take me, “how hard can it be,” he said. My dad knew nothing about horses but that did not matter to me, I was going out for my first ride.

The lady went to a stable and led out this big brown and slightly overweight horse called Bella, we all went out to the yard where I was told to mount up, I thought this was going to be so cool, I sort of climbed, fell, climbed some more until eventually there I was sat on this horse, how chuffed was I? My dad was given the lead rope and we were told where to go for our walk, off we went and boy was I excited.

The countryside was beautiful, to the right of us was moorlands that went on for miles, how I loved that place and still go back there every year even now. Any way, lets get back to my horse ride through fields, over streams and along country lanes. That was my image of my first ride in my head anyway. Though there were some elements of the ride that didn’t quite go according to plan.

We went up and through one of the horse gates and just as my mother closed it, Bella pulled down her head hard to start eating the grass, me, well I shot straight down her neck, I was screaming at my dad like it was his fault, he pulled up on the lead rope which startled Bella and made her jump forward straight onto my dads foot with her rather large horse shoe, he yelled which made my mother and I laugh, Bella just looked at him and then stuck her head down and carried on eating the grass.

We carried on for about another 5 mins with my dad limping and nearly having his arm pulled out of his arm joint by the lead rope, and every ten seconds or so for that five minutes he said, “thats it, we are going back,” he had tried but mother and I laughed all the time, and looking back now that probably did not help. But from that point I knew that one day I would be owning a horse.