At school and at home owning a horse was all I kept on about, having only been on one once was a good enough reason for me to believe I knew more than enough to look after one myself, (I was very young).

Near where I lived there was a lady (she was about 30) who had horses of her own, she kept them in stables about 5 mins away from my house. Now being kids, like we all have been at one point, this lady was obviously older than us so we used to call her Granny, even now some 25 years later if I see her I still call her Granny.

Now one day Granny was asked if she could do anything with a friends pony, he had bought it for his daughter but it was so naughty that she could not handle it, Granny said she would have Bracken, the pony’s name for a month.

It was a good job that Granny was such a little person, because as soon as the pony arrived she started to ride him out, all 12 hands of him. He bucked, he reared and then he bucked some more but no matter how hard he tried or how hard we wished she never fell off.

Now one day she was leading Brackon and Bilbo, another pony, round the block trying to get them used to traffic and asked if I would like to go. Off we went, Granny leading Bracken and me leading Bilbo. We went down the road along some lanes and through a building estate with no problems, then just as we were on our homeward stretch a tractor came behind us.

Bilbo completely freaked out and started to rear up, me, well I started to scream, Granny told me not to panic and get to her, panic, who me? I managed to get close enough for her to grab the lead rope, but what happened next frightened the life out of me for a good 5 mins.

Granny told me to grab Brackens neck and then she bent down, grabbed my leg and threw me on, it all happened so fast. She threw the lead rope over his neck then hit him right on his flank. My god! For a small pony he could run.

Having only walked at a very slow pace this was all new to me, I had no saddle and no reins so I just grabbed a handful of the horses mane, Granny was behind me shouting, “lean forward, lean forward,” I thought that was what I was doing, but when she told the story in later years apparently I was sat bolt upright like a board.

Bracken ran up the hill and around the corner straight back to the horse yard, it must have only taken minutes but to me it felt like forever. He arrived at his stable door and just stopped dead, me, well I carried on for a few more seconds, straight over his head, and that was where Granny found me a few minutes later, still on the floor.

She tried to explain to me that what she did was the safest way out of a very tricky situation but me being me was having none of it, and I ran home in tears. I did not speak to her for weeks. But none of this stopped me bragging to all my friends the next day, about how I had galloped on Bracken with no saddle and no reins, how cool am I? Yep, not long now and I would be owning a horse.

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Filed under: Owning A Horse