Riding Honey whenever I wanted to felt like owning a horse of my own. My friend Jo and myself used to ride out every day for hours on end, through the woods across the common and even just round the lanes, it was such good fun and we loved it. My Mum and Dad used to get a little confused though because when walking to school Jo and I would take at least half an hour and always end up being late with letters being sent home, hehe, but when the bell rang at the end of the day and we knew we were going out riding then it would take us only ten minutes to get home funny that!!!!

Now one day as we were getting ready to go out riding, Honey’s owners came up to us and what they said next completely destroyed me, they were moving away, which ok might not sound too bad but then came the worse bit, they were putting Honey up for sale because they were moving to a city and did not think that it was fair to take her. Oh my god! At that point my whole world came crashing down, I ran all the way home, tears running down my face, I ran through our front door like I was being chased by a swarm of angry bees, it took my Mum about twenty minuets to calm me down and get any sense out me. At first she thought that I had fallen off again and really hurt myself. Because I was so upset this annoyed me even more and I just started to shout at her. I know this was wrong but being a fourteen year old girl and having her dream taken away I knew no wrong in shouting at her.

About a hour later I had calmed down enough to sort of apologize and to tell her the whole story, at this point my brother come in from work and was listening, nosy so-and-so, at the end of it I just burst out crying again, my brother said that he could afford to buy Honey for me but could not afford to keep her, bless him, did I say nosy brother earlier, must have been a typing error, any way, I knew that my parents did not have enough money to keep her and even at that young age I knew it would be unfair to ask them, but one good thing, until she was sold at least I could carry on riding her.

With Honey gone I just skulked around the house all day being really miserable, I did not even want to go out and play with my friends, I just went to school, then came home and went straight up to my room, only coming down for food and drink, my Mum even offered to pay for me to go back to the riding stables again, but as you would have probably guessed, I thought that I was an accomplished rider by now so it would have been a waste of money, I know that its true what people say, you learn something knew every day, and boy-oh-boy have I learnt a lot.

Granny had just bought a new horse for her son who liked doing long distance horse riding with his grandma, the horse was the same height as Honey and the same color, when Granny heard about Honey being sold she asked me if I could help her get Lizzie (her son’s new horse) fit, no problem, I replied, I mean how hard could it be, ok she was a little overweight and a bit stubborn, I was just happy at the thought of being back in the saddle.

Now the first time I rode her Granny said that we were going to do road work, having been out riding with her before I knew that it was going to be just miles and miles of trotting, great I thought, one sore bum coming up. I tacked up Lizzie then mounted up, “ready,” I shouted to Granny and she led the way down the track. As soon as we hit the road she started to trot, what a surprise, I thought, and squeezed my heels into Lizzie’s sides to get her to trot, nothing happened so I squeezed again, and again, Granny came trotting back towards me laughing, “I forgot to tell you she said she hates doing anything but walking so you really have to use your legs on her all the time, Granny said. I squeezed once more and then gave her a sharp kick, she groaned and very slowly went into a trot, I did it, I thought very smugly to myself, and without realizing it I must have lost contact because straight away she stopped trotting and started to walk again, using my heels I dug them back into her side and again she broke out into a trot, just!

Getting back to the stables later I was not sure who was sweating the most, me or Lizzie, but I did know one thing for sure and that was I could not feel my legs, nope there was nothing there whatsoever. After riding Honey who would go from a standstill to flat-out in one leap, I guessed that I must have been spoilt and just didn’t realize it at the time. Granny had already dismounted and was leading Woodway back into the stables, I just sat there wondering if my legs would take my body weight when I finally had the courage to try it. Ok my lesson of that day was not to get complacent, no two horses were the same, thank god for that I thought to myself because when it came to owning a horse of my own I knew what type I would be going for.

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