One evening, two views…

I hate schooling horses on a winter weekday evening because…

Dusk is beginning to settle as I pull in to the yard, the sun dipping down towards the green horizon. A handful of small clouds scud quickly across the darkening sky.

I get out of the car and I’m instantly breathless, battered by the wind and knifed by the cold – the warm isolation of my glass and steel cocoon has left me completely unprepared for the winteriness outside.

I’m dreading this. I could have driven straight home; I could be sitting on the couch with a mug of hot chocolate beside me as I watch The Simpsons. Instead I’m at the yard freezing my knackers off and feeling unmotivated about it all.

I force myself to grab my riding clothes, unlock the living accommodation in the lorry and get changed; it’s bitterly freezing as I totter about on alternate legs, pulling on my joddies and then my t-shirt. I put my suit trousers and shirt in the boot of the car and rummage about and successfully find an old fleece which gives a small amount of protection from the cold.

No-one wants to stand around and chat – that’s how cold it is – and that’s my prevarications gone. I zip up my fleece, pick up Vin’s head collar and slouch my way down to his field.

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I love schooling horses on a winter weekday evening because…

As I approach the field he sees me coming. In his very best nonchalant manner he creeps towards the gate, pausing to put his head down for a quick munch every three or four paces.

I walk in and call his name; he stops eating, pauses to look over his shoulder at the rest of the herd then fixes me with a stare and walks straight to me.

I slip him a couple of apple slices and put his head collar on while he contemplates whether he was too easily caught. I stroke his head, rub his neck and tell him how handsome he looks today. He knows this.

We walk out of the field, up the track and in to the washdown bay where I tether him while I groom. He loves being groomed; it doesn’t take much effort to get what little dried mud there is off him; when I do his head he lowers his neck to make it easy for me to get between his ears with the brush. He goes slightly floppy when I groom him there. I can almost hear him make the Homer Simpson ‘uhhghhhhg’ noise.

I tack up, we walk down towards the arena; it’s almost dark, the arena floodlights throw strange shadows on the surface. It’s desperately cold. I mount up and we begin working in.

And he goes like a Prix St Georges dressage horse warming up for his test at the Olympics. He doesn’t go on legs, tonight he has springs.

We ping along the surface, his neck is high, he’s bent in to an outline on very little contact and I can feel his hocks swinging underneath me as we change bend and direction. His transitions are breathtaking – so good that two onlookers brave the cold, lean on the arena post-and-rail for a few minutes as they watch us. We cover the ground with such balance and elegance that it’s difficult for me to believe this is us. Our centre of gravity and position in combined balance is so perfect that I feel like a champion… I feel absolutely perfect.

After forty minutes of schooling we wind to a planned close. Neither of us feels the chill in the air, we’re both breathing slightly hard, both slightly sweaty. I dismount and loosen the girth, his eyes are bright and shining and already he’s stopped puffing. There’s a thin trace of sweat beneath his loosened girth strap. Our shadows are thrown out hugely by the floodlights, the world outside the glare is pitch black, I can see our breath on the beams of brightness.

Back at the washdown bay a quick groom followed by more sliced apple and he stands at his tether looking brilliant – he fills the eye like a true champion. I rug him up against the oncoming chilly night, walk him back to his field and feed more apple as we go. In his field he has two last slices as I slip the head collar off, he takes a last look at me, I pat his rump, he walks, trots and then canters over to the herd. Once amongst his friends he puts his head down and grazes.

I watch for five minutes, impervious to the chill then walk back to stables, hang his head collar, lock the tackroom and make myself a hot chocolate in the kitchen where I sit, drink and read an equestrian magazine. I feel complete, I feel relaxed and above all… I still feel warm.

Before I get in the car I walk around the yard in the near total darkness, making sure everything is put away or locked away. I stand out in the car park and look at the huge hunter’s moon as it hangs in the sky. It’s a fantastic evening. And I feel great.
B.