As horse owners we’re always running here, there and everywhere and complaining about how much we have to do. We’ve put some thought into this, and we’ve wasted quite a lot of time working out where all our time goes — now we just need to try and get it back again.
1. Horse forums are a great source of information, advice and moral support. Sometimes, though, you can just sit down for a couple of minutes to find out if there are any replies on that interesting thread you’ve been following about Cushing’s disease, and the next thing you know you’re hopelessly engrossed in a fascinating post about showjumping gossip, it’s 3am and you still haven’t had dinner. Your other half stomped off to bed hours ago, after you’d promised to be ‘up in a few minutes, honestly!’
2. You bathe your grey pony and decide to stick him out without a rug for half an hour to dry off — after all, there’s no mud in the field, is there? Turns out there is, in a secret spot only your pony knows about. He couldn’t look dirtier if he’d taken up coal mining for a hobby. You start again from scratch.
3. You have a minor brainstorm and for some reason decide to give your tack an extra thorough clean BEFORE the extremely wet and muddy fun ride you’re booked on. You have a fantastic time, but your grey pony comes back looking like an Appaloosa and you can’t decide whether to power-hose your saddle or just use a dustpan and brush. (Only joking – we do NOT recommend power-hosing your tack!)
4. Working out an efficient routine is what keeps most of us sane, but we can’t get it right all the time. Hands up who’s spent an hour sweeping the yard just before the farmer decides to move the straw muckheap in a high wind?!
5. There’s an old saying that ‘no hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle’, but there are definitely times when it would have been better to have got off, gone for a cup of tea and picked up whatever you were doing the following day. Sometimes it just doesn’t come together.
6. You’ve finished all your jobs at the yard, you’ve got a million things waiting for you at home, but you can’t resist spending half an hour hanging over the door and just listening to the sound of your horse chomping his hay. No, wait, hang on – this one really isn’t a waste of time, it probably is the best part of your whole day.
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Sara is an experienced copywriter and journalist, who has owned horses all her life. As a journalist, she’s written about everything from following in the footsteps of William the Conqueror in Normandy to interviewing top chefs, while when it comes to equines she says: “if it’s got four legs and a mane and tail, and, er, isn’t a lion, I’ll write about it.” Sara is also a fluent French speaker and also enjoys writing on countryside and rural topics.
