Do you ride in the rain?
So today, it started out fine, and Lily was in the field. All summer now she's turned out, coming in occasionally for a long sleep in the straw, and a hay net.
Being turned out all day and all night over the summer months does something to her. Suddenly she's not a middle aged lady, but a frisky mare with the wind in her mane and a bit of mud on her forehead from doing handstands in the field.
So I thought for once I'd ride in the rain. And then I thought, no. No one else is around. They're all tucked up and warm. And Lily looks like she's been watching at the gate for an age. She wants to be in. Not riding out in the rain.
So she saw me coming, and her ears picked up, and I could almost hear her thinking, 'Wow! This is good. I'm coming in! All these other losers out here are wet and bedraggled, but look at me, I'm going in!'
Now, I got the head collar on. And we got through the gate. Then that middle aged lady waiting so patiently, so helplessly at the gate, spun round on the muddy track, head down and tail up, bucking, pulling, suddenly a kitten again. And I was shouting and pulling hopelessly on the lead rope.
So I slipped. So I was wet. I was cold. The rain trickled down my hair onto my neck and got behind the lenses of my glasses so I couldn't see. And a horse on the mud track in the rain, slipping and sliding all the way to the stable with some imaginary wind up her tail just wasn’t happening. Not today.
I turned her round, and led her back to the field, shut the gate, and now and then turned back to see her watching as I walked away.
It wasn't till I got to the third cup of tea and the afternoon film had ended that I stopped thinking about Lily.
The front door clicked, and my daughter came back from work. And yes, she said, she'd get Lily in, giving me that withering looked I'd sort of got used to. Lucky Lily, coming in from the rain, while most of the others stayed out.
So no, I didn't ride in the rain. And I didn't enjoy the tea, or the old film. And tomorrow is another day, and maybe I'll ride in the rain.
Trot
Canter
Saddle up
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