‘Winnie gives me peace from the stresses of work’
Anna Louise is making great progress with her four-year-old newly backed mare Winnie, who has even progressed to jumping homemade obstacles
IT’S EXACTLY SIX months since Winnie was delivered to my house after spending over 24 hours on the biggest lorry I’ve ever seen. It‘s obvious that fate played its part, as Facebook has now changed its rules and you can no longer buy horses on social media. The vet has also confirmed that she isn’t five years old, as we were told, but four. However, despite being mis-sold to us, Winnie is a firm family member. She reminds me every day to live in the moment. Horses don’t worry about the past, mull over memories, or fret about the future. They feel the mud on their backs as they roll in the dust and joyfully indulge in every mouthful of food thrown over the fence.
Cracking on
Watching Winnie brings me peace away from the stresses of work. Over the summer, we’ve been able to crack on with the backing process. The farmer’s fields are topped, giving us access to new areas and making it the perfect playground for training. We hack out in-hand every other day, taking a different route through the hills, covering three miles of meadow flowers, lush grass, thistles and sheep. The clearing, once an old quarry and sheltered by the surrounding inclines, also doubles as an arena where we can stop to lunge in the long grass, use the hilly terrain to develop Winnie’s hindquarters and the bushes as weaving obstacles. We learnt a few months ago that Winnie loves jumping (that’s the Connemara in her), so I spend weeks sourcing obstacles, including 10 different-sized tyres from our local garage for free. My dad, a shepherd, visits the timber merchants and buys me a range of wooden posts to use as poles and I find a few unwanted empty tin barrels lying around the fields. It’s a great alternative to buying plastic.
Muscling up
I’m glad I cancelled my gym membership when I bought Winnie in February because I constantly drag the crosscountry style jumps around our grassy arena, which is far more fun than training within four white walls. Steadily she’s jumping bigger, tackling little courses and always finding the right canter lead. She’s muscled up and put on condition and lost the scraggly, ribby, baby look she came with when we first realised that she hadn’t been backed or worked. For the first time, I ride without our trainer, Tahley, which feels like a huge achievement. I book our first trip out as well — an agility class later this month. It will be a class with other horses and riders (you can also do it in-hand), an hour’s trailer ride away and distractions everywhere. There’s no doubt that it’ll be our biggest challenge yet. In two weeks’ time, we’re back with Tahley to tackle roads and bridleway training. We live on a fast road with lorries, vans and big machinery flying by, so I’m going hi-vis shopping this weekend to make us as noticeable as possible. Now I’ve just got to stop myself overthinking the route we’ll be taking. And I know exactly who’ll help me with that...
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“For the first time, I ride without our trainer, which feels like a huge achievement”