How a pint-sized pony helped me smile again
After suffering a terrible back injury, keen equestrian HANNAH RUSSELL was told she would never ride again. She tells us her story
HANNAH, 20, a writer, lives in Leyburn, North Yorkshire
I’VE loved horses for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest childhood memories is of riding donkeys on the beach in Scarborough, where we lived. When I was six, my family moved to a smallholding in a village near Leyburn, North Yorkshire.
It was there that I got my first pony and called him Badger. We were inseparable and I used to ride every day.
Over the years I started riding bigger horses but I couldn’t bear to part with Badger so my parents agreed to let me keep him in the paddock in our field.
Throughout my teens no matter what the weather was like, I always went out riding.
It didn’t matter how much of a bad day I’d had, as soon as I got on a horse all my worries would fade away.
I left school at 16 and it felt like the obvious choice for me to choose a career that centred on riding. So I decided to train as an outdoor instructor and started the course in September 2013.
But after a few weeks at college I got an agonising ache in my back. Then one day I was out kayaking on a lake in the Yorkshire Dales when I felt a searing pain.
I was rushed to hospital and discovered that two of the discs in my back were severely worn and two of the vertebrae had fractured.
The doctor told me that although the vertebrae would eventually heal, the discs would not. I would never be able to ride a horse again.
I was devastated and couldn’t imagine my life without horse-riding. I had to quit my course as I couldn’t do the practical skills.
The weather became colder and as Christmas approached I felt bereft. All my friends seemed to know what they were doing with their lives but I felt completely lost and utterly heartbroken that my horse-riding days were over.
Then one frosty morning in December I was out in the paddock feeding the horses when I saw a car pull into the drive. It was a lady called Caroline who lived down the road and bred horses.
She told me that one of her Shetland ponies had given birth to a foal but it had dwarfism. Some breeders would have had the foal put down but she couldn’t bear to and instead looked after him.
But now with so many other horses to care for she no longer had room for him and he needed a home.
Without even thinking I agreed to take him in. I didn’t ask my parents or even consider how much space we had. All I could think about was the fact there was a little pony without a place to stay.
A few days later on Christmas Eve I went to her paddock to meet the tiny Shetland called Alfie.
Because the ground was so boggy he’d sunk into the grass and looked even tinier than he was. He measured just 28in high, which is about the same size as a greyhound, and had a little round belly and scruffy brown mane. As he looked up at me with his doleful brown eyes I immediately fell in love.
I took him home and sneaked him into the paddock without telling my parents.
On Christmas morning I got up early to open my presents and slipped out of the house to feed the horses and visit little Alfie.
As I walked towards his stable he whinnied as if to say he was just as excited to see me as I was to see him.
When I got back inside I told my parents I had something to show them in the paddock.
“It’s not another horse, is it?” my dad quipped.
I was worried they’d be angry with me but as soon as they saw the pint-sized pony in the stables they fell in love with him too. I introduced Alfie to our full-sized horses Paddy and Pepper and they didn’t know what to make of him. Was he a dog or a horse?
But as soon as my old pony Badger met him I knew they were going to be best friends.
Over the next few weeks Alfie and I became inseparable. Because he was still a young pony and he’d just been separated from his mum, he needed lots of care and attention.
I spent every day with him and gave him lots of love. As the weeks rolled into months he turned out to be a very mischievous pony and although he’s tiny, he has an enormous appetite.
ONCE he sneaked under our fence into the neighbour’s garden and ate the contents of their vegetable patch. And another time he got into my dad’s orchard and scoffed all the apples he could find.
Looking after Alfie gave me something to focus on at a time when I felt I’d lost everything important in life.
I’ve always loved writing and started chronicling his escapades in my journal.
Then in October 2014, aged just 17, I self-published a children’s book about Alfie’s adventures. It was so successful I published three more books and last year I was given a publishing deal for a fifth.
When I was growing up, I never dreamt I could become a writer but it seems it was meant to be.
Now, not only has Alfie found a loving home but he gave me hope at a time when I had none.
‘I felt completely lost and utterly heartbroken’