Tessa Waugh’s hunting diary Goodnight

Tessa Waugh reflects on all the children whom Josh has introduced to riding over the years as they return him to his original home for his retirement – while Josh focuses on the grazing

“Josh strode confidently into his new field as if he had never been away”

“WHEREABOUTS do you live?” I asked Josh’s owner, Fiona, as we discussed the ins and outs of getting Josh back to her.

“Kinross,” she replied, but she may as well have said Timbuktu, such is my knowledge of Scottish geography.

“Is that Perthshire?” I asked, squinting hopefully at a map on the kitchen wall.

“No, Kinross-shire. We’re just over the Forth Road bridge, north of Edinburgh,” she replied patiently.

It turns out Kinross is not far from here and horse travel for welfare reasons has always been permitted – we have no grass, Fiona’s daughter Mary had plenty. I asked Adam if he would like to come, not expecting a “yes” as he likes to keep pony stuff to a minimum.

“Will you take a picnic?” he asked.

“Yes,” I improvised.

He was sold. So off we set with Jack in the back seat, Josh in the trailer and a cake tin full of sandwiches. On my lap was Josh’s passport, stating that he was born in 1994, the heyday of Take That. I leafed through the pages and indulged myself with some ’90s nostalgia as we headed towards Edinburgh. Cruising over the Forth Bridge, we glanced back through the trailer window to check he was still upright.

“Don’t want the old boy having a heart attack before we arrive,” Adam said cheerily.

“He’s fine,” said Jack.

WE arrived just before lunch to find a welcoming committee of Fiona, Mary and Mary’s husband-to-be Graham. Fiona was holding a painting of Josh as a youngster: a joyful depiction of flaxen-maned chestnut straight off the pages of a Pullein-Thompson book.

He was a lucky find for the family and

Fiona told us the story. When she was only four, Mary, the eldest of Fiona’s three girls, fell off a pony and broke her neck. It was considered unlikely that she would ride again but after an early childhood spent avoiding ponies and trampolines and anything else that could cause her further injury, their farrier told them about Josh. He arrived when Mary was 11 and introduced her to riding in his brilliant, unflappable way. She never looked back.

While we chatted, I looked from his first rider, now an adult and his last, our own Jack, and thought about all the children that he taught in between.

Josh meanwhile showed no interest in his new surroundings, simply tugged at his rope to get to the grass. Mary’s horses were trotting up and down the fence, but he ignored them and strode confidently across his new field as if he had never been away. We left him there, grazing quietly with the Cleish hills in the background. Happy retirement Joshy.