Bree

I had to wait in line. Sarah also wanted a horse and unlike me, didn't let the same obstacles that I self imposed to get in the way. Can we afford a horse, where do we put it, what will this mean to our lives etc?

She out maneuvered me while I was still in the slow lane of day dreaming and as is the case many times, she put thoughts into action and reached the goal first. Let all the issues sort themselves out. She bought a horse.

Bree entered our world. A black Standard Bred, never been raced. Got through life on her pretty looks.

A cantankerous ride if I ever saw one. Bossy, demanding, a total prima donna. I told Sarah that Bree took after her side of the family. A finer peering one could not find. 

What started next was my true introduction to horse ownership. The horse comes first, weary husbands are second. as the horse was paddocked away from home, there was two visits a day needed, in the morning before work and after work.

Horse poo needed to be picked up from the field everyday. I never remember seeing this happening on Black Beauty, Hollyfoot Farm or those other TV shows during the '70s that I grew up with. In fact I cannot even remember that happening with Mr Charteris, but it must have, just something else which i have blocked out of my memory. Along with the times I use to wear bright yellow polo neck skivvie with brown corduroy pants or trips to the Dental nurse (or the Murder House as kids everywhere referred to it).

The other new experience was all the paraphernalia that owning a horse required. soon the living room was taken up with saddle pads, bridles, leads, lunging rollers, long reins, cavessons, chambons and covers.

Oh, the covers. one for every occasion that Bree may find herself in. The horse out on the town must only be seen in this years colours and style. such a fashion faux pas if the weather called for a Zilco Hamilton 18 denier showerproof double ripstop canvas with a generous 1 metre drop and Bree was turned out in a Weatherbetta waterproof and breathable strong 1200D ripstop outer shell with no fill which features traditional side gussets and larger tail flap, with removable web/elastic straps for added comfort (available in Purple/Taupe) with matching neckrug.

The only thing missing from the once was a living room in a small two bedroom cottage, now is a tack room with enough gear for four horses, was the saddle. for being the little princess that Bree is, like Cinderella and the glass slipper, no saddle fitted her properly. The ever elusive correctly fitting saddle hunt was afoot. with a flat back and hardly any wither to speak of Bree once again demonstrated her specialness.

Saddles came and went. I was introduced to the length and breadth of the saddle world. terminology such as the tree (conversely treeless), twists, gullets, stirrup leathers, fenders and channels.

I managed to get my own back when I went western and introduced latigo, canticle, rigging  Ds, Cheyenne rolls and flank billets to our household lexicon.

The internet was scoured and visits to sellers on TradeMe and other saddlery shops was made. I would be travelling to a meeting for work when I would receive a call from Sarah directing me to stop whatever I was doing and visit a local seller in case that one and only saddle, that magic saddle, was the One! 

It would not be the first time that me, fulfilling the role as the equestrian newbie would find himself in a shop asking a very bemused sales staff about the saddle they had for sale as we were looking for a saddle with a very wide gussett. I managed to stay away from Blackhawks saddlery in Oamaru for several months until the laughter had stopped over that slip up in terminology

Finding the holy grail was starting to turn out to be a more realistic proposition as opposed to finding a saddle that would fit Brees billiard table level back. Saddle fitters came out, inspected Brees back, looked at the fit of the latest saddle and with the same sad shake of the head reserved to doctors on daytime soaps when they are delivering the news of the death of a character (just before the evil twin turns up as a shocking plot twist), the saddle was destined to be cleaned up and onsold to the next horse owner also searching for the ONE saddle to fit their horse. 

I started holding conversations and passing judgements on the various advantages and disadvantageous of Bates over Status, Wintec versus Baines etc. identification of what a saddle was used for came much slower. 

An English GP to me was a family doctor found in the UK, sometimes with a perchant for knocking off their patients with overdoses of morphine (I'm looking at you, Harold). It was not unusual for two identical (to me) saddles being shown to me and patiently having it explained to me that one was for jumping and the other was dressage. a difference that should be painfully obvious based on amount of resignation in the voice of the deliverer.

To Sarah's credit the entire process of purchasing and on-selling saddles was almost cost neutral. Which was handy as we rapidly went through and discarded the cheap saddles, then the moderately expensive ones, before reaching the you-have-to-be-joking-no-fool-is-going-to-pay-that-much saddles.

It was about this stage that the elusive saddle was found. The Barefoot treeless. Able to conform to Bree's rotund figure, no pressure points and an armchair quality when sitting on it. The Eagle had landed!

Of course, when it came to my horse, it was going to be just as difficult getting the right saddle.

But first I ACTUALLY had to get a horse.

So what do I know about horses?

My first experience of a horse was at a farm sale. I am unsure why we were there as a family other than to feed my Fathers magpie hoarding tendencies (something which to the despair of my wife, I seem to have inherited).

There it was, amongst the rusting disc plough, harrows, wool pressess and other bits and pieces of farming life up for sale, forlornly tied to a post, a lovely (in my four year old eyes) majestic, beautiful bay coloured pony. This mighty steed was everything that I, two minutes before hand, had not been looking for. Every old black and white western movie that I watched at my grandparents place when on holiday in Invercargill were brought to the fore. there I would be, astride my faithful companion galloping across the High Sierras of Alexandra. jumping five wire fences as I chased my brothers with my lasso. I had it all planned out in an instant.

I just needed to convince my father of the merits of my plan. It was so obvious why I needed to purchase a horse. I mean to say, given the strongly grounded, practical reasons that there were, the very fact that I was not already in possession of one was highly indicative that a major part of my life had been denied and needed rectifying quick smart.

Despite my pleas to my father of looking after it forever and it would never become a burden on my parents to care for it, and when that failed to tug on the heartstrings, the direct action of trying to pull my fathers hand out of his pocket so that the auctioneer could see that there was some serious bids from that corner of the crowd, my first pony was passed in with no interest from the crowd and we all moved on, leaving the bored pony standing there not knowing just how close its life could have been irreversibly changed for the better.

You can imagine the absolute disgust that I as a four year old could muster when it turns out that my brothers had manage to secure, several lots down, an old 90cc vespa that blew out a constant stream of blue smoke. 

My pony would not have blown out a constant stream of blue smoke.

I do have to say, looking around now at the piles of tack, potions and medicated products, containers of feed and the odd vet and equine insurance bill currently sitting on the table, I am drawn to the conclusion that my father, despite heartlessly crushing the five minute old dream of a four year old (almost) pony owner, was a smart and wise man.

The next brush with the highly addictive drug that is Equine was when I was at Primary school. my brother and I attended the illustrious Lauder Railway School. Located in the sprawling metropolis that was Lauder, population 12.

The single teacher school itself could have been described as bijou. The roll fluctuated during my time there from the low of four students to the giddying heights of 14. This mean that all the teachers that turned up there always seemed to be on their way some place else, as if them receiving the position had been the consequence of a very ill informed bet with the Ministry of Education.

There was only one classroom to contain all the different aged students. when we had them, the older Form one and two students were at one end of the classroom and the younger Primers at the other, with the Standards 3-6 in the middle. When there was only four of us, we were just clustered together, near the single pot belly stove which was the only form of heating during the winter months.

We use to have great fun with that pot belly stove, banking it up with as much coal as we could, then waiting for the combustible gases to be cooked out of the coal, suddenly igniting causing the lid of the pot belly to fly open with a large BOOM and thick black smoke rolling up into the air before colliding with the vaulted high ceiling and spreading out like a cloud from a low yield nuclear device. through these activities I probably smoked the equivalent of 40 packs of cigarettes during my primary school years.

During the procession of teachers that we had, a Mr Charteris arrived into Lauder. I have this memory of him riding into town on a black horse, leading a second smaller pack horse with canvas bags affixed to a wooden frame. he sat there wearing a khaki cockies hat, tall and thin, mustached with a laid back look in his eyes. Eyes with wrinkles in the corners from years of squinting into bright sunshine whilst surveying the high country lands, trying at the same time to keep the wind blown dust from the hills out.

Yeah, I think this is a false memory, from an over active child's mind. 

Mr Charteris did look like like the description above and we can add to that a little limp when he walked from a less than successful repair of a broken leg when a horse rolled onto him but as to his actual arrival into Lauder, it more than likely would have been him driving his old beaten up 1960's Land Rover (which just needed the zebra stripes paintwork to have looked like it was straight out of the TV show Daktari), pulling an equally beaten up horse float which contained his two horses. The smaller one was his pack horse and did have the canvas and wood pack bags.

Mr Charteris soon put his stamp onto the Ministry of Education approved curriculum for Lauder railway School. Horse related activities soon started to appear. Along with the standard reading, writing and arithmetic, additions of basic horse care and riding were added. we took time out to brush horses, watch Mr Charteris perform farrier work, how to properly mount a horse and during lunch and after school, we rode his two horses.

Quarter of the paddock that we used as a rough sports field was turned over to the planting of carrots for the horses.

Story time consisted of being read to about life on high country farms revolving around the life of riding horses. it was from these autobiographies that we learnt about the importance of Epsom salts and the dangers of colic in horses.

I still remember, during one of these reading sessions, we were listening with bated breath as Mr Charteris was reading about a particularly harrowing account being faced by the books protagonist of a floundering horse. the book was written in the first person style and we had been following the trials and tribulations of the author for the past several months with Mr Charteris reading so many pages a day to us. The author related as to how, while running back from the paddock where this horse was writhing in agony on the ground, her skirts flapped out behind her as she ran to get help.

My friend an I immediately  turned to each other and in unison, exclaimed in total disbelief "Skirts?!"

For the previous several months we did not have the slightest inkling that the author was a girl. it took us a little while to recover from that particular bombshell. oh, and the horse in the book survived.

I fell in love with that little pack horse, Flick. For the life of me I cannot remember the name of the larger black horse, there was only Flick in my eyes. When I think of Flick, I remember the horse smell. That heady gorgeous smell that is just so intoxicating. 

I stayed after school to care for Flick and when the opportunity arose, joining Mr Charteris for rides together along the dirt roads that surrounded Lauder. 

Flick was such a docile horse, he put up with all us kids without putting a hoof out of place. deep down, despite my feeling of total control over Flick through my fantastic horsemanship, I think that he just ignored the commands coming from whoever happened to be on his back at the time and he just plodded along after his paddock mate. Mr Charteris had one rule, no faster than a walk while riding on his horses. That was probably about the only nod towards Health and Safety that ever occurred in those days.

I still remember the thrill of illicit joy when, during one of our plods out on the back roads, I slowed Flick down a bit until Mr Charteris was about 30 metres in front, and then with a little dig of the heels put Flick into a trot using the pretense of closing the gap as an excuse for a bit more speed. 

So what do I know about Horses?

The next time i was on a horse was with my wife Sarah, on our belated honeymoon in Rarotonga, 32 years later. after discovering that actually I can absolutely sit on a beach all day doing nothing (my first non-working trip to the pacific islands, always thought resort holidays would find me bored senseless) Sarah came across a pamphlet advertising horse riding treks.

A moment here to talk about Sarah. she is English and comes from a serious background of equestrian activities. from owning a horse at a young age (obviously a far better manipulator of fathers than I was) to riding with some of the major equestrian families in Europe in her late teens early twenties. There are pictures of her on horses she rode in three day eventing where the horses are about the height of your typical suburban dwelling.

So before I have time to finish my cocktail with the little umbrella in it, I was off the sun lounger and standing in front of this horse receiving instructions from our trek guide (who spent most of his time when not being a guide, running his other business, T-shirt screen printing, a natural fit).

I have given up trying to keep pace with Sarah when she gets an idea in her head. I remark to people that the only reason why the English ruled quarter of the world instead of all of it is because they did not have Sarah as the project manager.

So back to standing in front of this horse. a horse who gave the air of having seen it all, done it all and got the t-shirt (probably printed by its owner). Standing there, in the cook island heat, with fields of pineapple bushes around (who knew that Pineapples grew that way! it was truly an informative day) trying to recall instructions from Mr Charteris well over quarter of a century ago. 

Things I do not recall once I got in the saddle, from earlier days riding was the sense of a total lack of security. I immediately wished that I had a safety rail in front of me. Every time the horse put its head down to scoff, i felt like I was about to be pitched forward. 

Of course, Sarah is up and away, like a fish back in its natural environment.

We plodded along the back roads (well, it is Rarotonga, so really the one and only back road) until we reached the beach. then it was out into the sea. what an amazing experience.  Cocooned  by the water, with the horse partially swimming, partially walking on the seabed, i could relax to enjoy the moment. I was transported back to the days on Flick (albeit not with so much seawater around). I was IN the moment, nothing impinging on my mind. no worries, no cares. I was at peace.

What do i know about horses? 

Nothing. 

Apart from the fact that I now really wanted one.