Gratitude: Day Four.

I’m grateful today for patience and belief.

Just over a year ago, I took on the training of a Connemara mare for my great-niece. The sweet pony was christened Clova and we all adored her from the moment she arrived and she was so dear that I thought I’d be able to get her soft and relaxed and happy in a heartbeat.

It didn’t turn out like that. She’d had a lot of different homes, as ponies often do, and the move to us seemed to be a bridge too far for her. It was as if she’d given her trust to humans one too many times, and just as she was starting to feel settled, the horsebox would arrive and she’d have to move on. So she had, entirely logically, decided to defend herself from and brace herself against the world. She wouldn’t even entirely trust that my mighty red mare, the most devoted protector of the herd, would look after her.

So we had many, many steps backwards. There were times when I thought I’d over-faced myself, and that I would never find the key. I felt a keen responsibility to the very youthful human who was going to ride the little mare, and I was terrified I was going to let her down. (The small human, who has the heart of a lion, was never worried. She had, from the start, more faith in me and more faith in her pony than either of us had in ourselves.) 

I plugged on through the doubts, trying this, trying that, asking for help, desperately attempting to build belief. And in the end, with a lot of encouragement and advice, I found it. The pony found it. Patience and time and not giving up paid off. This morning, the youthful jockey and her sweet mare galloped up a Scottish hill as if they could fly.

We’ve still got a way to go. Clova can still have her doubts. Her confidence can wobble and she can become slightly overwhelmed. But I think she knows that we are her people now, and this is her home, and the good herd is her herd. And that is a beautiful foundation stone on which to build.

Patience and belief. These are two of the singing virtues that my horses teach me every day. And the mares do have to teach me every day, because I can waver and wobble and forget. So I am grateful to them too. 

And I’m grateful to the enchanting children who come and play with the horses, who amuse Clova and remind her that life can be fun, who make the field a place of laughter and merriment and adventure. These young horsewomen are natural believers, and they teach me something every day too. 

Belief is hard, I think. It’s too easy to lose faith. You have to push yourself into believing, into keeping hope alive. But what I have found is that if something is worth it - if it’s a heart thing and a soul thing and spirit thing - then I will keep on pushing, however much of a flake and a failure I sometimes feel. That’s why horses are such inspiring teachers. You have to do it for them. They need you to be brave, and because they don’t speak English or have the prefrontal cortex for complex ideas, you can’t explain to them why you think you don’t have it in you. 

I think children are a little the same. They have the same straightforward authenticity. I can’t let the young ones down, just because I’m feeling a little bashed and bruised and frayed around the edges. So I dig down and scrape up the last remnants of belief and put my faith together with cussedness and binder twine.

And then - then - we are all galloping up that literal and metaphorical hill, as if nothing in the world can stop us.