WHAT THE BUCK

There’s an old cowboy saying – there ain’t a horse that can’t be rode, there ain’t a man that can’t be throwed – and I learned the truth of that the hard way this month!

After surviving my off-the-track thoroughbred for the past four years, I pretty much considered my Andalusian mare, Mina, a sedate walk in the park by comparison.

Whereas Lucky had regularly scared the hell out of me in our first 18 months together thanks to unpredictable explosions of high energy that are pretty much the hallmark of super hot ex-racehorses, Mina was stocky and sturdy and easy to sit to, no matter what she did.

Don’t get me wrong, she was never a plodder, even though I inherited her over weight and relatively unschooled. She would turn on a pinhead when spooked, occasionally bolt – though nothing worth noting on Facebook – and she would sometimes throw in a bronc that actually felt quite comfortable.

Oh yes. I really thought I had nailed this riding thing.

My misplaced confidence had been further compounded a couple of years ago by the comments of the international trainer Judy Brad well who, after watching Lucky go ballistic because there were two escaped donkeys in the yard, told me, “You have good stick ability.”

Now,what I should have taken note of at the time was not so much the ‘good’, but the ‘stick ability’ because stick ability is not quite the same as skill. Anyway,I didn’t and so I trundled on getting more and more confident with Lucky, and more and more complacent with Mina.

And everything was fine … while it was summer.

As I’m sure many of you know, Cyprus summers are hot. Temperatures reach an average 33 degrees in Paphos and 80% humidity. These are not ideal riding conditions – and you have no idea what a godsend the Aqueos Anti-Bacterial Tack and Disinfectant Wipes are until you are drowning in your own sweat and racing to get back under the air con.

But,of course, summers don’t last forever, not even in Cyprus and like horses everywhere, when they feel the first winds of autumn get under their tails,they can mutate into something requiring more skill than stickability.

Three weeks ago, this was the case with Mina.

It was like a perfect storm; the weather had cooled overnight, the wind was up,there were men in the banana field next door and we were in the arena with another spooky mare. So, with the first unexpected movement, Mina bolted and rather than stopping her I did what I always did, I sat in the saddle, chilled to the point of comatose and lazily pulled her up. However, before she came back to me, Mina did something unexpected – she put her head to her knees and bucked like a bleeding rodeo star!

Somehow,I survived the first four. We stopped, I caught my breath, I turned in my seat to check what was happening behind us and she took the opportunity to go again.This time there was no saving me. I was off. Felled by my own arrogance and stupidity.

Luckily,I wasn’t hurt, and though it was a hard lesson to learn, it was a lesson that needed learning.

Thanks to my trainer, I am becoming a stronger and more competent rider each week. But it’s horses that make you wiser. And no matter how good you are, or how good you think you are, there ain’t a cowboy that can’t be throwed.

Be careful out there.