Fortitude

This is another horse story. When I was seventeen I went and stayed at a racing stable for the summer holidays. The stable was next door to my Auntie and Uncle's place in Marton and I guess my parents thought Uncle Michael and Auntie Meta would keep and eye on me. I can remember not really being that keen on anyone looking out for me; I just wanted to experience the life of a racing stable and immerse myself in it.  Most of my family is like this, we call it obsessive behaviour and we joke about our inability to have balance in our experiences however I know I have had successes because of my ability to focus totally on what I'm doing as have my brothers and daughters. As I've got older I no longer worry about the drive I seem to have to do some things, I've learnt to embrace it, and to channel the feelings of wanting to do something into taking some action.

At seventeen I was passionate about horses. I wanted to have a life working with them. Neither of my parents really understood this and tried hard to influence me to work hard at school and to qualify for university and a career, maybe in law like my father or music like my mother. I had absolutely no inclination to work at school, all my energies were really focused on what happened out of school. I was mildly interested in music and my piano and singing lessons and the orchestra I played in and the choir and competitions I went into but nothing compared to my life with horses.

The summer I turned seventeen my family went on a tour of the South Island and left me in Marton on the way home. The stables were small with the trainer and one apprentice and one stable hand and about 6 or 7 horses in training. Everyone worked, all day, from dawn until dusk. We got up at about 5.30 and got the horses organised and took them down to the track, riding there and back and mostly leading another horse. At the track the others would ride track work while I helped Matt the trainer to get each horse ready. I think this would take a couple of hours then we would ride home, over the railway line and round the edge of the town back to Matt's place. Years later I went back to Marton and tried to find his place, I loved the big old house and the part of town it was in, I think I located the house, looking pretty good, but the stables were long gone as was the racetrack.

When we arrived home from the track we'd organise the horses again, some into stables and some into yards and paddocks then go in for breakfast which was always quite slow and relaxed. After breakfast I'd have to crush oats or other grain or clean tack or clean yards and loose boxes or make up feeds. Any or all of these things happened most days in the blazing heat. Most afternoons we would go out for a road ride, trotting round the roads sometimes riding one and leading another. I spent a lot of time with the stable hand, I remember him being small and he smoked. I was pretty small then too around 8.5 stone or 53kgs and I'm 1.73 cms so pretty skinny, and a non smoker ( that came later that same year). We also went to town sometimes, into Marton; I recall hearing Me and Bobby McGee being played on the radio on one of these trips. It's funny looking back at the impression these people must have had of me, seeing me through my involvement with horses and I suppose my religious relatives over the back fence. I wonder if they thought I was a Jehovah's Witness too?

Riding to the track was always good. Getting up so early, starting to ride just as it was getting light, the sound of the horses hooves on the road, the team of us all riding together, these tall elegant animals who it seemed to me at the time loved their job, bouncing along, a string of horses and people going somewhere together. I went to at least two race meetings during my stay, one in Hawera and the other  at Trentham. I also remember going to Tauheranikau but that might have been on the Trentham trip. We took Blue Suit, a lovely grey who was quite fancied, to Trentham and I walked him around the warmup ring and the birdcage.

Towards the end of my stay I rode track work for the first time. I think Matt would have primed me for it and been relatively confident I could cope with it. I rode Henech a lovely big chestnut who I'd been riding nearly every day, out on the road and to the track. I'd handled him a lot and knew he was pretty gentle and mild. Matt gave me pretty explicit instructions as we headed out to the track, he walked beside us, talking to me and I know I tried to follow the instructions but Henech took charge from the minute I turned him onto the track. He didn't bolt but I had no real control. I was supposed to trot down the first straight and then canter him gently then do a slow gallop home. That's not what happened. He started galloping straight away and I know I panicked. I remember pulling on him to try and hold him or slow him down and having no impact. He just ignored me, I stood up in the stirrups and pulled with all my might and I may as well have not been there. I remember the feeling of not being able to do anything and then I remember taking control, in my head, and thinking about what to do, that I needed to hunker down and relax and go with him and just sit it out while still having a hold on him but not trying to fight him. All this happened in seconds, I stopped being terrified and fighting the giant animal I was riding and instead used the skills I had to ride. He finally settled to a moderate canter and I was able to pull him up as we reached Matt, or rather he knew what to do and pulled up of his own accord. When I got off I had an experience I don't think I've ever had again, my legs turned to jelly and I nearly collapsed. Matt and the stable hand sort of laughed while they held me up. Slowly the feeling and control came back to my legs and I rode Henech back alongside all the others.

I must have gone home not long after that loving every minute of it and determined to live the life. What I hope I've conveyed here is the shear delight and joy I experienced working alongside these horses and with these people. I absolutely know now that very quickly my brain and I guess intellect would have been driven mad and expected more but for that summer it was heaven. Home meant school again and that longing for something you haven't got that I think is such a part of being a teenager. That slow torture teenagers put themselves through until a new experience comes along to dull the pain and to help make new memories. My ambitions and that excessive drive to surround myself with those lovely big animals has never left me and forty years later I still feel the magic of the moment when I'm riding.