From a young age I wanted to ride and be around horses. There is something about them that I just really love. No one in my family has ever had anything to do with horses and one of my parents is actually terrified of them, as a result I was always really really cautious around them.

I had a few experiences of being around horses at a young age but never in a structured way (I had a friend with horses that were neglected).

In 2019 I started going and helping at a small riding stable. I was there as a part of occupational therapy and it was the first thing that could reliably get me to go out in over three years. I absolutely loved it there, my job every time I went was going into the feed room and making up all of the different breakfasts and dinners for the next 24 hours. I would also groom, muck out, put out haylage and clean tack. Eventually I was able to help move horses, get them in and tacked up for their lessons, clean hooves and more.

After over a year of going there I started riding. I rode a horse that I absolutely adored, he was so gentle and lovely to be around but a nightmare to ride! I then started riding a different horse, who I had been scared of as she was aggressive but was absolutely joyful to ride. After a year I had become familiar with her and learnt not to be scared of her pretend bites and kicks.

At that place the horses were given multiple rest days each week, given treats, groomed, spent as much time as possible outside with their friends and were just generally loved. It wasn’t perfect, they were a tiny riding school so didn’t have vast amounts of money. Unfortunately, shortly before I had to stop going, I witnessed the lady whose job it was to do the stable work hit a pony with known behaviour issues because he was nervous about walking in the front of a group while passing some noisy machinery to get to a field. This made me upset as it was entirely unnecessary.

I then started going to a different riding place. It was very expensive and much bigger. I was enjoying it at first because I got a much more structured lesson.

I started improving my riding ability much faster. I couldn’t afford to go to weekly lessons so it would be somewhat intermittently, but still regularly enough that I was improving with each lesson.

I started noticing some things I didn’t like so much, horses shut in stables a lot, others tied up outside their stables with nothing to do literally all day. Aggressive horses having their behaviour ignored and brushed off as “a bit grumpy”, an obese horse shut in a stable all day. I was then doing work experience there when I was sent into the stable of a horse I had ridden. It was a small stable with a big horse in it, it was also laid out strangely so you had to go into what looked like a stable door but was actually a little corridor that had two stables in it. It was in darkness and there was no way of seeing out or anyone seeing in. I was grooming this horse and he suddenly trapped me in a corner and was trying to stomp on me. I then tried to get out but he was blocking the door and every time I attempted to gently ask him to move by saying “back up” and pushing his shoulder while applying firm backwards pressure to his head collar, he would kick out at me and snap his teeth at me. I was trapped in a corner and terrified. Eventually, I somehow made it out and was violently shaking. I found someone who worked there and she said she was too scared to go in with him, and that there was only one person who would do it. WHY ON EARTH WAS I SENT IN THERE!!!!????!?!!!!!?!

This horse would get extremely upset if anything touched around his belly, especially where the girth sits. He would kick out at my teacher if she tried to adjust the girth while I was on him. There was blatantly something wrong. He was wonderful to ride though.

I was then terrified to go in the stable with anything other than a tiny elderly pony.

After a few more months, I felt more and more uncomfortable with what I was seeing. Horses that were “special” so were only allowed out by themselves, when one started having a great time running around (who knows how long he’d been shut in for) he got caught and shut back in because he “could injure himself”. It just didn’t seem right. Horses tied up in their stables while racked up for a whole day because it was easier than tacking them up for each lesson. I rode a lovely old pony who was left tacked up in her stable all day, one day I was her last lesson (of five) for the day and she was exhausted, but still expected to go like it was her first.

I realised that riding was causing me problems with pain in my hips, combined with this place being my only option for riding, I decided not to go back.

Being around horses is incredibly soothing for me when I’m upset. When having a bad day (sometimes extremely bad. mental health issues are fun.😆) all I want to do is go back to the riding school I started at, and stand in the sun and hug my favourite horse. Sadly, they had to close and all of the horses have gone off to new homes. It’s something I really really miss.

I would love to be able to ride again in the future. But most of all just be able to be around horses without being scared. But in a way that the horse is treated as an individual with its own feelings, rather than a tool. Is there any hope of ever finding this? I’ve seen so much stuff online of people having a close bond with their horses where they communicate with each other, rather than just forcing the horse to do things.

Is this something that even exists in the UK? Or would I need to live in a completely different country?

I have just realised how extremely long this post is! I apologise for that, I just wasn’t sure how else to explain my experiences.

I’m in a very rural area of the UK and am currently very limited with options of where I can go. But perhaps in the future I will live somewhere else.