Most memorable ride

[Canterbury Cait]

Riding an Arab mare in the desert outside Luxor. We rode out after lunch, spent a few hours exploring and seeing some amazing things. Just me and a guide. The horses were just incredible, like nothing I have ridden before or since. We were out until sunset, during Ramadan. As we rode back along the Nile to the stables the moon came up, the call to prayer was sounding and there were people everywhere with plates of fruit, which they shared with us. Just magical, and I still find myself doubting that it was real!

 

[Spotherisk]

My first ever canter and gallop. I’d had a few riding lessons as a kid but very little riding really, but I ended up on a riding holiday in Cornwall. I was matched to a chestnut and white skewbald gelding ( I’m sure he was the reason I bought Tinner, in my avatar) and after a little shakedown ride through the lanes, on the way home the leaders opened a gate into a steep field... and we went! Bloody brilliant, never felt anything like it! Loads of people fell off and it was carnage but I had the best gallop ever in the whole world.

I had a 25 minute ride on Harley last week, after he’d been retired two years. It felt like coming home and slipping into your old comfy slippers, and was truly wonderful. He stopped and looked at the view, politely stared at the neighbouring horses and walked out like the amazing horse he’s always been. Sometimes we don’t know how lucky we are until we try and fail to improve on it...

 

[fiwen30]

Mine is shockingly ordinary compared with some of these lovely stories, but it’s definitely the one I remember the most.

I hadn’t ridden since I was a teenager, so a good 10 years before, and missed it so damn much, then a new friend very kindly invited me on a hack. My horse was a sweet grey cob gelding, and 20+ years old. It was golden hour on a lovely summer afternoon, and we rode through her fields. We cantered up the last hill, and it was so good to glance over my shoulder and see my friend grinning at me, feeling the heat of the sun, and mane under my hands - made me feel like a girl in a pony book.

 

[Cloball]

What a lovely idea! I have some mundane and some holiday ones.
One was a fabulous beach ride as a teenager in Newquay on a gorgeous dapple grey tb I tried to get my parents to buy. We galloped everywhere. I went back the next year to find out she'd been retired lame and it just wasn't the same.
My first competition on my loan pony where she behaved like a saint and jumped every thing.
I also remember little moments when schooling certain horses when it just clicks... I love that feeling!
Other memorable rides include riding a just broken Shagya in Hungary, galloping in Mongolia, and riding through Paradise in NZ. We also used to take a lorry of the local riding school ponies to the beach after exams which was always very memorable. I also have an entertaining video of me trying to ride a lovely maremmano on a race track in Tuscany in a head collar ?

 

[Chippers1]

This moment, my old pony who had had an absolutely awful case of laminitis, I think he ended up being on box rest for about 6 months, came sound then had heart bars on which lamed him again and had another 6 months box rest. I was told multiple times that I should PTS but I knew him and he still had that naughty glint in his eye so I kept on with the re-hab and the care. Ended up taking him barefoot and was told by the vet that he will probably only ever be a walking hack type horse.
Well we showed them this was a couple of years down the line from the above:

Especially as he didn't even have his boots on which he normally wore everywhere! He was only 13hh and this was massive (to me) and the last fence on the course so I was worried the whole way round but even after my pair horse in front ran out he just flew over it. I think back to this with a huge smile on my face, he loved to jump and he took me round many courses before and after his laminitis but this one really sticks out.

 

[LegOn]

One of the most memorable rides was one that helped me make up mind. The riding school I was at was closing down & the horse who helped me return to riding after a really bad accident was up for sale, I really wanted to buy him so was so full of doubt - I never owned a horse & I was clueless...

Myself and a few friends that rode together in the school went on this amazing XC riding trip together as a last hurrah together, stunning location with amazing horses - I was on this machine of a horse, he was just fab, jumped everything put in front of him & was a pleasure to ride. Even though I thoroughly enjoyed it... he wasnt my riding school forever horse, I knew I had to have him, I rang them the next day & bought him! He gave the most amazing years of riding - even though he was the grumpiest, most opinionated loveable rouge that ever lived. Memorable rides with him included the time we got placed at a HT with a friend of mine out riding pairs & the first (and probably only other!!) time we went clear out HT - I bawled crying after and it was just amazing!

Galloping him on the beach by himself is also another one what just makes me smile so much - I miss him everyday by my god, he was some horse for one horse!

 

[Sugarplum Furry]

Years ago, riding a big coloured cob bareback along the main drag at Glastonbury festival on a Saturday afternoon. I'd borrowed him from one of the travellers, and that horse was as steady as a rock amongst all the madness going on around him...he would have made a great police horse.

Also, when I did endurance with my arab, best ride ever with him was 50 mile at Cirencester park. The going was amazing and we just seemed to fly, we made our best time and and we were both SO fit. Ah those were the days!

 

[Ranyhyn]

Isnt it lovely to hear about the rides we've loved.

All my best times have been on my current mare, she's the love of my life. My favourite rides have been galloping her along the beach with a close friend and her amazing mare and finishing off our hacks from home with a lovely gallop on top of a mountain. Ive been so blessed to own her.

 

[Baywonder]

Years ago, riding a big coloured cob bareback along the main drag at Glastonbury festival on a Saturday afternoon.

Oh crikey this reminds me of another ride.

Again, with a fellow livery (different one whom I had the flat out gallop with!) we toddled off on a hack, and my friend decided she would like to pop home to say hello to her family. To get there we had to ride down a main road, and across a major set of traffic lights. The horses were absolute stars, and as we trotted across the traffic lights that were on green, they took the bemused stares from all the lorry drivers, bus drivers / passengers and car drivers in their stride. They never put a hoof wrong!

 

[Boulty]

I've had a few... On the pony I had as a teenager I guess it would be the last time I hacked him out before I went away to Uni. We went on our favourite ride with lots of gallopy bits & just went for it. Probably the last time he was fully & properly sound as I never quite got him back to full fitness after that. (The ride years later where my saddle slippped & I headbutted a tree & went to A&E in an ambulance shall remain memorable for different reasons!)

On the Welsh one there's a few that are really memorable for different reasons. There would be the "what the hell have I done?!" ride where he bolted down a road with me after spooking at a cow (ramming through the 2 horses we were with who tried to block us in against the hedge on the opposite side of the road who then joined in the panic). Still the most scared I've been on a horse (90% of the yard refused to hack with us ever again after that & think it scarred us both for life where cows were concerned). Then there's the first time I sat back on him whilst he was at Rockley, just pootling around the arena in walk on a still not 100% sound horse but it just sorta hit me that maybe this was all possible & that things might just work out. The three day ride along the length of the Ridgeway that we did several years later with some of the other rehabs was pretty special as well (Galloping about near Barbury castle was a particular highlight) as it was just 3 days of brilliant riding with lovely people (that & my lorry handbrake more or less failed on a hill just before the place the horses were staying the first night then I snapped my key in the ignition the following morning!) Competitively the PTV round he gave me at the Lvl 1 Champs the year we won was memorable in that aside from the first couple of obstacles (near the warmup) he just totally got in the zone listened & focused the whole way around & made it all feel very easy... it wasn't a feeling that we managed to replicate again! The last time I took him out with the bloodhounds nr Boltby on the edge of the North York Moors was pretty special too & I think my favourite individual ride. Was one of those freezing cold but beautifully sunny & clear winter days where you can see for miles. The views were incredible, the sounds of the hounds echoing around the forest were otherwordly & the pony was on fire & having an absolute ball & was still bouncing along when he got back to the lorry. In a weird way I sort of sensed this might be the last time we got to do this & I was sadly right.

 

[Beckandred]

First time galloping out on a hack, I was riding an 11.1 pony who was by far the fastest out of the 8 horses there!