When your world is falling down around you...

Starzaan another vote for the like button here.

I have the joy at the moment of being signed off work with a stress related breakdown and the wonderful advice from my Doctors of "just clear your mind and do things that give you pleasure" which for anyone who has been in this position will know is much easier said than done but I digress!

The hour or so I spend with my lad every day is my best therapy, after I have mucked out his stall and filled his haynet and left him carrots and apples in his straw I wander down to his field and as soon as he sees me he walks away from his mates then walks the fence line with me to the gate and then spends as long as I like nuzzling, licking and generally acting like a big cuddle blanket. If I cry he licks my face. When I leave he walks with me along the fence line again till I reach the gate into the yard and he stands and watches me till I turn the corner out of sight.

He is the best part of my day at the moment and to be honest the one part that makes total sense.

Below is my Favorite Pic of us taken back in the summer
lindyvardirightwayup.jpg
 
I have been where you describe too and you are right...I spend half an hour with my black naughty urchin and my spirits are raised sufficiently to cope with the world a little bit longer. They are truly wonderful creatures. Have a hug from me and my welshie boy.
 
My life has just fallen apart this christmas, really hit rock bottom, i see i am not the only one, getting up to do my horse keeps me going and is therepy for me and looking after my five cats. Thank god for animals. love to you all that are feeling so low xxx
 
Another reason why I adore my darling Roy boy? I just went out to do evening stables, and two of the boys had opened the gate to their field, and the gate to the DIY barn and were tormenting the other horses they could get to and generally causing chaos.

Where was Roy?


Standing INSIDE the field, next to the open gate, screaming his head off, obviously saying "THAT'S NAUGHTY!!!! COME BACK YOU STUPID YOUNGUNS!!!"

He is a twinkly grey star.
 
You know it's not only us. My mother and I used to share the horses but when I grew up and moved away they came with me. Mother is completely out of horses now and it has been so long she is almost a little nervy but when she came down at christmas and I left to go to the yard she came up to me and I thought she was going to give me a kiss goodbye - no - she came and sniffed my coat, did a big sigh and walked off with a big grin on her face saying how comforting she still found the smell of horses.
 
Chavhorse said:
Starzaan another vote for the like button here.

I have the joy at the moment of being signed off work with a stress related breakdown and the wonderful advice from my Doctors of "just clear your mind and do things that give you pleasure" which for anyone who has been in this position will know is much easier said than done but I digress!

The hour or so I spend with my lad every day is my best therapy, after I have mucked out his stall and filled his haynet and left him carrots and apples in his straw I wander down to his field and as soon as he sees me he walks away from his mates then walks the fence line with me to the gate and then spends as long as I like nuzzling, licking and generally acting like a big cuddle blanket. If I cry he licks my face. When I leave he walks with me along the fence line again till I reach the gate into the yard and he stands and watches me till I turn the corner out of sight.

He is the best part of my day at the moment and to be honest the one part that makes total sense.

Below is my Favorite Pic of us taken back in the summer
lindyvardirightwayup.jpg
Click to expand...


Oh hun. That brought tears to my eyes.

Hugs to you.

C.x
 
mymare said:
Lovely thread, and brought a lump to my throat. It's everything I felt about my mare, but now she's gone, and I miss my "cuddle therapy" more than anyone realises.

Fine and Dandy - good luck, it doesn't sound an easy thing to do, but sometimes these awful life changing decisions do work out for the best in the end. Thinking of you.
Click to expand...

Ahhh, after loosing my boy last month that is exactly what I am missing, he was also a menace on my purse, but worth every penny that I both had and did not have :)XXXXXXXX
 
My Clydesdale mare Serenity fills my heart everytime I see her. I bought her aged 6 months and it was love at first sight, she's 7 now. When I'm feeling down she rests her muzzle on my shoulder just by my ear and sighs, closes her eyes and stays there. She is such a comfort.
 
MrsMistletoe said:
Oh hun. That brought tears to my eyes.

Hugs to you.

C.x
Click to expand...

Self indugent soo apologies, I have bi polar, and my horses have got me thoruh eerything, when I was signed off work, that is exactly what my doctor told me to do.

I now have no horse of my own, but have a pony that I look after and seems to love me!!!!! and though it makes me get up in the morning to go to see him and feed him, it is still not the same xxxxxx

But I love the silly old goat, it is just hard not to make excuses not to go and see him :
 
he is stunning! That photo of him laying down is just lush.

And congrats hun you managed a post in english with no words I dont understand! :D Chin up - hopefully 2011 will be better for you and we are here if you need us, you seem to have excellent medical care and a supportive family so please try to keep smiling.

ps. boys smell :D
 
Took the words right out of my mouth. He is a lovely boy, long may you enjoy him. I have to say I have been totally gobsmacked by the comments on this post - in a nice way. I've had the most awful year, two close bereavements, and big problems with a soon to be ex business partner, which have taken me to hell (and not back yet), and will be going to the High Court next year. However, the one constant has been my two. My old boy (18 in May next year) never fails to make me laugh, and being around him always cheers me up. My daughter's mare just fills me with such joy - she is so pretty as well. I dont know what I would do without my horses, even though they are totally bankrupting me at the moment. Winston Churchill really was correct 'There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man' - hope I got that right.
 
Awwwwhhhhh. Starzaan your Roy is my Pads.

Feeling pretty poo after writting off my car (note to all if you drive Honda CRV's stop - they crumple rather badly... My tatty old peugot fared better...) and having two great chunks of my little house fall off with ice expanding in the cracks (one very badly so you can see the plaster board inside thank hevan for bodge jobs until drier weather!) all within a fortnight and the pooeyest couple of weeks at work I think the only thing that is making me smile are my boys. I had big snogs this evening and really didn't want to leave... Even el fatso has been doing snuffles and cuddles.

Big sigh... Chin up chook. Your Captain Birdseye is just round the corner! He may not weild a spanner or a clenching tool but he is there just waiting...
 
Roy is such a handsome big lad, lush for an older man ;)

Dylan always had the same effect on me, a good horsey cuddle makes everything better :)
 
One of the loveliest HHO posts I've read in a while: the whole thread in fact! Cheers to all the four-legged friends and therapists in the world 80)

I don't know his Royness' story, so I look forward to hearing it. Although I've heard rumblings that it involves Hickstead! He's gorgeous. That pink, floral, Sound of Music number is particularly smile inducing 80)
 
All my horses seem to have an epic story behind them and our finding each other, but Roy's is by far the most incredible. I don't really believe in fate, but if I did, Roy would be mine and I his...

It's bloody long so go and get a packet of hob nobs, and Bear Grylls...just in case!

I had completely given up all hope of ever getting back on a horse without being absolutely petrified following Cadbury's death, when I saw an ad for a skinny grey gelding for share. I was bored, and felt sorry for him, so I rang the number and arranged to go and meet him.

The horse I went to see was very different to the one in the above pictures. I'll dig out some photos from that first day for you all one day.... he was painfully thin, incredibly quiet, and rather lazy. The moment I sat on him I felt something click. It was the first time I had been on a horse and not been terrified since the accident... I trusted him implicitly from that moment. I pootled around the field on him for about half an hour, and felt that hidden somewhere in the lazy, nappy, jaded horse I was riding, there was an incredibly well schooled superstar.

I agreed to share him, and at first things went really well. He was on loan to the girl I was sharing him with, and I was told that part of the agreement with his owners was that he must stay at his present yard, so sadly, he couldn't come home with me. I got a job at the yard he was kept at - he was the only livery on a busy racing yard - and at first everything was fabulous. However, things gradually got more and more difficult with both the girl I was sharing him with, and the yard owner. I won't bore you with details, but eventually I managed to "borrow" a phone and get Roy's owners' number, and managed to get them to agree to him being moved. At this point, the girl I was sharing him with (who it turns out had only been riding for a year at this time) rocked up one day and announced that she was far too good to be riding Roy now, and needed something better, so I could have him to myself. There followed a rather tricky day when I told the yard owner I was taking Roy home, and she ended up punching my mother and throwing all my saddles around the yard like a crazy person.

Luckily, we escaped!

Since then, Roy and I have moved several times together. He's my main man, so whenever I've had a job with accomodation, he's the one that's come with me. We've been through some really rough times together - me working twelve hour days as a groom and nanny and not being paid a penny for it, him injuring himself terribly, friendships disintigrating, me almost killing myself by working nights following the twelve hour days just to feed him (no money left to feed me, I ate tomato soup for two months!). Through all the crap, we've been there for each other. I know that as much as I know he's there for me when the world is falling down around my ears, he knows that when life gets too much for him, I'm there.

He's a very, very poor doer, and life according to Roy is quite complicated. His lovely owners came to see him after I had had him all to myself (minus the mental sharer and crazy yard owner) for a year, and said that he was mine for life as he'd never looked so well or been so happy. I spent three years perfecting a routine and feeding pattern that would keep him looking at his best, and now that I've got it, he looks like a completely different horse. It's not easy - he has to have access to haylage at ALL times, has to wear ridiculous amounts of rugs, be brought in at night all year round, be fed four times a day, won't eat nuts, won't eat alfafa, won't eat dry feed, won't eat very wet feed, the list goes on and on and on!

When he first went blind in his right eye, I slept in his box for two weeks - I literally went inside to shower and eat occasionally, and then went straight back out to him. He was so frightened, and the only thing that stopped him shaking was having me in the stable with him, reading him stories, putting daisy chains in his mane, and telling him that as much as it was crap right now, he'd get used to it, and we were going to be fine.


When I first moved away from home, I took Roy and my lovely dog, and went to an area I didn't know at all, as a groom for a lovely lovely family. Now, much as I ADORED the people, the horses, and the job, I did get lonely being in an area I didn't know, working hours that didn't allow for a social life, and if I hadn't had Roy boy with me, I wouldn't have stuck it out. I check my horses at half 11 every night - skip out, hay and water, and Roy boy gets his last meal - and one night I went out to find him lying down in his box. I sat down for a cuddle, and woke up three hours later to my boss poking me with a lunge whip to see if I was dead, still curled up against Roy, with my arm round his neck.

A couple of years ago, I thought I'd try and find out a bit more about him. All I had was the number of the people that his previous owners had bought him from, and the knowledge that he must have been a pretty special horse in his day. After six months of digging, I got right back to his breeder, and almost fainted when I found out what my darling Roy had done as a youngster.

He was bred in Holland, and his breeder's daughter backed him and did some showjumping with him. It turned out that he was rather good... so good in fact that he ended up as a Grade A showjumper, her top puissance horse, and was sold to England, to a man who did the Hickstead Derby on him twice, coming 7th, and 3rd! He did the puissance at Olympia, and has jumped stupid heights at all the biggest international venues in this country.

He was retired from showjumping when he threw a splint, and went to a lovely woman who thought she'd do some local dressage with him. Local dressage turned into rather serious dressage, and I discovered one day when having a lesson that my darling horse can do piaffe, passage, pirouettes, you name it. It's just the blithering idiot on his back that stops him! I've finally got used to it, and don't ruin every attempt at piaffe with shrieks of delight and completely forgetting to actually RIDE my horse!

So, my horse with the perfect manners on the ground, who will jump anything you point him at, will hunt all day up with hounds or at the back gate shutting, lets my two year old neice ride him and lead him around like a dog, would do anything for a snickers bar, and gave me back my confidence in both horses and myself, is actually not just pretty well schooled - he's a wonder horse.

Some friends and I used to get together once a week in the summer for a hack or a showjumping session or hedge jumping competition, and one day we decided we'd put up a really tricky course of showjumps in the outdoor school, and jump it three times each - once on each horse. Now, Roy is the MOST incredible showjumper, but you really have to feel it to believe it, so when my lovely friend Lucy got on him she was rather sceptical. As she landed over the practice fence, I do believe her words were "EFF ME IT CAN JUMP!!! WOOOOOOW!!". I've been lucky enough to sit on some truly incredible horses, but can honestly say, that over a coloured fence, I don't think I'll ever ride another quite like Roy. At 24 he still makes me gasp every time we go showjumping....

Sorry it's so long... I could go on for hours with every little story and anecdote, but that's the potted version.

My Roy boy, my once in a lifetime horse....

Photo0183.jpg


n508885727_1958998_5543.jpg


n508885727_384646_8662.jpg
 
Aaw, I had no idea that Roy was quite such a superstar!

He's so incredibly lucky to have found you, sounds like you've really given him a second chance at life :)
 
Roy is a beautiful horse, as are many of the horses and ponies on here. He reminds me of a horse I used to ride. Have you ever thought of writing a book about him? I have written books about the cats I have lost, and it is very comforting.
 
Oh bless,

I agree animals do have a wonderful affect on the mind, like when your with them all the bad stuff goes away :)

That flowery rug is simply smashing lol!

I love the picture of him laying down, he's so pretty :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top