Chessington 17

24th July 2010

Chessington Equestrian Centre, Chessington

Fabulous ride today! I was on Tom, who I'd ridden a couple of times previously, fairly unsuccessfully, and who'd just come back from a 3 week holiday in the field. This meant he was full of beans, and to start off with was extremely joggy. I have to confess, although I know it's naughty, I love joggy horses. Especially the ones where they stop with the slightest squeeze of the reins, as Tom did today. Leon was leading, on Chloe, and another client, Helen, was on Champ, who I'd ridden the other day. We went over to the proper bit of Esher Common, and I was gobsmacked by how lovely the scenery was - proper beautiful heathland with sandy tracks - as I'd seen nothing like it on my previous couple of hacks. I then realised I'd run in exactly the same area during the Punchbowl Marathon in January. This hack was much more sedate than the others, and for almost the first hour we'd only trotted and cantered the once. But once we hit the sandy tracks on the common, that all changed, and we had a couple of nice longish gallops and some steadier canters. Tom was absolutely brilliant. Really willing to go, but with a lovely soft mouth (rubber straight bar snaffle!) and no pulling. It's odd that on my last hack we had loads of cantering when I was on a string horse, and today we had hardly any when I was on a horse with perfect brakes. Tom was pretty much perfect the whole way. Forward in the walk, joggy in parts, minor spooks a couple of times, comfortable, willing, just lovely. Got back late, so we ended up riding for about 2 1/2 hours, but I could happily have ridden all day. Washed him off, had a drink, booked the TREC course for two weeks, had some cuddles with Tom, and biked home. I love Tom, I love horses, I love riding at Chessington, I feel like a horse mad 13 year old again.