In the Saddle: A leap of faith for Alyssia

A few weeks ago, Alyssia my ten year old daughter, tried her first cross country training event.Mara, her Connemara (yes, that’s her stable name and yes her sister is called Connie!) has done lots of cross country before in her previous pony club down in Essex. Alyssia was looking forward to it until they got out onto the actual course.

Mara is a cross country machine and it’s where she loves to be the most.She was very strong into the jumps, pulling my daughter nicely towards the fences, but this did scare Alyssia. She felt her pony was going way too fast.From our point of view on the ground, they looked just right, but Alyssia’s first pony was only 12:2hh and had a shorter stride. She didn’t cover as much ground and no amount of explaining this would help Alyssia. Her new pony, Mara, is bigger therefore has bigger strides.A lovely girl called Molly in Pony Club looked after Alyssia giving her a lead over the jumps, whilst her mum gave me support when I felt bad for insisting Alyssia carry on amidst her tears. By the third jump, Alyssia and Mara were loving it and went on to clear water jumps, logs, drops and lots more ranging from 40cm to 70cm. It was truly awesome. The group of children were fantastic and the instructor, Tracey Rivett, had them all smiling at the end. I know Tracey from years ago and it was nice to see her again. She’s still a no-nonsense instructor who gets results.

Look forward to being out and about again soon.

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