Hello and welcome to my new blog. I’m a 23 year old event rider who has quite recently made the transition from amateur to professional. By professional I merely mean that I’m attempting to make a living from Eventing and am no longer relying on my pocket money to pay for my entry fees. I use the term ‘professional’ loosely as I can’t help cringing when I say it for I think it sounds a little presumptuous. Anyway, whatever it’s called, I now survive on spaghetti hoops, turn up to the odd hunt ball with the mark from my breeches seam still engraved into my legs and, most attractively of all, I have a permanent red mark on my forehead from wearing my hat all day, everyday. But what I am talking about…I get to do what I absolutely love, what I’m deeply passionate about and what I barely even dreamt of doing when I was a little girl, all day long!
I specifically remember where I was, on a dog walk with my parents when I was about nine years old, when my mother looked me in eyes with her serious face and said, “Becky darling, we will never be able to get you a horse.” There was no denying the irritability and frustration in her voice, possibly a result of repeating nearly this exact phrase on a very regular basis for many, many years. I always chose to ignore my mother’s words. I was in denial. I could not come to accept what she was saying. However, on that day, as the three of us walked around the derelict Police Training School near our house with our dog (Black Labrador ‘Tess’), she said her well rehearsed lines with such conviction that for one moment, for one tiny little split second, I very nearly believed her.
Stephen Sparkes
Said dog plays an important role in my story. She only arrived in our family (I have three siblings) after approximately 6 years of persuading, 5 years of pleading, 4 years of begging, 3 years of insisting, 2 years of tantrums and one year of my father, my siblings and I plotting. As lovely as my mother is, she did not want a dog (or a horse for that matter) but had slowly come to accept the fact that the other five members of her family did all want a dog. Despite her very best attempts, she was outnumbered and therefore, although full consent was not granted, a dog was purchased and to cut an exceptionally long story short, Tess became a very firm member of the Woolven family. She had two litters of puppies (my mother’s idea) before she sadly died at the age of 10. My mother was so fond of that dog, she can barely even bring herself to say her name now for her death was, like for most dog owners, like losing a member of our family. Luckily we carried on the breeding lines and we currently have Tess’s daughter and granddaughter.
Anyway, so this has been a huge diversion but basically the point of the story is to demonstrate that, despite my mother’s insistence on the ‘you-will-never-have-a-horse’ front, there was hope. (Admittedly this hope was somewhat halved on the shocking discovery that Father Christmas was never going to deliver a beautiful little chestnut gelding down the chimney; not simply because it wouldn’t fit, but because Father Christmas had been one huge lie as far as I was concerned). My mother had never wanted a dog, yet after years of hard persuasion she had not only become a dog owner, but a dog breeder too. So surely, even without Father Christmas on my side, there was a chance for my horse, surely…
really enjoyed reading this column!