When I was growing up, I was a tom-boy. I would race, chase and kiss boys. It was the typical suburban childhood. My neighbour and best friend was into horses, but she wasn't into them enough to constantly go on about them. When I got to year 6 (5th grade to anyone in America), our school camp was cancelled so we went on a class trip which involved horse trekking and canoeing.
I remember, I was in the first group on the trip, so I got to ride to the pond that was an hour away, and then I would go canoeing. We got asked by the trekking company to line up from tallest to smallest so they could try match us to the right-ish sized ponies. When it was my turn to mount up, I was quite scared and I thought that horses were big, ugly animals! Luckily my dad was there to force me to get on. When we set off on the trek, it was so scary for me at first, but the rhythmic motion of walking along peacefully was addicting to me. I fell in love in my first hour of being on horseback and I have never looked back.
From that day on, me and my two best friends, who just happened to like horses as well, would spend every single lunchtime sitting on wooden rails in the school field and pretend they were horses. One of my friends, Emma and I would wait for our mums to come and pick us up after school and we would 'canter' around outside the school office, jumping up onto benches and then back down, pretending we were skilled professional riders competing for a prestigious title. And now, I'm learning the skills that would make that a possibility for me.
Until next time,
KaimanawaKim
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