A Pony Called Toffee

Chapter 2

A/N: All of this is part of the story - even though it's real. Also only the bold stuff is authors note, this stuff below is like Amelia's note.

If my life was a movie, this would have been the part sped up with music. But it's not. Nevertheless, when I try and remember everything we did together, everything is marred with the last event. The biggest event. The fatal event. I remember the time I was terrified to jump bareback, just because all the horses I'd done it on hadn't boosted my confidence, and did it confidently for the first time - and now, it's just a tiny part of our journey together, and that ride, even though it was a major milestone, does not, I repeat, does NOT have anything on that last part. That's why I'm finding this hard to write. I can't muster up the courage to say it. Neither can Emily. It's a long story, but someone kept asking me, "Is Toffee.." then miming a gun at her forehead. Now that started killing me, when she was gone I couldn't muster up the courage to say it. I still can't. It makes it... more real, somehow. Her D-day was scheduled one day, a school day, and Mum let us stay home (I was so thankful.. for more than one reason). Fortunately it was rescheduled and the vet instead took more tests (they came back negative). I cried all my tears that day, and the day it did happen, we found out after it had happened. Strangely, I didn't shed a tear. I suppose it's because I knew it was coming and I had already cried for her. I'll try to keep going with this story, even though it was meant to be kind of like a diary I'd update every day after a ride, but I can't anymore. It breaks my heart to say this, but I can't remember every ride. Every moment with her, not all of it I can remember. I wish humans had memories of everything. But that's just a wish, and wishes do sometimes come true, if others can grant it for them. Other wishes are just that - a wish, it's nothing more, it's not actually possible. Like wishing you could turn into a unicorn. This is hard for me to write, it's meant to be a log of every ride, but I may have to skim over small ones and focus on the stand out ones. It may makes this shorter. But I'll keep pushing on with this, I can do it. I'll focus really hard. And after the end, I may make a sequel for the end. What happened after. Because as much as I wish this, our lives are not books or movies, they don't end once something gone wrong comes right. We don't live happily ever after, we continue to fight, to lose, to win, to enjoy life, to hate life. And I know this was last year, but I carry the past around with me, I can't let it go. But anyway, this is probably getting confusing because you don't know what happened. I can do this.

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I couldn't wait to ride Toffee again, and we planned to come back in the weekend. I jumped her for the first time that day, and jumped higher than I ever had outside the Showtym Camp run by the Wilson sisters. I fell in love with her the way you fall asleep, slowly, bit by bit, then all at once. That day I slid off her rump, did the plank on her at a walk, rode backwards and other silly things. She was amazing. I kept coming back, with Emily, and we kept going with Toffee and getting better and better.
Tina talked to me about a friend of hers, Megan, who was involved in Kaimanawa Heritage Horses (KHH) and did really good lessons for $20 - which I had! We organised a lesson for the next weekend.

I turned up early, in my good cream jodhpurs, my purple riding vest and a white top. Probably not the best idea, as I mucked out for half an hour before bringing Toffee in and grooming a very mudding bay pony! She loved to roll, that crazy pony. She'd always get her cheeks CAKED in mud and I'd spend hours trying to get it off. I put on her best saddle blanket, a royal blue one that went with her royal blue-ish halter, marred by mud (how, I don't know. She was never turned out in a halter but it got muddier every time she used it.), the cleanest saddle and my personal favourite bridle. I wiped my boots on the straw and led Toffee into the arena, a bundle of nerves. What if I rode terribly? What if I fell off? What if Toffee decided to be naughty? What if, what if...
I lined Toffee up with the mounting block and jumped on without using the stirrups, then walked around the arena with her. Ten minutes later, after I had warmed up, Megan turned up. After warming us up a bit longer, she took away my stirrups. Thankfully, I had been working on my trot without stirrups so it wasn't too bad. It really comes in handy! She called out to let my stirrups down.
"Good! Now can you take your stirrups back and when you come back by the gate, head over the poles, then turn over the crossbars?" I nodded and obeyed. Toffee once again was amazing and cleared them with room to spare. I put my inside leg on and twisted my upper body to look at the jump, while opening my inside rein. Toffee pricked her ears and, on Megan's instruction, picked up a canter and popped neatly over the tiny jump. We cantered over to the corner then slowed to a trot, then a walk. Ambling over to Megan, I gave Toffee a huge slappy pat on her toffee-coloured bay neck.
"Nice!" Megan told me. "Try push your hands forward a bit more and sit up taller, though."
I knew I had a problem with my release - one person told me over small jumps to do a full crest release, another told me to ignore them and keep riding normally, and now I was being told to do neither. It got a bit confusing.
"Anyway, could you pop over the grid just there? For the pole, treat it like just that - a pole, and for the cross and vertical, stay in two-point from as soon as you take off for the cross and when you land from the vertical. Got that?"
"Yes!" I chimed.
I rode over the grid, with Toffee being amazing (as usual). I tried to push my hands up higher, but I only leaned further forward! After some more times over the grid (I finally got it!), Megan asked me to do a lap around the arena in canter, which I did. I could already feel a difference in her canter - she was obviously getting fitter!
After Megan had gone, I rode Toffee down to her paddock bareback. Once we were there, I decided to slide off her rump, and wiggled backwards ("ugh, ugh, ugh" I grunted while doing it), then lay down on my front on her rump with my legs dangling down, then pushed off and landed behind her on my feet! Score: one for the first trick of many to come.
I can understand why she tolerated me doing that. After all, her previous owners were three girls and they'd all take her down the driveway - one riding, one leading, and one behind, on a skateboard, holding on to her tail.