The horse riding experience

It was a surprising gift. About two and a half months ago my wife gave me a horse riding experience as a Nowrouz gift. Nowrouz is an ancient Persian ceremony to celebrate the New Year. Persian New Year coincides with the first day of spring in late March.

All I needed to do was setting an appointment and then redeem my coupon. I had booked the first appointment for two weeks ago, but the accident happened and I had pain in my leg, so I postponed it until yesterday.

The session was supposed to take three hours. The location was somewhere in the suburb, North London. I reached there on time. It was a vast green field and you could smell the stables from outside. At the front of the field, there was a small cottage and, beside it, a fenced garden. The cottage was used as the office. In the garden there were a few children, probably 4-5 years old, with their teachers. They were some playing and some sitting on the benches, apparently waiting for the school bus to come and pick them up. 

I entered the office and introduced myself. They asked me to fill a registration form, enquiring basic information about my health, connections and also my previous experiences of horse riding, if I had any. Actually I had a few, but they went back to many years ago, perhaps 10-15 years ago, and I hardly remembered any instructions! Therefore I preferred to introduce myself as a basic beginner.

When I was done, a young and short lady came and introduced herself as my instructor. Subsequently we went for picking a riding helmet and boots. It was there that I realised we were a group of three. Two young ladies, probably in their twenties, joined the session. 

First, the instructor started our tour with showing the stables. They were maintaining 160 horses and ponies in a number of various breeds and ages there. She showed us most of them and explained shortly about different types of every breed. One thing which was surprising for me was that most horses change their colours by the time they get older, from a darker to brighter colour. I had no idea about it. She also explained about their food, their health, their hygiene, their values, their passports, their ownership, the differences among breeds, their speed and power, their retirement, their holidays, etc. Then we went to the storage rooms, where they kept horses' belongings like saddles and reins. All of them were kept under the name of every individual horse. The whole information was quite interesting. 

During our visit we met many people, adults and children, who were leading a horse. Some of them seemed professional and many looked like they had attended just for fun. 

Then we went to one of the indoor schools for riding. The instructor allocated the horses to us in terms of our height and weight. My horse's name was Fewie. He was black, tall, extremely beautiful and quite intelligent. We got on the horses. Each horse was held and controlled by an individual expert. The instructor started to teach us how well we should sit, hold the reins and keep our feet. Then we started to walk gradually and she taught us how to keep our back, breathe easily, be as relaxed as possible and go up and down with the horses' movement simultaneously.

It was entirely safe. However when my horse ran, I felt a bit unstable. All in all, it was a very exciting experience. I learnt a lot, but unfortunately the instructor had a strong accent and it was quite difficult for me to understand all her words. I loved the experience and now I am thinking of attending again more regularly.