The Irish Riding Holiday Pt.1
Sligo Riding Center (2000), riding a horse named Taz
Part 1
When I was 16, I entered a draw at a hardware store and won a riding holiday in Ireland.
My mom and I drove from Kimberley to our nearest international airport in Calgary, and flew into Scotland. We had decided to extend the trip and do an entire UK and Ireland holiday. I got to miss three weeks of grade eleven.
We spent time in Scotland, and took the ferry over to Northern Ireland. Eventually we boarded a bus that would take us to Sligo, where the riding holiday was taking place. On the bus my stomach did flips as I fretted, “What happens if I’m the worst rider there?” My mom assured me that this was highly unlikely.
We made it to the Sligo Riding Centre. There was a musty pub that ran the width of the indoor riding arena, with windows overlooking the arena so that you could enjoy a pint and watch the riders. There was an old man with an accent as thick as the head on a pint of Guinness sipping - what else? - Guinness. We met the instructors of the riding programs, Ian and Mikhail, and they offered a beer to my mom, and me. I was continually surprised throughout the trip that the legal drinking age in Ireland was a young 16 compared to the legal age of 19 back home. Regardless, I turned down the drink as I didn’t like beer. My mom on the other hand happily accepted.
We checked into our B&B, which was a beautiful Irish country house within a few minutes walking distance from the Sligo Riding Centre. The first night we were served dinner and met our fellow houseguests and riders. There was a middle-aged German couple, Thomas and Haike, who did not speak much English, and a thirty-something Dutch man named Gerald traveling with two women, Ellen and Michaela. Gerald was an undertaker (you can’t forget a detail like that) and they all rode together at the same stable. Gerald spoke English (as well as Dutch and German), so he valiantly translated between German, Dutch and English for the group. Despite the substantial language barrier, everyone was so friendly and gregarious, it soon didn’t seem to matter that we couldn’t understand each other and the conversation flowed freely.
The next morning was the first day of the program. I couldn’t decide if I should wear my tall black leather boots, or my paddock boots and half chaps. Desperate to fit in with the other riders, I had brought both.
The first horse I rode was named Sambuca. In my travel journal I had written: I was a little disappointed with my horse. He’s a small (15 hh ish) white, stained son of a gun with an unruly mane. They gave me the tack and I struggled to tack him up – he wouldn’t open his mouth for the goddamn bit and I had to ask the stable boy for help. (At the time, I was very influenced by Holden Caulfield a la “Catcher in the Rye,” which I adored. Everything I wrote had the word ‘goddamn’ in front of it.) The stableboy was a red-headed Irish lad about my age named Trevor, who was funny and kind and had a penchant for singing Britney Spears - Oops I Did it Again - as he mucked stalls.
We started in the indoor riding arena – the group of us from the B&B, as well as a few others staying at different B&Bs in the area. A few minutes into the lesson, my fears evaporated. “Julie,” Ian, the instructor, said, in his clipped accent. “You look like the most qualified of the lot. Why don’t you show us how to canter?” So I wasn’t going to be the worst rider in the class – far from it, thankfully.
Most are pretty bad riders, I wrote in my journal with the bravado only a sixteen year-old can have. We walked and trotted and cantered around, easy stuff, and Sambuca was fine. Then we popped over a small X – some people had never ridden before and they didn’t explain two-point very well! Haike’s horse kept running out and they didn’t help her fix it, which would’ve been very easy. I was itching to try him myself.
After the indoor lesson was over, we stayed on our horses and hacked out. This was to be the format of the riding holiday– a lesson in the arena in the morning, followed by a ride in the countryside. We rode single file along the narrow hedge-lined road, enjoying the rolling green countryside speckled with sheep, stone fences, and hedge rows: the perfect Irish scene.
We came upon a field that had some cross-country jumps in it, as well as some loose horses grazing around. It was a total free for all and we were allowed to jump whatever we pleased. In my journal I wrote, there were all these loose horses around and about 10 cross country jumps. You never saw such chaos in your life, people who’ve never jumped before going cross country, me hardly staying on a runaway horse. It was madness.
Author’s Note: Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for the next part, in which we gallop along the most magnificent stretch of beach and I go to my first night club and get groped, an unfortunate rite of passage for many young women.