Welcome to the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge, a year-long challenge set by the good folk at Long and Short Reviews that anyone can participate in. Want to see who else is playing along? Visit here and click on the Miscellaneous Musings link near the top of the page.

This week’s topic is a hard one.

My Favourite Memory and Why

I mean, from all the brilliant memories I have, how am I meant to choose just one? It’s like choosing your favourite book or song. Nigh on impossible.

So this won’t be my favourite memory but it sure is one of them.

The day I got my first horse.

I was ten and I’d been nagging my parents for a horse since I learned to say the word. I wouldn’t be surprised if I hadn’t nagged them before I could speak by stretching out my arms in a ‘gimme’ gesture whenever I sighted anything even remotely equine.

I love horses. Luuuuuuurve. To get one of my own was a dream come true. A cliché, yeah, but having my own horse was my dream. Nothing else mattered more.

My horse’s name was Mysty (note the romantic spelling). She was a two-year-old bay filly whose sire was a well-known stud thoroughbred. Her dam? The stud owner’s daughter’s pony. In other words, Mysty was an “oops”.

A few weeks before, Mum and Dad had taken me down to a property near Drumborg, just across the Victorian border, to meet her and it was love at first sight. She was the most magnificent creature I’d ever seen. Enchanted didn’t even begin to describe my feelings.

Oh, the excitement that she’d be coming home!

Mysty, me and Dad on her first day home. My first ride!

As you can imagine, when she did arrive I was beside myself. My own horse! And she was beautiful. Beautiful! More beautiful than any other horse that ever existed anywhere. And best of all she was mine. No more begging pats and rides from friends who had horses. No more fretting that I’d never have a horse of my own. No more crying over The Black Stallion books because I would never have a relationship with a horse like Alec shared with the Black.

My own horse. A miracle.

At only two-years-old and just broken, Mysty might have been a miracle but she was also completely inappropriate for a ten-year-old learner rider. But my dad had been brought up around horses and been a jockey in his younger years, and Mum used the justification that Mysty and I would be able to grow up together. Not smart thinking when it comes to horses. Usually, it’s a recipe for disaster.

Me (left) and a friend, horsing around.

We were lucky though. So very, very lucky. Mysty was exceptionally gentle and sweet natured and whoever broke her in did a brilliant job. What followed was not disaster but years of fun and adventure and friendship, both equine and human from the world she’d opened up.

We did pony club, hunt club, trail riding club, dressage club, show-jumping club. We did horse shows, gymkhanas, and eventing across South Australia and Victoria. I even won champion rider in my age class riding Mysty at the Pony Club State Championships in 1986 (? – could have been ’85, I can’t quite remember). I also whispered all my secrets into her swivelling ears, cried into her silky neck, laughed at her funny behaviours (she once walked through the front door of our house), and dreamed a thousand daydreams while stretched out across her back.

She made my childhood exciting and special and magical. Mysty, my dream horse. A star.

What’s your favourite memory?

PS. If you’re curious about my top 5 horse stories, you can check out my list here.

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