Riding section.qxp_Layout 1 23/09/2021 14:37 Page 102
MENDIP TIMES
We offer our thanks and farewell to Rachel Thompson who has supported us for several years and welcome Jane Paterson. By her own admission Jane has no claim to fame or even expertise in the horse world, but has held a lifelong love of horses, an interest in equestrian sports and pursuits, and is mother and grandmother to horse and pony-mad offspring.
It’s in the genes
YOU can usually tell very early in a child’s life whether or not they are going to like horses. I don’t mean just like horses, but be seriously hooked on everything to do with them. The pleading and cries of “Please can I have a pony?” will be familiar to many parents of young children, but owning a pony is not for the faint hearted, and of With JANE course for a variety of different reasons, it is PATERSON not always going to be possible but that doesn’t have to be the end of it. There are other options which can enable children to bond with ponies and enjoy riding. My own daughter showed signs early on that she was going to be keen. My great grandfather was a Quarter Master Sergeant in the Royal Horse Artillery, my great uncle had a riding school and lived in a house called The Loosebox, so riding was filtered down and I can’t remember it not being in my life. My sister and I, sometimes with our reluctant brother, used to go up to Worlebury Riding School which was owned and run by Shelagh and Sherry Tonkin, two sisters who will be remembered by many people in the Mendip area and beyond. They not only ran the school, but also bred and showed Shetland ponies. As long as we children behaved ourselves, we could stay at the stables all day long, grooming, helping, and riding through the woods. Then we would catch the last bus home from Worlebury. Many a night I would fall asleep on my bedroom floor and wake to find my jodhpurs being pulled off before I was carried to bed by my dad. I don’t remember ever hearing the words Health and Safety, but there were unwritten rules and an early awareness that we did as we were told “or else”’. Both Shelagh and William Falango on Bumble Sherry passed away
PAGE 102 • MENDIP TIMES • OCTOBER 2021
The team who came 2nd at Kings Sedgemoor Equestrian
last year within months of each other. They had run the riding school for 50 years but went on keeping horses there for much longer, providing a home for many happy ponies and a sanctuary for countless lucky children. I took a trip down memory lane recently and visited the stables to find the amazing and dedicated Clare, who was with them for what seems like ever, still caring for the remaining Shetlands, one or two other ponies, and numerous stable cats, all living in the lap of animal luxury. It was like stepping back in time. Everything seemed just the same as it was when I was a child and, as I drove away, the tears rolled as my emotions got the better of me. Respect for those two wonderful women who are sadly missed. My children were all given the opportunity to start riding, but the middle daughter was the one who became addicted to the sport. When we visited a toyshop in Bath one Christmas, looking for little gifts to put in stockings, I was eyeing yo-yos, bendy snakes, wax crayons and the like, and the daughter was standing beside a full size Shetland pony, complete with beautiful soft English leather tack, saying, “Mummy, if you buy me this, I’ll be your friend!” Thereafter if there was any tack cleaning going on, she would breathe in the smell of saddle soap and let out a sigh of pure contentment. The passion had taken a firm hold, and the spell had been cast. We heard about a pony for loan, then she worked at stables to earn rides, and eventually we managed to buy one, and so began the road to financial ruin! Some decades later, the grandson is taking after his mother, and history is repeating itself. I once saw a sweatshirt which had a logo on the front which read, “Poverty is owning a horse”.
