Toro

This blog entry has taken me 6 months to be able to face writing it because it was the toughest thing I have been through. 

I remember when toro arrived at the yard back in 2018. He was a retired polo pony who had been put out in a field for winter. He was overweight, unclipped and fluffy and had a look like a rabbit in the headlights all the time. I think that’s what started the bond because at that time we were both so lost in life though I didn’t know it at the time. 

I spent time with him in the stable for a few months before I rode him. Grooming him as his fur all moulted out and found he was such a calm old boy but a worrier who would jump at everything. He couldn’t trot when he came as they don’t trot in polo so I had to wait a while before I got to actually ride him. 

The first time I rode him I instantly fell in love. He was so easy. Over the months we built our confidence together and I got him into dressage competing in online dressage competitions and he would try his heart out. For a year he really was my everything. 

From September onwards though he developed lameness issues and it turned out to be problems with his feet from years of polo taking its toll. For a while it was controlled with regular cortisone injections and he had special gel pads in his shoes to help with the impact and he was like a new horse. 

However for the last 3 months of his life he was on box rest and nothing seemed to help. Slowly he became depressed and miserable and it was really tough. They really did try everything but finally the first May bank holiday of 2019 I was told to prepare to say goodbye. That really was a month that broke me and changed me forever. I am so happy I got a whole month to say goodbye. I went to the stables every single day around work to see him and groom him and the day before he died a friend kindly did a mini photo shoot for me creating some incredible pictures I can cherish forever. 

It’s been 8 months since he went and I am now able to go a week or two without crying about him. I’ve lost people in my life but this was honestly the worst grief I have ever experienced. He was my best friend during a time of my life when I was not very happy with where I was living and didn’t socialise much. 

I still have days where I think of him and the pain hurts so much I cry histerically. He wasn’t technically my horse but he really was my baby and one in a million. He gave me so much confidence and helped my anxiety when riding more than I can put into words.

It is thanks to him that I have been jumping since and jump up to half a metre with Stan. I so nearly gave up riding afterwards and it was extremely painful the first time I went to the stables afterwards to see another head poking out where he used to when he heard me coming up to see him. 

Two days after he died I was lucky to be able to run away to Portugal for a week and get my head straighter. I wasn’t able to focus on work when I couldn’t stop crying. The first night I was in Portugal the grief and stress caught up with me and I almost collapsed and had to leave the restaurant we were in to go home without dinner. My friends really got me through that time and it taught me who my true friends were. I cut a couple of people out after that because if people aren’t there for you at your worst they don’t deserve you at your best. 

In fact that week away delayed my first date with the love of my life and I so nearly ended up telling him it was the wrong time for me to be dating. Thank goodness I didn’t or I wouldn’t be living my amazing life right now and be getting ready to be married. But that’s another story....

Here ends another rambling of my life as a self confessed ‘crazy’ person.