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Raining/reining

by Tawni :: Wednesday October 24, 2007

When I first got to Thacher, a few things worried me about the new environment. Number One—endless amounts of sunshine. Being a person who comes from an area of a lot of rain (which I love), countless sunny days, I feared, would get me a bit sick. Secondly, riding horses seemed to be the worst thing ever. I had never been up close to a horse before, so the idea of riding one on my own ability seemed extremely far-fetched. Combining both almost ensured that the first few weeks would be a challenge for me.

Ojai had been in a drought for quite some time now, and already having spent one full week at the campus, I was used to the endless days of bright light and warmth. Of course, the longing for rain was still there, but the nice weather was good nonetheless. Alongside that, the riding program turned out to be a lot of fun. We took plenty of trail rides, trotted all over the place, and played games at the gymkhana field. The progress we took was at an alarming pace. Knowing that, naturally I wanted to canter, and hoped our teacher would let us. Still, without cantering, riding the horses in general was loads of fun.

Even with the good turn out of both of my worries, this past Friday was the highlight of my two weeks at Thacher. The sky was clear as we went out to ride. A usual day, one would assume. We got our horses and headed over to the gymkhana field to work on a few things. On our way there, to my great surprise and pleasure, the familiar thick clouds rolled in over us. Before any of us knew it, while we were trotting our usual warm up laps at the field, the rain began to fall. Instantly, I was excited and happy—rain was a little piece of home. Of course, the rain didn’t stop us. We continued to trot and practice and ride. Once we finished our usual rounds, our instructor asked the bold and simple question, “Who wants to canter?” I’m pretty sure you can imagine my ecstatic reaction. He let us loose, and around the entire field we went.

Both of the aspects of Thacher I feared turned out to be the best things possible. The best part of the entire day? Getting that Thacher experience.

You haven’t fully experienced Thacher Riding until you’ve cantered in the rain.

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